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Laura Nelson's avatar

Sorry to do this again, Pete, but when using the word 'dwarf' as a verb then the plural is 'dwarfs', not 'dwarves'. But we all know what you mean! 😂

William Murphy's avatar

Thanks very much, Pete. It is not just modern democracies which are "inefficient". Look at any number of modern dictatorships and the eyewatering amounts of money pissed down the toilets. My favourite being Martin Bormann's birthday present to Adolf H - that stunning mountaintop retreat in Bavaria. I don't think Martin paid for it out of his own pocket. Efficiency of WW2 and country being devastated end to end? Probably not very cost effective.

As for Joe Stalin, he had perhaps 250,000 troops guarding the labour camps in the middle of the war.

As for East Germany, much lauded by the old Stalinist hacks in my trade union in the 1980s, you had 90,000 people and much technology tied up in the Stasi. Plus more in the border guards stopping The People escaping from The People's republic.

Laura Nelson's avatar

'Pissing down the toilet' is probably a good thing, no? Now, pissing down the wall 'a la Boris' is a waste of money.

Gian's avatar

Is impossible to measure government efficiency. So no government will ever be efficient.

I have seen govt agencies buy flea market paintings for thousands, or empty floppy disks with a label of an expensive software on them.

The only way to improve govt efficiency is to make it as small as possible.

The Martyr's avatar

Ironically we have too many of these bean counting accountants employed at great expense to tell us we’re very inefficient. However nothing changes. Costs continue to rise above official inflation ( real inflation is much higher) and services deteriorate.