I am, of course, one of the expensive consultants I disparage above. But I have a clean conscience since the government never takes any of the advice I give anyway.
One of my acquaintances who lives in the Vancouver area, a city with an acute housing shortage and homeless problem, noted that the city government has done a number of studies on how to combat this problem, employing lots of bureaucrats and consultants at more than $100K salaries, while the problem has continually gotten worse. Since “the purpose of a system is what it does”, my friend concluded that the purpose of homelessness studies is to employ expensive consultants.
I say all this because it reminds me of your article, which seems to indicate that the purpose of the ice breaker issue is not to build ice breakers but employ expensive consultants.
Sometimes it seems as if the purpose of all government these days is to keep the bureaucracy rolling. You can pay shipyard workers to actually build ships, or you can pay college-educated consultants to study the matter some more. At some point I'll compare the saga of the U.S. Coast Guard's Polar Security Cutter program to the design and construction of a similar sized icebreaker built for commercial use. Hint: The U.S. program is still in detailed design; the commercial vessel has been breaking ice since 2021.
I am, of course, one of the expensive consultants I disparage above. But I have a clean conscience since the government never takes any of the advice I give anyway.
One of my acquaintances who lives in the Vancouver area, a city with an acute housing shortage and homeless problem, noted that the city government has done a number of studies on how to combat this problem, employing lots of bureaucrats and consultants at more than $100K salaries, while the problem has continually gotten worse. Since “the purpose of a system is what it does”, my friend concluded that the purpose of homelessness studies is to employ expensive consultants.
I say all this because it reminds me of your article, which seems to indicate that the purpose of the ice breaker issue is not to build ice breakers but employ expensive consultants.
Sometimes it seems as if the purpose of all government these days is to keep the bureaucracy rolling. You can pay shipyard workers to actually build ships, or you can pay college-educated consultants to study the matter some more. At some point I'll compare the saga of the U.S. Coast Guard's Polar Security Cutter program to the design and construction of a similar sized icebreaker built for commercial use. Hint: The U.S. program is still in detailed design; the commercial vessel has been breaking ice since 2021.