Where will inflation stop?

Boost_Crazy said:

Boost_Crazy said:

...I saw time and time again that more budget equals better education. There is zero evidence to support that...

There are multiple studies that support the assertion that, generally speaking, more funding leads to better student outcomes.  You can argue that funding doesn't always improve student outcomes or, that funding needs to be applied appropriately and that the metrics used for evaluation need to be appropriate for the funding bu,t your assertion that there's no evidence that improved funding improves education is patently untrue. 

That's not to say that there aren't cases of corruption, incompetence and fraud in education.  There are and they need to be dealt with.  However, they need to be dealt with independently of funding. 

Like most of the problems that the US (and the world face) this is a complicated topic.  The studies themselves are a slog to get through and it's a lot of reading.  If you want a good summary NPR did a great series on this topic Link to first artical in series

I think you missed my point, but demonstrated it for me perfectly. Of course funding makes a difference, but not just blindly increasing finding. Sure, if you add $10 million to the budget, and 10% of that goes to something beneficial, you might get a net gain. But that is not a win! Instead  of spending an extra $10 million to get the $1 that made the difference- how about just spend that $1 million? Better yet, find that $1 million in the waste from the rest of your budget? It's like having a car with worn tires, fixing it by buying a new car, and congratulating yourself on a job well done. 
 

Education is a regional issue. Here in CA, teachers are well paid. They have one of if not the most powerful union in the state. It's not the money that is driving off teachers here. What Snowdoggie has mentioned in his post about the current classroom experience is happening, that is what is driving away teachers, not lack of funding. 

Here is a good example of money literally going in the garbage at my kid's school. We live in a nice neighborhood. The school is surrounded by nice neighborhoods. I would be shocked to learn that a single child going to that school has parents that are unable it feed them. Yet they have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and summer vacation food programs. But, surprise, they had very few kids make use of the program. Did they cut it back? No, they expanded it. They decided that the problem was that kids who needed it were embarrassed to ask, so they extended it to every student automatically! The food is horrible, so still little takers. So they started to hand the food out to kids, whether they wanted it or not-it promptly went in the garbage. I'm pretty sure that money could be better spent elsewhere, but they are doing such a good job using up their budget to fill trash cans, I'm sure they will get a bump next year. 

That's an excellent example of pride.   A couple neighborhoods in my old school district definitely needed free meals.  But no one wanted to be seen accepting it.  Naturally the kids wanted candy Chips and pop. But healthy food is what was handed out. Yes a lot of it went to waste.  But it kept a few families afloat. 
    Granted at too great a cost, but still a lower cost than putting a whole family in jail.  
     You need to realize it's never going to be a perfect system.  But it's always cheaper than the alternative.  
By the way, once I found out that they had to throw surplus bags of groceries away I took a few home.  Most of what was there was very good.  However if you didn't know how to cook  or have the equipment to cook, much of it couldn't be used as is. 
      Surprisingly many didn't know how or have the means to cook anything. 
    There were loaves of bread, and jars of peanut butter and some never figured out that they could be made into sandwiches. 

Duke said:

If fewer tax dollars are sent to Washington, where they get passed around like a bottle of Thunderbird and sent back to us much reduced and full of backwash, then more tax dollars can be spent at a local level on specific programs that meet specific needs in specific communities.

I'm sorry to say, but that's not actually how the tax funding system works. Doesn't matter which party, they're not giving it back if they don't use it, they'll just use it on something even less important and beneficial to the taxpayers. 

If this program is such a wasteful use of federal (and state) tax dollars, why is nearly ever school in even the most fiscally conservative areas, participating in it?

Remember too that there is more than just the cost of raw materials being covered by these dollars. While it may not be paying the teachers' salaries, it is paying the also important food service employees salaries.

Of all the berkeleyed up things going on in this country are we really gonna stand around and bitch about taxes being used to feed kids? Seriously?

Driven5 said:

I'm sorry to say, but that's not actually how the tax funding system works. Doesn't matter which party, they're not giving it back if they don't use it, they'll just use it on something even less important.

That was this part:

Duke said:

...sent back to us much reduced and full of backwash...

Next.

Driven5 said:

If this program is such a wasteful use of federal (and state) tax dollars, why is nearly ever school in even the most fiscally conservative areas, participating in it?

