Humans aren't very good at visualizing big numbers, which is why we focus on the small stuff far more - the stuff we understand. Big numbers are like mathematical formulas, where the majority of people don't have an intuition for them. Once we can no longer imagine it as a pizza being cut up, we get visually lost.
Most of us have a pretty good understanding of how governments work though - they are poor at making robust decisions, largely inefficient, polarized and conflicted, and tend to make nonsensical choices that seem to harm us, more than help us.
They spend big numbers.
Of our money.
I came across an article looking at how the Western Australian government spend some of their funds during the Covid Pandemic. They effectively shut the border to travelers, including those who actually lived inside the state. They did this to stop the spread and their measures were considered draconian, even by other states in Australia that the rest of the world considered had draconian measures.
All in the interest of public safety.
But the chickens are coming home to roost.
And uncovering the RATs.
"RAT" stands for Rapid Antigen Test, which were popular for people to get in the hope that they could get proof that they were sick, or not sick, because the symptoms for the vast majority of people were not enough to really prove anything, since it was largely mild. Some did get sick though and some died.
In total, ~20,200 died from Covid in Australia and the average age of death is 84.7 years of age.
For some reference, ~3300 people over the age of 65 die from falling over in Australia each year.
The WA government made a decision to spend 3M dollars on RAT kits for "health workers and returning travelers" so that they can test them regularly and "stop the spread". Three million dollars is not that much, but this is the government in action, so there was a little scope creep.
"You sit back and you reflect on those decisions and you think, my God, I'm just so pleased that we made them in the way that we did because it protected lives and in addition to that, protected Western Australia's economy."
Deputy Premier and former health minister Roger Cook
The scope creep? Well, instead of 3M spent, it ballooned to 440M - yes, it didn't 10x, it went 147x. That is some creep! But, it doesn't end there - another government department, The Department of Finance, spent another 140M on RAT tests for WA too. Combined, a full 10% of the state budget was spent on testing kits!
Remember a moment ago reading "protected lives and in addition to that, protected Western Australia's economy" - Well, it could be argued that spending that money on something other than 111 million RAT tests in a state of 2.7 million people could have been put to better use to generate income. And the saving lives? Well, that money is over twice as much as building two hospitals. Yes... that is right... all of those lives that could have been saved in the future, fuck them!
So, when there "aren't enough intensive care beds" for the next pandemic, we will know why.
600,000,000 dollars might not sound like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but this is just one state in Australia of less than 3 million people, in a country of less than 26 million people. Just imagine how many bad decisions and inefficiencies were made under the guise of "saving lives". The cost to taxpayer lives in the coming years due to the misappropriation of taxpayer money at a global level, is immense. And, this isn't even factoring in that a lot of these funds were spent on a credit card, meaning that they are going to be accruing interest payments on them, so the final tally is going to be immense!
Oh, and there are 67 million tests not distributed (this doesn't mean those distributed were used), set to expire this year. That is about 400 million dollars worth of tests that not only can't be used, but will have to be recycled.
Or in other words...
1.33 hospitals worth.
There are so many, that the government had to rent 8 more warehouses just to store them - as they stared with 2, that is a 4x on their warehousing costs too.
While the government was making hairdressers and cafes to close, closing schools, fining people for having more than a handful of people gathered together, arresting people at the borders, and enforcing check-in applications in the interest of saving lives and protecting the economy - they were screwing lives and the economy for years to come.
Governments, eh?
But, because we don't think about big numbers well and, we aren't very good at predicting the consequences of big number mismanagement on the economy, we let it happen, time and time again. There is always a pandemic, a bank contagion, a terror attack, or some other excuse to use fear to spend and get away scot-free.
And as it sink, the rats will abandon ship - but we'll have nowhere to go.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha
Wow "111 million RAT tests in a state of 2.7 million"
That's some oversight and overspend, but of course not the first or last inefficiency from a public body. There never seems to be any accountability for any bad decisions made by senior civil servants who are the ones who really run countries. The politicians come and go but not the civil servants.
I've worked in the Public service here in Ireland for a few years and there are some brilliant people, but also some terrible workers who have "jobs for life"
The winners don't write history, the scholars do.
I have never worked public, but have been around politics and civil servants a bit. It is definitely a mixed bag. Some work their asses off, some do next to nothing.
