You've already started from a couple of assumptions that I don't believe are true.
> there are abundant opportunities for improvement and cost saving if there is a stakeholder that actually cares about cost savings.
This fails to explain why private corporations (which presumably have from one to millions of stakeholders that care about cost saving) would waste millions of dollars. The idea that "for profit" organizations have some builtin magic trick that means that they improve and save money in ways that other sorts of organizations cannot is just demonstrably untrue.
What is true, of course, is that no matter what the type of organization, if there are people who care about and are empowered to meaningfully tackle waste and inefficiency, then things can improve. And this happens, both in government and non-governmental organizations. You don't hear about it much, for broadly the same reason you don't hear about for-profit organizations wasting money: it just isn't news.
The second assumption that I think you're making is that "wasteful outcomes" are by definition a bad thing. The problem is that government often is tasked with tackling problems where wasteful outcomes are a more or less builtin part of the way things get done, and we accept that (sometimes) because the full cost (not just financial cost) of trying to reduce waste is higher than the waste itself. A typical example: yes, there's no doubt that some government benefits go to people who are not eligible for them. However, the task of identifying all those people has many costs, both direct and indirect. The whole system becomes massively more invasive of everyone's lives when one of its prime directives is "make sure that not one cent goes to some not entitled to it". So most societies accept that there will be a level of waste, which is made up for by the benefits of treating things as if they are closer to a universal benefit.
There are plenty of other examples of this in different domains where the government operates.
>This fails to explain why private corporations (which presumably have from one to millions of stakeholders that care about cost saving) would waste millions of dollars.
Of course it fails to explain something was wasnt talking about. I wasn't offering an explanation of private corporation waste. were you under that impression I dont think it exists?
I have a 50 million dollar project right now for a private corporation that I think is a waste, despite being the being the one to create and lead it. I'm doing it for short sighted reasons. My boss thinks it will make him look good, I expect a promotion out of it, and we will both be gone when it is cancelled with absolutely nothing to show for it.
This also happens in government. As a taxpayer, I dont want to pay it. I love the idea of someone looking out for waste and even counter productive spending.
>The second assumption that I think you're making is that "wasteful outcomes" are by definition a bad thing...
Please don't strawman me and put words in my mouth. are you arguing against points I didn't make.
My point is that true waste, however you want to define it, exists, and can be improved. Are you claiming there is no room for improvement?
> I wasn't offering an explanation of private corporation waste. were you under that impression I dont think it exists?
Earlier you had said:
> .... if there is a stakeholder that actually cares about cost savings.
which tends to be short-hand these days for "in the context of a for-profit company where people actually care about this stuff". I accept that you may not have meant it that way.
> Are you claiming there is no room for improvement?
Certainly not. But starting with the claim that a gigantic percentage of US federal government spending is wasted (as the whole DOGE thing starts with) is almost certainly not the way to find actual improvements.
>which tends to be short-hand these days for "in the context of a for-profit company where people actually care about this stuff". I accept that you may not have meant it that way.
Are you think of shareholders instead of stakeholders? Either way, that was not my intention. In terms government, there are lots of ways to introduce new stakeholders with different incentives. These can be inter-agency review, or as simple as a government employee who's job it is to save money, and gets promoted based on that.
>Certainly not. But starting with the claim that a gigantic percentage of US federal government spending is wasted (as the whole DOGE thing starts with) is almost certainly not the way to find actual improvements.
Not everything in a comment in a thread on HN is about the comment that immediately preceded it. This particular subthread has featured the so-called DOGE quite significantly, and that is how we've ended up talking about efficiency, waste, improvements. DOGE is the embodiment of the claim I'm describing, and that's not directly related to anything you've said.
> there are abundant opportunities for improvement and cost saving if there is a stakeholder that actually cares about cost savings.
This fails to explain why private corporations (which presumably have from one to millions of stakeholders that care about cost saving) would waste millions of dollars. The idea that "for profit" organizations have some builtin magic trick that means that they improve and save money in ways that other sorts of organizations cannot is just demonstrably untrue.
What is true, of course, is that no matter what the type of organization, if there are people who care about and are empowered to meaningfully tackle waste and inefficiency, then things can improve. And this happens, both in government and non-governmental organizations. You don't hear about it much, for broadly the same reason you don't hear about for-profit organizations wasting money: it just isn't news.
The second assumption that I think you're making is that "wasteful outcomes" are by definition a bad thing. The problem is that government often is tasked with tackling problems where wasteful outcomes are a more or less builtin part of the way things get done, and we accept that (sometimes) because the full cost (not just financial cost) of trying to reduce waste is higher than the waste itself. A typical example: yes, there's no doubt that some government benefits go to people who are not eligible for them. However, the task of identifying all those people has many costs, both direct and indirect. The whole system becomes massively more invasive of everyone's lives when one of its prime directives is "make sure that not one cent goes to some not entitled to it". So most societies accept that there will be a level of waste, which is made up for by the benefits of treating things as if they are closer to a universal benefit.
There are plenty of other examples of this in different domains where the government operates.