Money Money Money

I have been a bit distracted by a new assignment this week. I thought that would get 5 posts done while GA was away, but this blogging thing isn’t so easy. I have kept up with my reading assignment. And I read about the HUMC situation, the sink hole on Sinatra Drive, the PA wanting to hike fares and various other failures of government, and it makes me wonder about the government role in our lives. The problem that I have with politicians is that they treat the tax funds as their own to spend as they see fit. They don’t seem to be too concerned about John Q. Public and if he really cares about what they are doing. I keep reading how Beth Mason wants to send the money back to us, the tax payers, or otherwise the politicians will spend it. Well, she comes across an awful lot like Leona Helmsley to me. Especially when she was willing to waste a ton of money on an email fishing excursion. Perhaps it is because I understand the mechanics of electronic discovery, as that is what I do, that I found her press releases to be comical. From reading about the City’s IT department, it is pretty clear that the City is operating on antiquated hardware and software. Which is typical of most government jobs that I have encountered. No one really worth money in IT works for the government because you get bored to death babysitting yesterday’s technology; and when the government does try and buy something, they goof it up like the automated garage. See I have been reading, and thinking about Hoboken and where my tax money goes.

So back to Beth Mason’s stupid government spending. I really found her to be fascinating after GA gave me that assignment to dig around in her resume. She is one sick-o. It takes a pretty serious flake, or sociopath, to try and pull off that big of a whopper. Beth Mason thinks that it is a simple task to search through a bunch of emails to find the two or three special ones that she wants. Nope. Not easy. Not with what the City IT Dept. has to work with. Can’t sort or search or establish the parameters that will cull through the data and get you what you want – you almost have to go through it one at a time. See, I have been asked to price this stuff for companies that get in a lawsuit and then have to cough up a bunch of emails. They gag when they find out that failure to keep up with technology will really cost them. So I see Beth willing to spend dumb money to make a political point, proving her own press release that if left in the hands of politicians, that the politicians, like her, will find something dumb to spend it on that doesn’t really mean anything to John Q. Public.

Speaking about using the tax money as a private piggy bank, the name Russo should be emblazoned in neon lights at each entrance to Hoboken. Pretty hard to have any conversation about greed and corruption in Hoboken without the name Russo appearing in every sentence. But yet they remain, re-elected despite everyone knowing just how much they have ripped off the City. Kind of funny. GA tells me that as long as the elections are scattered throughout the year, people won’t vote and that means those folks that vote by mail and get a check in return will keep putting the same people back in office. It is possible to utilize the internet to enable anyone who wants to, to vote on-line. Other countries outside the U.S. have already embraced on-line voting to increase voter participation. Why not us? That would be one government expenditure I know that I would support. But something tells me that Beth Mason would not like that idea. Neither would the Russos. Less money for them.