The mismanagement of funds by governments is not a new phenomenon. The Western Australian government's decision to spend a significant amount of money on RAT tests during the pandemic highlights the inefficiency and poor decision-making processes of governments. The misuse of taxpayer money will have severe consequences on the economy, and the true cost will only become apparent in the coming years. It's crucial to hold governments accountable for their actions, but I think it is hard to achieve that as while some bad actors might go, other such actors will follow.
By that time, it will be new people in, spinning old stories.
I don't think that they were in care of saving lives. You know, the health sector comes the first in the world, some companies made good money with vaccines which are doubtful about preventing covid.
Very, very, very doubtful.
Large part of the economies in the west gets wasted in meddling in other nation policies, US does that to maintain it's super power. I mean imagine you have neighbors but you keep interest in 2 miles away from your home and use your money to mess with people who live that far. Same with US, it was bound to happen, sooner or later USD would fall down and banks would do too. It's just a matter of time. Final nail in the coffin is importing immigrants from Taliban infested regions of middle east, then US can rest in peace. They did it to themselves!
THey do indeed seem to be digging their own grave for the country, but perhaps that is the plan for the corporations. Split it up for corporate control.
easy to spend like a clown when it ain't your money👍
Exactly. I wish someone would give me their money so I can clown it up.
If you think rats are bad, the stench of US's PPP is horrific. Govt printed money to bail out business to trickle down to employees, but instead they just bought back stock shares and laid people off anyways. Will the PPP ever get paid back?! Of course not, just forgiven, but it sure as hell was an easy way to justify printing $6T!
And transferring it into the hands of the already wealthy, under the guise of helping the normal citizen.
Brutal policies... and now the whole market suffers the consequences as interest rates rise and force banks into realizing huge losses on their short-term bond positions. It is all so fucked! You really gotta feel for those small countries that depend on the USD standard and got absolutely hosed by the big print and subsequent rate hikes.
Time to go crypto?
If they go gold, they end up like Ghaddafi.
I hope it works out for El Salvador to be an example. But without access to clean, renewable energy, I'm not sure how much a bitcoin standard would work in the long run for this plan to work out well for these nations.
At some point, what is pulled from the network is not the main focus, it is what is already in circulation, right?
Fun Fact: 7.8 billion people live on planet Earth. Average lifespan, global, is considered to be 76 years. That means, if old age was the only thing that could kill a person, over 100 million people will die, on average, every year. Yet, governments and pharmacy companies turned the world upsidedown in a mad power grab over a mere few million of deaths. Whenever something doesn't seem just right, zoom out and look at the bigger picture. Don't look at the detail they are pointing to.
But no one cares about reality.
touché
I read about this article as well, but I didn't realise what the Department of Finance spent was on top of the $440m..... Thing is, when RATs were in low supply, it was extremely expensive to get in Australia and anyone who had them for sale, was price gouging. So many articles on those that the governments had to step in and try to provide them. Not defending the WA government's actions, but I can understand their irrational fear about not having enough RATs.
IMO though, if you asked me whether I would prefer to be in Victoria vs. WA during Covid, I would 100% say I would have liked to be in WA. WA locked their borders, but they didn't lock the people up at home. My friends were living it up in WA, going to the beaches and shops while I couldn't travel more then 5kms from my home.
There is always the Moon or Mars, if you are Elon's friend :D
One of the problems was, the RAT tests were far, far less accurate than advertised, making them largely useless. Much like the effectiveness of masks for the general public.
But, both were silly. Finland barely closed down internally at all. Similar rates of death, similar age groups.
Again, silly eh?
Here, going into work was optional. :D
Totally agree that the RAT tests were not the most accurate. A positive RAT test almost guaranteed you were COVID positive, but a negative ones typically doesn't. Also with the evolution of the virus, not too sure how accurate they are now.
Glad it's sort of behind us now. But the flu season is hitting really hard this year again in Australia. Who knows how long the Covid impact is going to last.
My wife likely has Covid at the moment and testing negative. Not that anyone cares :D
I have read that this is part of the Covid lag, where people's immune systems are weaker now, as well as people being more sensitive emotionally to illness, so it can "seem worse" than it actually is.
