FYI Co-pilot intentionally crashed plane into mountain!

in just a giant display of corruption and waste... the government does this thing where they want minority businesses involved in their projects.

sounds like a good idea on the surface, but how it normally works is say our portion of work is $500k. For the GC to get minority participation on our 500k worth of work, we'll bid to a minority contractor, who is basically just a paper pusher. they'll turn around and charge the GC 550k. They'll take 50k for giving the project "minority participation", the bills will go through them, but ultimately we'll do all of the work, be responsible for the project, etc.

basically it's a way to pay minorities for um, being there. i don't blame the people who do it at all either, it's an awesome gig. we work with a lot of "intermediaries" who have no idea what the fuck is going on, they just get their check in the mail.

so dumb. so completely dumb. any project with minority participation attached to it is going to be overpriced and benefit a few people for being women, or native americans, or sometimes black people. i can't remember ever working with a veteran even though i'm positive that happens too.
 
the scam is perpetrated by business rather than government. the loophole exists because huge defense contractors decided that using small native-owned businesses would get them a leg up so they throw money at congress until they cave

the government's decision to focus on minority businesses is a good thing. they're trying to combat and account for the institutional racism and gender bias intrinsic to american society. it's the capitalist side of the equation that wants to shift the playing field by any means necessary and manages to purchase the right politicians. people complain about how much politicians get paid not realizing that paying them less would mean more corruption.

the waste is the fault of a good thing being abused by big business. the fact that they are then able to buy elections outright instead of buying politicians means that the laws get changed to suit business rather than people but ultimately the problem comes from a private company wanting to increase its profit margin. the only way to stop that is to remove that financial influence from politics and demand that government be the watchdog we pay it to be instead of catering to the so-called "job creators"

fuck, one of the companies that tried to recruit me to jump contracts is called TribalCo. it's practically a punchline at this point how the system is gamed