City of Albuquerque to lay off 500

apparently, the Japanese have invented
a shovel that stands up by itself.

Did you smile? Did you laugh out loud?

The humor you found in that old joke, correlates directly
with your acceptance of the stereotype; that there really are
city workers whose job it is to defend shovels against the will
of gravity.

If you accept that the workers at the bottom of the hierarchy
are unaccountable, then you must also accept that the person
whose job it is to hold them accountable, has not been held
accountable for not holding his subordinates accountable.

You will find that his supervisor has not been held accountable
for not holding him accountable for not holding them accountable, and so on, and so on.

If you follow the chain of command, you will arrive at the office
of the president of the United States, and you will find that
he cannot be held honestly and immediately accountable for
failing to hold subordinates accountable.

It is the nature of public service in these united states*,
and it is the proximate cause for the waste of perhaps 20%
of tax dollars spent by government.

The straightest path to honest and efficient government
is to establish real and meaningful standards of conduct and
competence for public servants, and then to actually enforce
those standards on everyone,
from the guy holding up a shovel four hours a day,
to the office of the president.



*

The possible exception to this scenario would could be the
military, where there is apparently some real accountability.

Because the military have actual standards of conduct and
competence, and for the most part, they actually enforce them.