Mismanagement on an epic scale

[dieseltaylor]

I could barely believe the disfunctionality related here:

http://www.propublica.org/article/using-outdated-data-fema-is-wrongly-placing-homeowners-in-flood-zones

I am sure someone once wrote here on the US leading the world in management skills and we eventually agreed this golden age was gone - and how!

[costard]

Public vs private sector: the public pays for the data compilation, but the private provides the data compilation service and gets the benefits of the data being compiled. The exercise being a scam, you can be assured that the result will be crap. The insurance companies win big-time in this case: the home-owners in the "flood zones" pay for insurance that won't have to be used, because they won't get flooded out (note that this payment is mandated by the state, just as a certain other piece of... legislation demands). The home-owners that are in the real flood zones won't be covered by the insurance companies coz it wuz the gummint that provided for the crap data compilation - the taxpayer gets hit again when the courts rule that gummint incompetence means that the gummint is liable. Now, if the original contract for the provision of the service had been written with the aim of getting value for money (something the private sector will always insist on and something that the gummint ought to), a quality assurance program would have sampled the final data for errors and the compensation/remuneration for the service provision altered appropriately. As it is, there is a lot of strategic planning goes into squeezing out the absolute maximum amount of milk with the minimum of "moo" and the proposal to de-moo the herd is lauded as the next great step forward.

Bad management: perhaps. Stupid people: probably. Outright corruption: bet on it.