Because otherwise those tax dollars just disappear into Washington and they get nothing back, instead of a little back.  Or it gets spent on something even less important, as you yourself note.

Driven5 said:

Remember too that there is more than just the cost of raw materials being covered by these dollars. While it may not be paying the teachers' salaries, it is paying the also important food service employees salaries.

Which would also happen if the money was spent at the local level.

I am a small-L libertarian, but I am not one of the hardcore "taxation is theft" types.  I understand that some government services are necessary and good.  I just strongly feel that the scope of those services has been vastly hyperinflated and the efficiency - like the efficiency of nearly all government-run programs everywhere - is terrible.

gearheadmb said:

Of all the berkeleyed up things going on in this country are we really gonna stand around and bitch about taxes being used to feed kids? Seriously?

Not at all.  We're going to bitch about the wasteful way it's being done.  There's an important difference.

It's funny how few people complain as loudly about the same types of (often intentional) waste their money is also paying for in the private sector equivalent as they do about it from the government. In this case, consider the food waste generated by grocery stores and restaurants that are coming just as equally out of your hard earned dollars. It's not like most people can avoid buying their food any more than they can avoid paying taxes. Restaurants in total waste 2x-3x the amount of food that institutions like schools and hospitals do. Grocery stores INTENTIONALLY throw away $15 BILLION in purchased fruit and vegetables per year alone, driven primarily by consumer expectations of unrealistic cosmetic perfection and unnecessarily large overstocked displays... And that's only the stuff that's good enough to make it into the grocery store, beyond what gets wasted through the supply chain process. Yet almost nobody bats an eyelash at this, nor applies the same outraged logic to it of 'how many more jobs or better wages could that have paid for', 'how much lower could my cost have been', or 'how much better could that perfectly good food and/or money have been used elsewhere in the community'.

Fortunately there's no government equivalent to the garment industry that we all also necessarily pay into, as that would absolutely destroy the minds those focused solely on government waste.

In reply to Driven5 :

Excellent point. I hadn't considered that. 

In reply to Driven5 :

...and if grocery stores, restaurants, schools and hospitals didn't throw away at least some of their food, who would feed the rats?

Think about it.

In reply to Driven5 :

First off- this is for everyone that thinks this is about school lunches- this is just one small example of waste. If you want programs like this to help kids who are hungry eat, AND more teachers, AND better roads, AND... then why not root out waste? Low hanging fruit. Why look for more funding and a bigger budget what we already have the money- literally going in garbage cans. FACT. This isn't a unique example, just an obvious one. That there is any pushback on this at all absolutely astounds me. 
 

In reply to Duke :

'Taxpayer' dollars, yes. Local taxpayer dollars that can be converted into teachers, as repeatedly stated/implied, no.

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

As an admission to being the kettle, go ahead and call me the pot. I guess I tend to reply a bit sharply when people try to prove a point by creating hypothetical examples that baselessly ignore key information that was just provided, like the fact that most to all of the free meal funding is provided through a mechanism completely independent of teacher funding.

Sure everything costs above average in CA, but the reimbursement is above average in CA too. As I see it, the feds look to kick in $3.68, and the state is funding the rest of the way up to $4.32. So with that state extra on top of the federal program, out of pocket to the schools should be minimal. The reason that the state budget for free meals balloons in the second year is not because of bad estimating, but because the $53M in the first year only needs to go above and beyond what the feds provide, while subsequent years are wholly state funded. Sure $650M sounds big in absolute terms, but is a mere 0.25%of the states $262B education budget. So yeah, as imperfect as it might be, that's still looking for waste in all the wrong places. The federal money is USDA, so there is zero correlation to being able to convert it to be used for teachers. Perhaps the state money could have been, but the data behind this program apparently shows it to be something valuable enough to receive unanimous bi-partisan support.

I don't know where $38.10 is coming from, because $0.50 * 500 * 5% = $12.5 per needed meal cost to the school/district budget that teachers are hired from... Not cheap, but nowhere near as bad as you are trying to make it out to be. The data collected due to the series of events driven by the pandemic response also demonstrated that far fewer people in need were taking free school lunches than actually needed them. And again, the CA is (unanimous, bi-partisan supported) going above and beyond the USDA funding to close that gap even further, bringing the per needed meal cost to the school down down that much further.