I tend to lean more towards the belief that it was just a bad position all around. People had to make the best decisions they could with little or false information. Lord knows the stuff that was coming from our leader at the time was absolute trash and not helpful at all. I think a lot of mistakes were made, but many of them were out of ignorance versus actual ill intent.
It so often is from governments - how often do they get it right?
And the false information was coming from the governments themselves globally, while those who gave the correct information, were "cancelled"
Those numbers are staggering! What do the people of Australia think of all this? Do they think the measures were wise? I am flabbergasted. This is just one state in one country of the entire world. Extrapolating the money wasted, the economies wrecked, the children traumatized, the measures were astronomically harmful to the entire world, far more harmful than covid itself, which was made worse by all the hullaballoo. And the WHO wants us to let them manage "pandemics" whenever they declare one. Anyone who trusts that entity, after they way the BOTCHED it for covid, is not thinking clearly, or not thinking at all, simply doing what they are told to do despite the irrationality of what they are told. Boy, this post has made me mad!!
No one seems to care. It is too inconvenient to question these things for most people - they are just happy they are allowed out of their homes again.
Most make their decisions on what is easiest, not what is best.
I just mentioned on the server earlier this morning that as I was out and about yesterday I saw so many places with huge piles of RATs trying to give them away for free and not seeming to have much luck.
As far as letting stupid governments do monumentally mind numbingly blatantly obviously idiotic things, I think it's more to do with letting oneself be scared to the point of insane stupidity where it's literally impossible to make rational decisions, but can see how a general inability to fathom big numbers would contribute.
From my experience, they were inaccurate anyway :D
But, the government shouldn't be acting out of fear, right? The idea is that they act rationally, because they are the right people to deal with the circumstances. Load of crap, eh?
The governments have been acting stupidly for a while now. They have destroyed the economy to push their narratives and to maintain control or for their ideals. When they start logically looking at the data, the actions don't make sense and there really isn't much we can do when people just go along with what happens.
When was the first government founded? ;D
The problem with the "stay informed" narrative is that it depends on the source of information. Most people seem to believe what the government said on this, even though they know that governments are full of shit on everything else. What makes them suddenly wise?
It's huge.147x seems beyond my imagination.I think those decision was very bad and besides I think corruption also occured there otherwise how it's possible?
Government aren't using money from their own pocket. And the money will be collected from the general people by increasing tax. General people need to be aware about it otherwise It will be too late to take steps and it will create huge impact on general people's life it's just a matter of time.
Taxes for eternity at the rate they are borrowing on the future.
You are totally right. Taxpayers pay. Governors and big corporations play to be entrepreneurs with taxpayers' money.
In Italy we say "it's easy to play rich with other people's money".
From a presentation, I got this nice image that represents quite well your point
Captions are in Italian, but they say:
Bank, Government, Investors
It was a presentation about traditional investments.
There is a lot of imbalance in the world - if you look under the table cloth in the picture, you find 95% of people without even a bone.
We've had the opportunity to disempower these people for more than 10 years now.
Had the world enthusiastically adopted bitcoin it'd all be over. The wars, the waste; all a sad, distant memory.
Apparently a few hours of curiosity and a bit of risk, was just a step too far.
Chickens meet roost.
People aren't able to connect the dots, even when they read it. I think they have to participate enough to understand the implications of crypto on the economy, and world, because it helps them understand the economy itself.
After reading this post, it almost left me in tears. So sad to see how the government has taken us all for granted, funds mismagement and high taxation on citizens has lead so many to committing crimes on the street.
I could remember clearly during the covid. in my country, palliative(food,drugs,home items,etc) where distributed to heads of state, cities and local areas. But most of them where held by the people in power. Viral videos of citizens bursting into the warehouse where the items were stored, with some items already getting spoilt.
In conclusion
The truth is that ** There is no accountability is some countries **. You and i knows what will happen if any politician tries such in china or north korea. These countries are the few that has transparency in there governmental sector.
Nice post by the way.
Some countries are far worse than others, but it seems that instead of the better getting even better, it is a regression to the mean these days.
Oh no! but the big honchos of the government do know about large numbers. They know very well about the juicy commissions that they quickly will pocket when faced with an opportunity that suddenly presents itself with such a profitable and attractive proposal.
All on the bandwagon.
Alright! ¡it's party time colleagues!
¡We are the government math geniuses to gamble with taxpayer's money!