Humans aren't very good at visualizing big numbers, which is why we focus on the small stuff far more - the stuff we understand. Big numbers are like mathematical formulas, where the majority of people don't have an intuition for them. Once we can no longer imagine it as a pizza being cut up, we get visually lost.
Most of us have a pretty good understanding of how governments work though - they are poor at making robust decisions, largely inefficient, polarized and conflicted, and tend to make nonsensical choices that seem to harm us, more than help us.
They spend big numbers.
Of our money.
I came across an article looking at how the Western Australian government spend some of their funds during the Covid Pandemic. They effectively shut the border to travelers, including those who actually lived inside the state. They did this to stop the spread and their measures were considered draconian, even by other states in Australia that the rest of the world considered had draconian measures.
All in the interest of public safety.
But the chickens are coming home to roost.
And uncovering the RATs.
"RAT" stands for Rapid Antigen Test, which were popular for people to get in the hope that they could get proof that they were sick, or not sick, because the symptoms for the vast majority of people were not enough to really prove anything, since it was largely mild. Some did get sick though and some died.
In total, ~20,200 died from Covid in Australia and the average age of death is 84.7 years of age.
For some reference, ~3300 people over the age of 65 die from falling over in Australia each year.
The WA government made a decision to spend 3M dollars on RAT kits for "health workers and returning travelers" so that they can test them regularly and "stop the spread". Three million dollars is not that much, but this is the government in action, so there was a little scope creep.
"You sit back and you reflect on those decisions and you think, my God, I'm just so pleased that we made them in the way that we did because it protected lives and in addition to that, protected Western Australia's economy."
Deputy Premier and former health minister Roger Cook
The scope creep? Well, instead of 3M spent, it ballooned to 440M - yes, it didn't 10x, it went 147x. That is some creep! But, it doesn't end there - another government department, The Department of Finance, spent another 140M on RAT tests for WA too. Combined, a full 10% of the state budget was spent on testing kits!
Remember a moment ago reading "protected lives and in addition to that, protected Western Australia's economy" - Well, it could be argued that spending that money on something other than 111 million RAT tests in a state of 2.7 million people could have been put to better use to generate income. And the saving lives? Well, that money is over twice as much as building two hospitals. Yes... that is right... all of those lives that could have been saved in the future, fuck them!
So, when there "aren't enough intensive care beds" for the next pandemic, we will know why.
600,000,000 dollars might not sound like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but this is just one state in Australia of less than 3 million people, in a country of less than 26 million people. Just imagine how many bad decisions and inefficiencies were made under the guise of "saving lives". The cost to taxpayer lives in the coming years due to the misappropriation of taxpayer money at a global level, is immense. And, this isn't even factoring in that a lot of these funds were spent on a credit card, meaning that they are going to be accruing interest payments on them, so the final tally is going to be immense!
Oh, and there are 67 million tests not distributed (this doesn't mean those distributed were used), set to expire this year. That is about 400 million dollars worth of tests that not only can't be used, but will have to be recycled.
Or in other words...
1.33 hospitals worth.
There are so many, that the government had to rent 8 more warehouses just to store them - as they stared with 2, that is a 4x on their warehousing costs too.
While the government was making hairdressers and cafes to close, closing schools, fining people for having more than a handful of people gathered together, arresting people at the borders, and enforcing check-in applications in the interest of saving lives and protecting the economy - they were screwing lives and the economy for years to come.
Governments, eh?
But, because we don't think about big numbers well and, we aren't very good at predicting the consequences of big number mismanagement on the economy, we let it happen, time and time again. There is always a pandemic, a bank contagion, a terror attack, or some other excuse to use fear to spend and get away scot-free.
And as it sink, the rats will abandon ship - but we'll have nowhere to go.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