Now let's also clarify the interpretations of a 7 year old 2nd grader. Was the lunch 'forced' upon them at the beginning of the lunch period, or was it a distribution of the excess afterword? Has it been 'forced' upon every single student on every day of the school year so far, or been short-term intermittent and tapered off?

The way the program was designed to reduce the stigma is by offering the same meal options to all students, free of charge... Not force every student to take a school provided meal at the start of lunch every day. However, in order to ensure there is enough food for every student that asks for it, there will always necessarily be some amount of daily excess. This is true completely regardless of whether or not it's purchased by the students or provided free to them. The main difference with starting up a free meal program is that demand will initially be relatively unknown compared to historical data. The result of this, will be an unsustainable amount of excess early on in the program. As the program matures the excess will be able to steadily decrease to a more sustainable level, as the demand becomes much more predictable. Regardless, the gross excess can be either all thrown away so that nobody can benefit from it, or all given away after lunch is over to take home so that at least some can still get further benefit from it even if most is still thrown away. Which is truly more wasteful?

1) I used your numbers to get the $38.10 per meal. You said $3.81 per meal. $3.81 x 500 = $1905. $1905 / 50 = $38.50. This ignores the fact that CA prices are likely higher. 
 

2) You are missing the big picture. I don't care, and it shouldn't matter, where the tax dollars come from. Federal, state, they are tax dollars that are being used inefficiently instead of going to where they would be more useful. Those 95 out of 100 parents that don't need the state to feed their kids- they would rather that go to more teachers for example. By the way, while initially partially federally subsidized, the program is to be taken over by CA 100%. It will be funded with our budget surplus. We have a surplus because our state can't spend its enormous amount of tax dollars fast enough. I believe surplus tax dollars are supposed to go back to the taxpayer. Maybe they should do that and let parents feed their own kids. 

3) Not sure where it stands now, but at one point they were literally lining kids up and giving them the food. That is why my 7 year older asked about it. He thought it was weird that they made them take it, and most of his classmates promptly threw it in a nearby garbage can because it was poor quality and unwanted. 

Driven5 said:

It's funny how few people complain as loudly about the same types of (often intentional) waste their money is also paying for in the private sector equivalent as they do about it from the government.

Because that same waste happens no matter who does the procurement, but having the government do it puts an extra 30%-100% government inefficiency factor on top of that.

Duke said:

Driven5 said:

It's funny how few people complain as loudly about the same types of (often intentional) waste their money is also paying for in the private sector equivalent as they do about it from the government.

Because that same waste happens no matter who does the procurement, but having the government do it puts an extra 30%-100% government inefficiency factor on top of that.

 

Most civil servants try hard to get value for citizens. My wife gave cash out to her clients after authorized by others.  For 40 years  she accounted for every dime, nickel , and penny. Not only filling out all the required forms, accounting, and ledgers,  but keeping a separate record on her own. That on rare occasions clarified who got what and who authorized it. 
 Most of those who make outrageous claims  to the contrary simply do not know what they are talking about. 
   In my state 10 cents of every dollar spent is spent looking for fraud and waste.  
  You need to realize that in a democracy one mans waste is another's absolute necessity.  Kind of like complaining that your road should be smooth and straight but not caring about any other road. 
 Or we have too much police force until you need them and then they are too slow to respond.    

A number of years ago, I wandered in on a friend / fellow engineer while he was filling out an income tax form during his lunch break.

Turns out the form wasn't for him but rather for his Brother in Law who after flunking out of the Police Academy, stumbled into a job selling books to the Los Angeles Unified School District and was too $hity at math to be able to fill out the form himself.

This was just his second year selling books to the LAUSD and that's all he did (drive around to schools, meet with faculty, take their orders, submit the orders, and follow up to make sure everything got done correctly) and he was pulling down 410K a year.

Anecdotal (yes)...jealous (absolutely).

But verified as I personally saw his 1040 and really not surprising given the nature of the system (the people spending the money aren't the people that worked their a$$ off earning the money) - egregious examples of waste are to be expected in these cases. 

frenchyd said:

Duke said:

Driven5 said:

It's funny how few people complain as loudly about the same types of (often intentional) waste their money is also paying for in the private sector equivalent as they do about it from the government.

Because that same waste happens no matter who does the procurement, but having the government do it puts an extra 30%-100% government inefficiency factor on top of that.

