Search error: Feds pay for data they could have just Googled, audit finds

[Geee]

Washington Times:

Congress’s top auditor said Tuesday that the Commerce Department has been charging other government agencies millions of dollars for reports that the other agencies could just as easily have gotten online, for free.

The Government Accountability Office, releasing its third annual report on duplication in the federal government, said 74 percent of all the reports held by the National Technical Information Service were available elsewhere, usually for free — and often just by a simple Google search.

SEE RELATED: Microsoft leads coalition to fight Google for unfair market practices

“The source that most often had the reports GAO was searching for was another website located at http://www.Google.com,” the auditors said.

[Valin]

Well its not like they are spending their money.

[Pepper]

Well its not like they are spending their money.

 

And besides, it's not like it's real money...

 

why them's Obama bucks printed by Bernanke

[Valin]

Well its not like they are spending their money.

 

And besides, it's not like it's real money...

 

why them's Obama bucks printed by Bernanke

 

 

On a related note

The Economic Ignorance of Barack Obama

Richard A. Epstein

4/9/13

 

(Snip)

 

The Federal Reserve to the Rescue

 

Like Dionne, the President may think that stimulus from the Fed can offset his tough tax reform proposals. Forget it. We have tried stimulus programs for over four years now, and the results are anemic growth levels tied to a reduction in both the capital stock and the income levels for much of the population. David Stockman’s new book, The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America, may well be, as I have argued, an undisciplined rant, but the signs of illness he lists in his book and in his now notorious New York Times op-ed are all too real. Over the last dozen years, economic growth has averaged about 1.7 percent per year; business investment is about 0.8 percent per annum; family income is down about 8 percent; and the labor market has been stagnant.

 

More stimulus programs cannot undo the malaise. These programs introduce yet another degree of uncertainty into the overall picture. The lower rates that help businesses hurt consumers, especially retirees living on fixed incomes. No one should buy into the Keynesian delusion that the current malaise stems only from shortfalls on the demand side. No one should think that choosing between austerity and deficits will move the needle much one way or the other. Current uncertainty hurts both the demand and the supply side, thereby driving down economic productivity and increasing the deficit. The losses here really matter.

 

Let us assume, for example, that the Obama policies have chopped two points off growth per year, which is roughly the difference between the 1.5 percent growth we have had, and the 3.5 percent growth he promised. Compounded over the four-plus years of his presidency, the total growth decline comes out to about 11 percent—not chump change on an overall economy of about $15 trillion. No matter how one slices these numbers, stagnation always follows from massive redistribution.

 

(Snip)