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Non-Tech : Kirk's Market Thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: robert b furman who wrote (8301)	2/26/2020 12:57:51 AM
From: PJr	2 Recommendations Recommended By Investor2 Kirk © Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26769

"Even within government, common sense eventually surfaces. when big money happens regularly." Bob, Here's a funny story (if it wasn't so sad) that may refute the statement above ….. In my working life I worked as a Civil Servant in Human Resources. One time many decades ago we got a directive that said the agency for which I worked had an "average grade" problem. Translated, that means that the average pay grade for all employees in our agency was approximately a GS-10. The top brass in Washington directed us to lower that average. I had just begun my career in Civil Service and I foolishly assumed that some type of reorganization and a subsequent reduction in force would likely be the necessary course of action. After all, a reasonable person would assume that the reason that they wanted the average grade reduced was to lower the salary costs in the agency. Not so fast! The course of action that my agency took was to go out and hire hundreds of unneeded clerks at the GS-2 level!!! Did it lower the average grade to a level acceptable to the bureaucrats in Washington? Yes it did. Did my agency really believe that the tasking was literally a directive to simply lower the average grade level rather than a directive to lower payroll expense? I guess not. I was new and too low on the totem pole at the time to know the logic or to be involved in the course of action. I do know that we weren't bugged by Washington after the new hires were brought onboard. Why? Because our average grade level fell below GS-10. Mission accomplished! We then had to buy additional furniture, typewriters, supplies, etc. for the new unnecessary employees. Rarely does bureaucratic common sense resemble individual or corporate common sense. Congress frequently uses the same decision logic described above. Spending additional money is the government's hammer to fix everything that's broken …. even when the objective is to reduce spending.