MFLoon · HackerTrans

Yea, I don't doubt they would remain closely entangled with the US Government even if we changed the IFF incentive structure. But even so, the present incentive structure is particularly perverse because it's creating a positive feedback loop. The GSA has ~$40 billion yearly revenue because of the profit sharing model, which it is incentivized to continually increase, and the consulting firms don't even need to lobby for bigger contracts, the GSA itself lobbies for them.

MFLoon

7 lat temudiscuss

I'm sure they are, but do the European governments equivalent of the GSA also have incentives to actually drive up the price of consulting contracts they source for their governments? It's not just the coziness that is concerning, but the particularly perverse incentive structure that essentially makes the GSA an inside agent of the consulting industry.

MFLoon

7 lat temudiscuss

This isn't a matter of unconscious bias. People can (and, arguably, should) have a conscious, intentional bias, against inexperience, when it comes to selecting for skilled work. Age drops off as a useful proxy for experience once someone's been in the workforce for some time, but as others point out, a 23 year old is still going to be definitionally inexperienced in most domains.

MFLoon

7 lat temudiscuss

Sort of a buried lede here. There's nothing shocking about overpriced, underdelivering consultants. But the bit about how the GSA is essentially profit sharing with said overpriced consultants at the expense of the rest of the government and taxpayers, via the IFF incentive structure, is pretty mind blowing. Another brilliant financial "innovation" by the Clinton Administration that's been quietly burning billions of taxpayer dollars to the end of significantly less efficient government for decades now...

comments