Most civil servants try hard to get value for citizens.

 Most of those who make outrageous claims  to the contrary simply do not know what they are talking about. 

You need to realize that in a democracy one mans waste is another's absolute necessity.

I have spent my entire 30+ year career doing publicly funded infrastructure projects.  I understand the system, I know how it works, and I see the fallout in inefficiency.

Some civil servants try hard to get value for citizens - agreed.  Some don't overly care and are just trying to do their jobs at a decent level.  Some are simply incompetent, no matter where their intentions lie.  And some are actively obstructionist, trying to make the world bow to their petty bureaucratic control.  I would have a hard time saying "most" civil servants fall into any one of those categories.

True story I experienced myself, very recently:

We sent a large (many millions of $) public school renovation project in for regulatory agency review.  It was not approved because the headers and footers of the specification manual were not formatted correctly.  They contained all the required information, but were not formatted in a mirror arrangement from left to right pages.  Also, even though the footers said "Page X of Y", making it easy to see if a page was missing, all sections that ended on an odd page where required to have a blank page (of course including THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK) so they ended on an even page.

These were new, unpublished requirements we had no way of knowing.  Effectively, they were personal preference of that specific reviewer, whose approval was required for the project to proceed.

We fixed the formatting issues because we had to.  It took us maybe a day and a half.  A day and a half we could have spent working on 5 other similar projects that are equally important; but still just 12 hours.  Not that big a deal.

The BIG deal is that this petty delay bounced an important project out of the approval queue, which means a minimum of a month's delay...

...and that one month delay, coupled with the state's public solicitation process, which also takes a month, means that the project won't be allowed to bid before the holidays...

...which means the pricing won't be as good, and there will now effectively be TWO months' delay...

...meaning that it will be extremely unlikely that the project can be awarded early enough to get materials ordered and fabricated in time to do the work over summer 2022 when the kids are not in school...

...meaning that the project will have to be postponed until summer 2023, meaning all the wasted effort of rebidding it, another year of cost escalation, and another year of leaky roofs and failing mechanical systems kept in service.

All because a petty civil servant sitting in a windowless office somewhere wasn't happy that the specification manual didn't look just so the way they liked it.  This is not a matter of "one man's waste is another man's necessity."  This is insanity, and it is just a microcosm of the entire system.

I'm sure you probably think this is an exaggeration.  It is not.  It's on the worse end of the spectrum, admittedly, but it is not uncommon at all.  And it leaves out the irrelevant and byzantine design requirements that already resulted in the project being postponed from summer 2021 construction to 2022.

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

aircooled said:

Yes, I am well aware of that.  I don't THINK I implied otherwise in the post.  

The primary point is that the Grand Leader appears to be very much trying to rein in the "non communist" activities that his countryman, who in many cases, are very intent in doing.

In fact I believe, as you state, there really are not that many communists in China (why they are doing these things of course), BUT if you want any position in government or the military, you HAVE to be (or at least be good at pretending).  And of course, they all ARE living under a communist regime (even if it has wandered wildly from communism in many areas).  Having huge piles of money and holding real estate in other countries is not (should not be) kosher in a communist state.

A good note, and realistically probably not likely, is that these new and upcoming commandments might create a backlash (revolt?) within the masses (especially those with money).  Of course, we are dealing with a regime that was very willing to run previous protesters over with tanks and squish them into a mush that could be flushed down the sewers!

The Chinese opened their housing to the free market and ended up with empty cities full of luxury condos that most people in China can't afford. They are still trying to figure out what to do with that. Then Chinese citizens with money are buying houses in the West, sending their kids to school at UCLA and making escape plans instead of investing their money in China to create jobs. I don't think the government over there will put up with that for very long. Something has to give.

Not to divert from economics discussion, but I recently made a friend in a Discord server who pops in on their VPN to chat about how bad things in China are. For instance- they are in their 20s, and studying internationally and trying to really score seriously high. This is because at home, they are expected to support their 6 aunts and uncles monetarily as they retire, to which they've proclaimed "HAHA, NOOOOO" and are leaving the nation as fast as they can. They said it better than I, that in America or Europe you have a functional infastructure and places people actually want to live, whereas in China Men are buying property at extremely infalted prices just to be able to date.

