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From: wollman@hergotha.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: The insane progress nobody is talking about
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2024 16:20:07 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab
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In article <nult7jlrj1697gnkmo2dmhhd8tmr2utfra@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person  <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

>Perhaps a thorough audit focused on where the money is going (ie, how
>many brothers-in-law of various officials are getting the contracts)
>would help.

There are only two or three contractors bidding on most capital
projects, because they are so high-value and simultaneously both over-
and under-specified, such that only the largest contractors can
perform them.  If anyone's brother-in-law is getting the business, it
would be a sub-sub-contractor, not the prime.  (There's a weird thing
in state procurement law that requires the prime contractor to sub out
lots of business from a list of qualified subs provided by the state,
so that's not as implausible as it sounds.)

-GAWollman

-- 
Garrett A. Wollman    | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future.  This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers.         | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)