Massive Government Incompetence

Having the privilege of earning a living by working with persons in foreign nations over a 40 year span, and in many cases, dealing with government bureaucracy, there are some empirical anecdotal rules that seem to pop up far too frequently.

The BLUF (bottom line up front) is that essentially no one in the bureaucracy other than the actual end user of the product or service you offer, has one iota of vested interest in what you are doing. This means that no one will lift a finger to assist the end user in his task unless

1) Said end user is a member of the bureaucrats family
2) The future promotion of the end user AND the bureaucrat in question depend on something you are providing
3) Payola is involved to make it worth their while.

I can cite chapter and verse on this by country, and pretty much every country outside of Western Europe and the first level European influenced nations, operate this way. Mind I never resorted to item 3) since this is contrary to U.S. law

What is the other common thing with most of the worst performing nations? Socialism/Communism then Tribalism and there is broad intersection of the Venn diagram for these two.

Venezuela was one of the wealthiest nations in S. America, business was good there for the various companies I have worked for up until Hugo Chavez was elected. He proceeded to quickly emplace cronies and family into every facet of industry, thus driving the economy into socialized destruction while looting the treasury (at every level). When the top dog is skimming, all the cronies and family do the same. End result, an impoverished nation controlled by narco thugs and foreign “investors” (note their oil industry is almost moribund due to firing of most of the management that actually knew how to operate it). There was a growing middle class and jobs were plentiful before Chavez. Was there poverty? Sure, pretty much all of S. America outside of the southern cone (Chile, Argentina and Uruguay) have large subsistence populations due to a number of factors, but there was no endemic starvation as is seen today.
Venezuela is old news now, economically collapsed and a vassal state of China, Iran and Russia who take what oil and goods they do produce in exchange for paltry support (meaning payments to the dictatorship).

This week it has been Peru splashing the news. Here in a fit of absolute idiocy, the indigenous population voted in a communist president, one utterly incapable of managing a country. He has in the space of a few months, caused 4 turnovers of his own ministerial appointments and over 60 members of congress have quit over the absolute destruction he is causing to the economy. Inflation has surged and goods are becoming scarce (gee, where else have we seen this since January 2021?)

At least there is a very strong pushback going on, which is why there are people in the streets demanding the current government step down. This can result in resignation or it can result in a new military intervention and temporary military rule. Has happened before, so there is precedent.

Looking at our own situation, thank God for federalism and state governments. Were it not for our 50 Petri dishes and Constitution, the U.S. would have long since fallen into the Latin American cycle. I for one still have some faith that the majority of this country can change the direction currently being fomented in Washington

As of today, there are 211 days to next election. This is all the time remaining to make the election day process work without corruption, a very difficult task when the entrenched powers are working to make sure no such sane actions can be implemented.

Remove dead from voting rolls – no can do in Chicago and many other places

Cross check voter rolls for duplicate residence in other states – no can do

Require voter ID – heavens no, the voters are too dumb to obtain such

Return to paper ballots and hand counts (no programmable machines) – oh no, not feasible.

Purple dye once voted – oh my, no, that is too third world.

In the words of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. – “and so it goes”