Yup. Of course it is all corruption. It is a professional looters sandbox of taxpayer money. DOGE is proving it. Bondi criminal cases coming soon. One quibble… the Jared Kushner example is not the same and does not fit. His firm is only managing that Saudi fund. The left media always reports it as if Kushner was handed $2 billion to put in his freezer with his fancy expensive ice cream.
The cost overruns are a function of systemically flawed incentives within regulatory agencies. Put simply, if you're a bureaucrat regulating a new nuclear power plant's construction, and adding a 'fix' will involve spending a billion dollars to prevent a 1 in 35 million chance that local residents will be dosed with about 1/3 of the radiation received from a dental X-Ray, then you're going to insist upon the billion dollar spend because you don't want the blowback. After all, it's not your money- you've got no skin in the game.
I agree there's a certain amount of that going on. There's also indifference to mistakes and incompetence. All more common than in the private sector because with no need to make money there's less reason to fix these problems.
That said, I've begun to think that the level of corruption in government is also much higher than it is in the private sector for the same reason. Politicians are incentivized to let corruptions slide or cover it up because they only see a down side.
Yup. Of course it is all corruption. It is a professional looters sandbox of taxpayer money. DOGE is proving it. Bondi criminal cases coming soon. One quibble… the Jared Kushner example is not the same and does not fit. His firm is only managing that Saudi fund. The left media always reports it as if Kushner was handed $2 billion to put in his freezer with his fancy expensive ice cream.
The cost overruns are a function of systemically flawed incentives within regulatory agencies. Put simply, if you're a bureaucrat regulating a new nuclear power plant's construction, and adding a 'fix' will involve spending a billion dollars to prevent a 1 in 35 million chance that local residents will be dosed with about 1/3 of the radiation received from a dental X-Ray, then you're going to insist upon the billion dollar spend because you don't want the blowback. After all, it's not your money- you've got no skin in the game.
Here is a great Substack essay on the solution...
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/why-regulators-need-a-red-team
I agree there's a certain amount of that going on. There's also indifference to mistakes and incompetence. All more common than in the private sector because with no need to make money there's less reason to fix these problems.
That said, I've begun to think that the level of corruption in government is also much higher than it is in the private sector for the same reason. Politicians are incentivized to let corruptions slide or cover it up because they only see a down side.