I periodically compare moronic decisions and policies by governments in the United States and United Kingdom. You can peruse some jaw-dropping examples by clicking this link.
To show that politicians and bureaucrats don’t have a monopoly on stupidity, I’ve also shared a pair of examples that expose foolishness in the private sector.
I think the contest has been pretty even to date, but now we have an entry from the United Kingdom that may be hard to beat. The government created a new boondoggle program, but managed to make it so convoluted that no households have signed up for the handouts.
This is astounding. How incompetent does a government have to be that it can’t even give away money? Here are some laughable excerpts from the Telegraph.
The Green Deal encourages homeowners to take out a loan to make their house more energy-efficient. …households have had since October 1 to have their home assessed for the scheme prior to its launch. However Greg Barker, the climate change minister, has admitted that “no assessments have yet been lodged” on the Government’s official register by homeowners. Luciana Berger, the shadow climate change minister, described the Green Deal as a “shambles” and said its launch is “lying in tatters”. The Coalition hopes that owners of up to 14 million draughty homes will sign up to the scheme. …In an effort to kick-start interest, DECC last month announced a £125 million ‘cashback’ scheme, offering homes up to £1,000 if they sign up as ‘early adopters’. Ms Berger said that homeowners are being put off by the Deal’s complicated finance arrangements.
Not only did the giveaway fail to attract any household beneficiaries, only one firm out of 10,000 signed up to be “accredited Green Deal” participants.
As well as lack of interest from homeowners, building companies are also shying away from getting involved. According to the Federation of Master Builders, the UK’s biggest building trade body, only one firm from its 10,000-strong membership has signed up to become an accredited Green Deal installer.
Again, this is remarkable. When a government is too incompetent to give away other people’s money, you know that’s special.
Sadly, this is the exception rather than the rule. The burden of government spending is excessive in the United Kingdom, in part because of the faux budget cuts of David Cameron’s CINO regime.
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@Dan Mitchell. hear! hear!
I have an Energy Performance Certificate, which is compulsory to put my house on the market. It was presumably prepared according to UK government guidelines. The first recommendation is insulation for my exterior walls at a cost of anything from £4,000 to £14,000 with an expected saving of £60 over three years. If we assume zero interest rates, that should pay of over 700 years (taking the higher figure). At one percent interest rates this will never pay off, even over infinite time. It did advise me that a ‘green deal’ was available. Forgive, but I did not investigate the details. It seems to me that investigating a deal worked out by a bureaucrat so utterly innumerate as to consider this a worthwhile recommendation was likely to be a waste of my time.
As the old saying goes, “thank god we don’t get all the government we pay for”!
No, no – this is a perfect government programme, given current British politics.
Our government is under massive pressure to do all sorts of “green” things (partly because they are in coalition with a bunch of eco loons, partly because the BBC has abandoned impartiality and gone over to the green cause).
So this let them do a “green” thing at almost zero cost. Not even any hidden costs of changed behaviour, because almost no-one has changed their behaviour because of it.
A bureaucrat or three to draw up the scheme, one company filling in a few forms to be accredited, a few other people looking at the forms for 10 minutes and deciding it isn’t worthwhile – for a government eco scheme that’s incredibly cheap.
Genius. Don’t complain – it would have been far worse if they’d designed a scheme that actually worked.
[…] via The United Kingdom Throws Down the Gauntlet with a Strong Entry in the Government Stupidity Contest …. […]
It doesn’t seem like the UK Green Deal is giving away any money. They are offering a loan to install insulation, which will be paid off by higher electric bills for 25 years.
Well then, after that the bills would be lower than usual, if the insulation is working as advertised.
Ok, that doesn’t sound so great. How about a £1,000 discount on the work? Your bill will go up for the same 25 years, but not as much as before.
This restores my faith a bit in the common man. They are beginning to wise up to governmet offers, at least when there is no prompt cash to spend from the offer.
It should be clear by now that the progressive penchant for an authoritarian government is exceeded only by their incompetence at governance.