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Yesterday, Monday October 3rd, I went to check on my student loan account and was greeted by this screen:

A whole week to change over one account system to a new web site?  This is RIDICULOUS.  They even admit that the telephone operators will be clueless during the transition.  The only encouraging thing is that the overpaid flailing incompetents are being open about their flailing incompetence.

You might ask, by what standard do I hold this project to be sub-standard?  Let me give one example, from the lately villified banking industry.  My bank, its stock value hit by risky lending, was bought out by another bank.  Last week, they completed conversion of accounts and customer-facing web sites.  On ONE SINGLE SUNDAY, the old accounts were closed and reopened in the new bank.  Bill pay payee information was converted over.  Monday morning customers could see everything together on the new bank's web site.  In my case my mortgage was already with the new bank, and it was right there with the converted bank accounts.  Oh yeah, I got out money on Sunday too, which was properly debited right away [they could have cheated and set up temporary slush funds which would settle out days later].  Against this example, this government effort falls far short.

But should we hold gobment burrowcrats to the same standard?  No.  Actually we should hold them to a higher standard.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm

"Federal workers earning double their private counterparts"

What grates me even more, on a personal level, is that this is from an agency which is one of the key players in the house of cards that passes for the US monetary system.  They pass out billions in loans and loan guarantees at unreasonably low rates to thousands of people without regard to qualifications - using freshly printed fiat currency.  Then loan-burdened graduates find their coffee-shop wages don't have enough buying power to cover both reasonably-priced dinner wine _and_ student loan payments, and they're considered victims.

{Oh, but don't I think education is important?  Doesn't a robust college system help our economy and competitiveness?  Ask me again when there isn't a gun to my head forcing me to pay for the nonsense posing as education now, and when the agent holding the gun isn't earning twice as much as me.  Odds are good that I'll sign up to be a charter donor to the private educational trust that you're volunteering to help run [just like Thomas Jefferson did!].}

Anyway, how they handle this little technical task, moving a system to a new web site, fits perfectly into every argument against big government.  After the obvious unjust redistribution and moral hazard, the inefficiency, waste, and misdirection become easy arguments.