lol. What does it run on, punch cards? Even excel has functions to get you tallies and all sorts of data. Should take no longer than a few days to sort the worst of excel files.
If this system is worse than that then we have some serious issue, but it doesn’t sound like it is because the employees themselves provided the fraud guess. It does sound like this data lives in spreadsheets (exported as, perhaps from some internal shitty system), but sortable data nonetheless.
I'm not talking about understand the technology, or understanding how a database works. I'm talking about understanding the data and the quirky, proprietary methods that exist in any organization that runs large databases. You have to understand exactly what the data means. And if you're just basing that on headers and field descriptors, you're missing a huge part of the story. You need people who are intimately familiar with the data and the processes to learn exactly what it all means. And they fired all those people.
All I'm saying is that we have no good reason to accept that this is a true and accurate depiction of the real story. We're relying entirely on Elon's word. But Elon has multiple, significant conflicts interest, and a vested interest in promoting this particular message.
As I said, I fully believe there is fraud and waste. But it makes no sense to me that Elon and pals didn't just assemble the data, then get an independent, professional auditor to do the analysis. That would have been a hell of a lot more credible than this dog & pony show. I'm certainly not arguing that the fraud and waste doesn't exist.
I doubt anyone is going on Elon’s word alone. Maybe initially as a reaction. DOGE is an agency which means it’ll have to report findings in an official capacity of some sort.
I don’t know what data you’re talking about and knowledge to understand it. Sounds like you work there or something. SS makes payments in the billions, it better have a perfect idea of where those payments are going. If they don’t, then they must be fired. We wouldn’t tolerate that in the private sector, why should we in the public?
You're misrepresentating my argument. I think I've mentioned that I absolutely believe there's fraud and waste, and that it should be dealt with with a competent, independent audit to determine the scope and a competently devised plan to address it. You're implying that I don't want anything to be done, and that's simply not true. The only difference between us is that I want it to be assessed, planned, and executed by proficient professionals who support their claims with evidence and reason, and you are apparently fine with having a motivated amateur with a preexisting agenda and no accountability to the American people to handle it. There's no difference in our belief in the problem or desired solution.
