Bureaucracy (was Yearly TV Licence? ...Really?)

[Mary Ann]

Steve wrote:
  
> I just strikes me more as a system that consumes money 
> rather than a system that collects money with some 
> assurance that the money actually goes to the necessary
> cause.
 
I, Mary Ann, asked:
 
> Out of curiosity, what exactly do you mean by 
> "the necessary cause"?

Steve answered:
 
> Excellent response and very enlightening.

Mary Ann:

Thanks. :)  I enjoy these types of discussions.  Learn something new 
every day and all that.

Steve:
 
> What I mean by 'the necessary cause' is actual TV programs of
> all sorts. 
> 
> How much of the money collected goes to bureaucratic excess 
> and excess Bureaucracy, and how much actually produces something
> of value.

Mary Ann:

Gah, who knows?  If I did some deep research I may come up with an 
answer but, to be perfectly honest, I'm not too sure if I want to 
know the answer!

<snip some good examples of bureaucracy>

Steve:

> Excess bureacracy is simply bloated middle management filled
> with people who consume money but add no value to the system
> in return for that money. 

Mary Ann:

Oh, that is so, so true.  Bureaucracy also has a habit of giving the 
wrong people responsibilities for skill-specific tasks which these 
people do not possess.  Some months ago a friend of mine, who works 
in the magistrate's office in a southwest UK city, was, for some 
unknown reason, given the task of familiarising magistrate judges 
with their new laptop computer software despite my friend hardly 
being able to use the software herself.  And no, she does not, nor 
has she ever, work in tech support.  Stereotypically these men and 
women of law are pretty much clueless when it comes to anything more 
technical than adjusting their funny wigs so my poor friend was 
forever being bombarded with problems these magistrates were having.  
One of the main problems was the judges locking themselves out of 
their own computers because they couldn't remember their passwords, 
which makes the matter of them taking the future of members of the 
public into their "capable" hands pretty scary.  Anyway, my friend 
constantly had to pass these computer problems on to tech support, 
where they should have gone to in the first place.  Instead of tech 
support working directly with the judges, though, they had to go back 
through my friend.  This, of course, slowed the entire process down, 
infuriating the judges who were stranded without their laptops and 
caused my friend vast amounts of stress.  It's an insane situation 
which never should have happened, but that's local government for you.

Don't get me started on bureaucracy in the education system or we'll 
be here for days and I'll burst a few blood vessels in the process.

Mary Ann, who has every intention of keeping her nose clean and 
never, ever ending up in a magistrate's court