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Comment by pc86 | Hacker News Reader

What makes you think the government is remotely qualified to run a canning operation, a logistics operation, a warehousing operation, an HR operation, and a finance operation for peaches?

Also which government? Because there are at least 3-5 relevant ones here, maybe more.

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>What makes you think the government is remotely qualified to run a canning operation, a logistics operation, a warehousing operation, an HR operation, and a finance operation for peaches?

That'd actually be quite easy for this particular federal government actually (current administration aside). And probably California too.

> What makes you think the government is remotely qualified to run a canning operation, a logistics operation, a warehousing operation, an HR operation, and a finance operation for peaches?

The DoD (for one) runs lots of logistics, warehousing, HR (2.8M), and finance stuff.

Have you ever looked at the prices they pay? Government is the last place I'd look for competent management, anyone good/noncorrupt would be making 10x in the private sector.

The government is able to do all of this for an entire literal army of people, spread across the entire world. And for an additional smaller army we call the Marines. Only difference is we add peaches on top of the canning of lead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_City_Army_Ammunition_Plan...

I'm not saying this is a good idea, but the government doesn't need to know how to micromanage these operations. The company already has employees who can do these things. All they need is to get paid. If the government decided that the final harvest of peaches needed to be canned, they could take over the business and pay to make it happen.

edit: Actually, they don't even need to take over the business. Another company is already operating it. The government could simply sign a contract to buy the 50,000 tons of canned peaches and the company would can them. Again, not to endorse the idea, but it is very straightforward logistically.

If nobody else wants to buy 50,000 tons of canned peaches, why should the government use other people's tax revenue to buy those peaches? Why not just get rid of them (which is what we're doing)?

I never said the government should buy the peaches. I pointed out that your argument didn't work.

You said the government shouldn't do this because they lacked the expertise and (implicitly) would balls it up. I pointed out that it didn't require any expertise. That is all.

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