Recently the pentagon reported that China was "massively" expanding their nuclear arsenal, which is not surprising- they're a cornered animal. They import all their Iron and Lithium from Austrailia, their foods from other indochinese nations, and their economy is reliant on the west buying dumb plastic bits while their reported spending now shows they're putting more money into internal security than into a military. They have to make everyone think they're the "big dog" otherwise they'll get their crap pushed in.

EDIT: Anyway, continue

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

Your entire opinion and argument against the widely supported free lunch program is predicated on a singular unsubstantiated assumption, that #3 is a continuously recurring long-term daily event rather than the highly visible but short-term limited occurrence you've actually described so far. Otherwise, the rest of your arguments all fall completely apart and the 'problem' you describe is going to be be resolved by its inherent self-regulation. The majority of (privileged) kids will bring their own more enjoyable lunch to school, the school will adjust its food ordering to suit, and the school lunch programs won't be putting tax dollars towards meals for kids who don't actually need or want them.

Incidentally we both made math mistakes. I divided by 20 rather than 25 and you divided by 50 rather than 25. It's all irrelevant though, as the real long-term math would have to be based exclusively on the percentage of kids that actually choose to take the free lunch who are needy, not against the entire student body. Based purely on your own description of the meal options and kids' reactions to them, your 5% total kids in need may math the funding out more in the range of 50% of 10%-20% 0f the school than 5% of 100% of the school... At which point the cost per 'needed' student meal could be down closer to $7.62-$15.24 total with just $1-$2 unreimbursed.

Low hanging fruit means large impact for low effort... If #3 doesn't hold up, I'm not seeing a case for either criteria here. The pushback isn't on the idea of reducing waste, it's on the idea of speculating and insisting that the entire free school lunch program is inherently the egregious type of waste you are looking to root out based on only one highly visible but extremely limited data point... Without taking into consideration any other evidence or data to the contrary.

In reply to Driven5 :

You are right, I made an error- I was thinking of a generous 10% need when I did the math and wrote 5%- which is still likely high at my kids school. So it costs twice as much! $76 per needed meal. Steak and lobster? 

This is not a short term event. This was written into law. Look it up. I won't link to any of the "news" stories out of principal, as they cheer result the without any regard to the means. You will love them. This is for every child in the state. Not just kids that are hungry. Not for families that struggle. Every kid. Elon Musk's kids would be eligible. The idea is flawed from the start. One, if it was just the stigma- there are much better, cheaper ways to solve that problem. In fact, it was solved PRIOR to this program. Kids could not take money to school. Parents paid a tab for the lunches. The state paid the tab for the kids in need. There was no way to tell who was who in the lunch line, they all said their name and got their food. They didn't have a large token that said "Poor kid meal." The lunch lady didn't yell "one charity meal!" So that whole premise is debunked. 
 

Your entire opinion and argument against the widely supported free lunch program is predicated on a singular unsubstantiated assumption, that #3 is a continuously recurring long-term daily event rather than the highly visible but short-term limited occurrence you've actually described so far. Otherwise, the rest of your arguments all fall completely apart and the 'problem' you describe is going to be be resolved by its inherent self-regulation. The majority of (privileged) kids will bring their own more enjoyable lunch to school, the school will adjust its food ordering to suit, and the school lunch programs won't be putting tax dollars towards meals for kids who don't actually need or want them.
 

Thank you. At best, you are right. And you just demonstrated why knee jerk decisions without logic or foresight don't work, no matter how good it sounds. Let me spell it out.

We need free lunches for every student, to ensure EVERYONE gets the resources they need. Identifying those in need leads to stigmatization (ignoring the solution I wrote above) so we will pay orders of magnitude more for every effective free meal. But self regulation will lead to those that can afford it to change to better options. The privileged will bring better meals from home, bringing down the cost of the program. So the poor kids will get the state lunch while the other kids... wait, aren't we back where we started? We just separated out the poor kids again. If they were not accepting free lunches under the old system, why would they accept them now? Wait, I got an idea. We just need a new bigger, more expensive program...

"Widely supported" is gross miscaracterization. If you say "Free lunch for those in need," it's widely supported. If you say "free lunch for those who can afford it, but we will raise your taxes" then not so much. If you say "Free lunch for all, but you get less teachers"- not so widely supported. Unfortunately not enough people ask questions. Have you heard the saying "There is no such thing as a free lunch?" Pretty applicable here. 

