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Today's Hypocrisy Lesson

By TChris, Section Other Politics
Posted on Sun Nov 11, 2007 at 11:16:48 AM EST
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If you or I lie to the United States government, we get charged with a crime. If Boeing lies to the government about its ability to complete a contract to build spy satellites, it gets rewarded with a $430 million kill fee.

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    Today's Hypocrisy Lesson | 5 comments (5 topical)

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    White Welfare (none / 0) (#1)
    by avahome on Sun Nov 11, 2007 at 11:53:46 AM EST
    Let's  call it what it is!

    Contractors hire ex-government/NASA personnel versed  in the workings of an upcoming contract.  Most of these hired personnel are retired from NASA if it is a space contract.  They write/review the storyboarding on the contract proposals...and their names are listed as the personnel who will be involved in the contract..as administrators.  Names are recognized...contracts are awarded...and away it goes.  

    Here at JSC I saw it happen over and over again.  It's a status quo thingy.  But I often wondered about the double dipping...how do they sleep at night in their beautifully expensive homes?

    It's not just the proposal writing phase (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by jerry on Sun Nov 11, 2007 at 12:21:40 PM EST
    It's the entire process.  Everyone by now is well versed in what a great idea it was for Rockwell to spread B-1 contracts to all 50 states.  So the winning contractor, with encouragement from various customers and their legislators all collude to make sure projects are unkillable and progress is reported with the best spin.

    I have worked on absolutely immense projects and if you examined the progress that everyone reports, you'll find the project is ALWAYS 100% on schedule.  In my engineer's eyes, that tells me right away that the project isn't reporting progress accurately, but people are loathe to report anything but 100% progress.

    Part of the problem is a) the sheer size of many of these contracts, coupled b) the do or die nature of success.  Failure on many of these contracts means loss of jobs for thousands of employees, and perhaps closing of a factory.

    NASA a few years ago started off with the right idea, "faster, leaner, cheaper" with an intent to accept higher rates of failure.  But no one could accept the failure, and if you can't accept failure, you're not going to make the process faster, leaner, or cheaper.

    I would actually like to see a lot more contracts, all issued for a lot less money that demanded less "process overhead" but required results.  Build incrementally on proven results with the ability to change courses.

    Parent

    how do they sleep in their beautiful homes (none / 0) (#2)
    by jerry on Sun Nov 11, 2007 at 12:10:37 PM EST
    much better than I...? :(

    Parent
    yes they do jerry. (none / 0) (#4)
    by cpinva on Sun Nov 11, 2007 at 04:25:04 PM EST
    far more comfortably than we, and with no sense of guilt or remorse, i can assure you.

    lying is such a harsh term, i prefer "overly optimistic", it has a much nicer ring to it. these would be the same (generic) people that brought us the knowingly unworkable "star wars" program, that's chewed up god only knows how many billions. but, it provides jobs and earnings per share.

    the b-1 bomber is probably the perfect example of a solution in search of a problem, costing billions; every single congressional district got a piece of a pie that the air force didn't want baked.

    it would be great if i thought this would cease, with a democrat in the white house, and a solid democratic majority in both houses. fortunately, i'm not that deluded.

    It has never made sense (none / 0) (#5)
    by Nowonmai on Mon Nov 12, 2007 at 03:11:24 AM EST
    To give contracts for delicate, or significant items (space shuttle, battleship etc etc) to the lowest bidder as it just opens the flood gates of underbidding, and undercutting on quality. Which one of the 'F' jet fighters was the biggest lemon because of this?

    But to get a bonus on top of incompetence is beyond stupid government policy. It's Corporate Welfare.

    Today's Hypocrisy Lesson | 5 comments (5 topical)

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