Re: OT: Canadian Tax Database - Mailing list pgsql-general

Since this thread has already degraded, I'll offer my two cents.  The
biggest screw ups in US history have been instigated by groups of
privileged White men.  I know my name may sound otherwise, but I'm a
White American male, so I'm not pointing the finger at another group.
Let's see, Enron, Arthur Anderson, the entire Bush Administration and
its fiascos in Iraq, Katrina, foreign policy in general, etc.  I've
worked for large, major IT providers and I can tell you that
incompetency shows no racial or ethnic boundaries.  It tends to exist in
large, politically connected, no bid contractors, not low bid
contractors or ones who benefited from affirmative action.


Ted Byers wrote:
>>> > Richard Huxton wrote:
>>> >> http://www.thestar.com/News/article/189175
>>> >>
>>> >> "For instance, in some cases the field for the social insurance
>>> number
>>> >> was instead filled in with a birth date."
>>> >>
>>> >> Unbelievable. Sixty years of electronic computing, fifty years
>>> use in
>>> >> business and the "professionals" who built the tax system for a
>>> >> wealthy
>>> >> democratic country didn't use data types.
>>> >
>>> > This is Unbelievable? This is commonplace.
>>> >
>>> And due at least in part to government (and other institutions
>>> operated by
>>> damned fools) opting for the least expensive provider rather than
>>> paying for
>>> someone who actually knows what they're doing.  Just as buying cheap
>>> junk
>>> always comes back to get you, hiring incompetent fools that don't
>>> know their
>>> ass from a hole in the ground will come back to get you too.
>>>
>> Come on, they don't hire incompetent fools. The hire the people
>
> You CAN'T be serious!  Have you ever dealt with them or with the
> consequences of their incompetence?
>
>> they need to fill their quota regardless of how well trained
>> and experienced they are. I am not saying that non white males
>> are in any way less competent than white males, but by removing
>> them from the pool does not make things better. The biggest
>> problem with quotas is not hiring less qualified staff, it is
>> that less qualified staff know why they were hired and know that
>> they are very unlikely to be fired, so they have little incentive
>> to work hard or attempt to do their best, they can always fail
>> upwards.
>>
> What does this have to do with anything?  No one here, except you, has
> said anything about the profile of the people involved WRT race,
> gender, religion, &c.  Nor has anyone said anything about
> "qualifications".  The only thing that has been said is that, based on
> what is seen in the "work", the people responsible for that work must
> be incompetent.  It is an inference based on what is seen in what has
> been done and has nothing to do with any of the prohibited grounds for
> discrimination used as excuses for affirmative action.  And yes, I
> have seen cases where less qualified, even unqualified, people have
> been hired as a result of these affirmative action initiatives (and I
> have been told, by HR personelle in government, that certain favoured
> groups are deemed to be superior to white men, even if the favoured
> party has no education nor experience and the latter have earned
> doctorates and decades of experience), but no one has said anything
> about such people being employed on the projects to which I referred.
> But this is an aspect of our present society that is bound to
> degenerate into a flame war, launched by the politically correct, so
> we ought to say little, or even leave it alone.  Those in power tend
> to be vicious, especially when there are no effective checks on their
> conduct and no consequences for what they do.
>
> Cheers
>
> Ted
>
>
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