I am not against helping kids in need! I'm against- as should EVERYONE- throwing money at the wall just to see what sticks. Tax payers should be concerned with how their money is spent and the level of service returned. Those in need should be concerned that waste is assistance they they will not get. 
 

Okay, now that we have beaten that dead horse, I'll send it off to the cafeteria. Monday is "Hamburger day." 

The national school lunch program was $14B or so last year.  Farmers got 22B.  The oil and gas industry got about the same.  
 

our defense budget is $778B a year    
 

we always argue about the small potatoes  and never really address the big problems    That's our largest failing  

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

I'd argue that the first program should be reviewed heavily and probably cut by 20% after figuring out the best way to do so, the second and third programs should be cut by 100%, and the last one by 30%~50%.

And then those savings should be spent paying down debt, not MORE FREE STUFFS.

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

If we can't agree on and solve a simple problem, how do you propose that we solve the complex ones?

Boost_Crazy said:Okay, now that we have beaten that dead horse, I'll send it off to the cafeteria. Monday is "Hamburger day." 

That was Friday when I was in elementary. Monday was the rectangle cut pizza with grey "cheese".

If we taught finance in school, I bet a lot of this waste would stop going unnoticed.

Hmmm....

Duke said:

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

I'd argue that the first program should be reviewed heavily and probably cut by 20% after figuring out the best way to do so, the second and third programs should be cut by 100%, and the last one by 30%~50%.

And then those savings should be spent paying down debt, not MORE FREE STUFFS.

 

"Free Stuff" is the cheapest way to deal with poverty.  
  We learned that lesson from Kaiser  Wilhelm  of Germany. 
    The rye crop failed.  Rye is what most Germans used for bread and other foods.  It's like American wheat. 
    Starving people desperate to survive robbed and stole food.  The Kaiser was a stern leader and put those criminals in jail.   Jails cost a lot of money. And the police, courts etc.  

 The  next time the rye crop failed rather than spending all that money the Kaiser gave everybody a small stipend to buy food.   He saved so much money that he was able to modernize his army. ( and fight WW1. 
  Look it up. 
 The cheapest way to deal with poverty is give them money and food. 
Spend a few minutes looking at what your state spends to put a person in Jail for a year and then look at what they spend per person on welfare. 

Boost_Crazy said:

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

If we can't agree on and solve a simple problem, how do you propose that we solve the complex ones?

I'd actually say the defense budget is a lot less complex than school lunches.  But whatever. 

RX Reven' said:

A number of years ago, I wandered in on a friend / fellow engineer while he was filling out an income tax form during his lunch break.

Turns out the form wasn't for him but rather for his Brother in Law who after flunking out of the Police Academy, stumbled into a job selling books to the Los Angeles Unified School District and was too $hity at math to be able to fill out the form himself.

This was just his second year selling books to the LAUSD and that's all he did (drive around to schools, meet with faculty, take their orders, submit the orders, and follow up to make sure everything got done correctly) and he was pulling down 410K a year.

Anecdotal (yes)...jealous (absolutely).

But verified as I personally saw his 1040 and really not surprising given the nature of the system (the people spending the money aren't the people that worked their a$$ off earning the money) - egregious examples of waste are to be expected in these cases. 

Where's the waste here? I think you're assuming they are getting ripped off, but we can't tell   They could be  but a big paycheck for a sales person doesn't always mean that there is fraud or cronism involved  

Seems like the guy sold a lot of books and made a lot of commission  

Duke said:

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

I'd argue that the first program should be reviewed heavily and probably cut by 20% after figuring out the best way to do so, the second and third programs should be cut by 100%, and the last one by 30%~50%.

And then those savings should be spent paying down debt, not MORE FREE STUFFS.

 

The "Free stuffs" argument carries the implication that those who are getting whatever they are getting do not deserve it.   The next argument will be finding small parts of a large organization where there is waste or fraud and then calling the whole thing corrupt, because you know it must be. 
 

Anyways tbr point I was making is thst we always argue about stupid piddly stuff and never really fix anything. And you kinda are proving that. 

E36 M3's expensive. I cannot fathom how hard it must be at poverty level (or lower).

I recall a few years ago somebody floated a "penny plan" basically to scrape 1% from every govt budget. I'd like to see them do 5-10 percent and just say "figure it out".