Corruption in Government

Maybe I'm biased, living in San Bernardino County, California, but I realize, and perhaps suspect, that politicians are even more likely to be dishonest or crooked than your average person. When you have power there is more opportunity to exercise your power for personal gain, or have people who need favors to frankly, try to bribe you. I was asked, as a building inspector, "what do we have to do to make this go easier?" to which I replied, "Comply with the building code."

There are a lot of scandals in SBC at the municipal and county levels. They are not hard to find if you use a search engine. In fact, it's a long running joke, that Louisiana is almost as corrupt as SBC, but has a better reputation for it.

Yet, people all over, hope that their government is a good one. The fact is that people are people all over the world and most of the government employees I know are looking for a secure long term job that they can't be fired from. Which is sort of an indicator that they doubt their own worth in a free market. Most of them talk about getting past probation and coasting for twenty years until they retire, with perhaps the exception of public school teachers who I don't envy at all. So, most public employees, are smart enough to see a good deal when they see it, and the public employees unions have made it so that any 'customer service' or notion of 'public service' or any concept of 'going the extra mile' for the people they supposedly work for has gone right out the window.

You can go to my real estate blog for a current example of incompetence here and here. I still have to take care of this. But, I'm always puzzled by the people who think that government involvement is going to make things better. There is a point to which the government is helpful, but I think our various levels of government are way past that.

The latest SBC scandal is with Bill Postmus, the former Assessor, being arrested again. Here's the link. Maybe, I'll start a "Wall of Shame" just for SBC.