Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Every "blue" city is becoming more and more like this

 

Courtesy of Borepatch, I came across this utterly ridiculous city budgeting and expenditure procedure in San Francisco.  It's worth watching if only for the comedy value - and because it's better to laugh at it than cry about it.




The problem is, all that bureaucracy and paperwork offers immense opportunities for graft and corruption.  The powers that be can simply hide their monetary peculations in the mass of documentation and required procedures, making it very difficult (if not impossible) to prove what they're up to.

Sometimes they don't even bother to hide it, because they know they'll get away with it.  The latest example comes from New York City.


Earlier this month, The Post broke the story that Mayor Adams is giving out pre-paid cash cards to migrants.

. . .

This debit-card program — if you read the actual contract — has the potential to become an open-ended, multi-billion-dollar Bermuda Triangle of disappearing, untraceable cash, used for any purpose.

It will give migrants up to $10,000 each in taxpayer money with no ID check, no restrictions and no fraud control.

Why give debit cards out?

When The Post exposed the mayor’s debit-card program earlier this month, the mayor’s office spun it as a money-saving program, to solve a problem: migrants staying in hotels don’t eat all their food.

. . .

It wouldn’t be that difficult for the city to solve this problem: on-site city auditors could refuse to pay for meals that are objectively inedible, with visible mold, for example, or with expired labeling.

Instead of assuring that its existing no-bid “emergency” contractor fulfills its duty to provide edible food, however, the Adams administration has solved its problem by retaining a new no-bid “emergency” contractor — to provide a service with far more scope for waste, fraud, and abuse than stale sandwiches: giving out potentially billions of dollars of hard cash, few questions asked.


There's more at the link.

The article includes an analysis of why the Mayor gave the contract for administering the program to a single, new-on-the-block vendor with no competitive bidding process.  The entire affair stinks to high heaven of corruption and fraud . . . but will anything be done about it?  No.  It's just New York City politics and wheeler-dealing at work - and to hell with ratepayers' money.  (That being the case, how many migrants do you think will end up with $10K each, versus how much of that $10K will be eaten up by "expenses" or "administrative fees" or "community service costs"?  And how much will end up as donations to local politicians' "re-election campaigns"?)

Friends, this is what life is like in left-wing-dominated cities.  They're all like that.  I don't know of a single one that could be described as honest, above-board and incorrupt in its dealings.  If you do, please let us know in Comments.  (Republican-controlled cities aren't much better, of course;  they're just - usually, but not always - more careful in how they skim off the graft.)

I've said for years that you need to get out of big cities.  This is just one more reason to do so.

Peter


7 comments:

  1. Graft and corruption in NYC? Say it ain't so!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. So... do the "migrants" have to pick up their "free" debit cards in person or if they pinky swear they should get it will they just mail them to them?

    Unrelated... does anyone know a mail forwarding service in NYC?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Reworded slightly: San Francisco passes a law (regulation? policy?) that says "unless a state thinks like we do, we won't do business with them."

    38 states (76%) are excluded.

    Does SF think that having views held by a small minority might mean they might.. just possibly... be wrong? Don't be silly! Of course not! They're deep blue and beautiful, they must be right.

    I always say the only "natural law" I've encountered outside of hard science class that approaches being as inviolable as a scientific law is Supply and Demand. Any company in that 24% of states that can sell to SF knows there's not much competition and they should raise their prices. Delivery isn't as good? Other terms and conditions are worse? The company just reminds them, "who you gonna go to?"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's happened for years in trucking.
      They passed a law years ago limiting the age of trucks that could enter the state - many companies won't go there, so the ones that will can charge more.
      Jonathan

      Delete
  4. The red tape issues are something I've been writing about recently on substack.

    https://ombreolivier.substack.com/p/wrapping-cracks-in-red-tape

    Down near San Diego the 100+ year old Hodges dam was found unsafe with high water levels when it was inspected after the near disaster at Oroville in 2017. The latest news on the plans to replace it with a new dam are that construction will probably start in 2029 and take five years.

    The original dam was built in under 2 from start to finish at the same time as the US was fighting in WW1

    ReplyDelete
  5. "They passed a law years ago limiting the age of trucks that could enter the state - many companies won't go there, so the ones that will can charge more."

    It was a double-barreled hit.
    Hit #1: Your diesel transport truck has to be new enough to have all the trouble prone DEF crap in place. As a consequence, these newer trucks spend a LOT of time broken down or sitting at the dealer waiting for repair. It's so bad that some of the import truck makers are considering abandoning the US market.

    #2: The driver MUST be a peon driver employed by a nationwide trucking business. NO OWNER/OPERATOR trucks allowed. Remember the CA law that outlawed "gig" workers? This may have been the actual target for that law.

    Wonder why CA ports work so slow? TA-DA!

    FYI:
    Diesel is HATED by CA politicians, but no one is stupid enough to build big rig tractors with gasoline engines, as the fuel mileage will bankrupt the trucker, not including the fact the engine will not last nearly as long as a diesel will. Think gallons/mile for gasoline. Shipping would get MUCH MORE expensive.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "SF Parks and Rec couldn't hire an LGBTQ+ contractor"

    In a rational and sane society no one would know or care that you were an ABCDE+ contractor, just that you were qualified to do the job at an agreed upon price.

    ReplyDelete

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