Why the US Government Has No Idea How Many Buildings It Owns
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ส.ค. 2023
- Get Nebula using my link for 40% off an annual subscription: go.nebula.tv/halfasinteresting
Half as Interesting’s Crime Spree: nebula.tv/haicrimespree
Get a Half as Interesting t-shirt: standard.tv/collections/half-...
Suggest a video: halfasinteresting.com/suggest
Follow Sam from Half as Interesting on Instagram: / sam.from.wendover
Follow Half as Interesting on Twitter: / halfinteresting
Discuss this video on Reddit: / halfasinteresting
Video written by Amy Muller
Check out our other channels: / wendoverproductions
/ jetlagthegame
Man I didnt realize the federal government was as decentralized as the US itself
There is also the independent agencies where the executive branch has absolutely no say in what they do
@@Thiago_Rodrigues30 Independent agencies report directly to the President, instead of reporting to a Department and its corresponding Cabinet Secretary. I'm not sure if that's what you meant, but I'm just putting that out there. Of course, there's some things Congress was able to do to try to sort of politician-proof certain parts of the Bureau of Labor Statics, and even the President can't impose an Executive Order that clearly and explicitly contradicts the relevant agency's statutory authority as passed by Congress (assuming the Supreme Court is actually able to catch him, of course).
Yep, it’s one of the biggest flaws with our government, along with the existence of the president
@@legoboy468the president is the face of the US government. Although I don't care about who or what you believe the president should be. Saying there shouldn't be a president goes against MANY founding principles of the USA.
@@legoboy468That’s literally the reason you didn’t become a dictatorship in the 200ish years your country exited
It's always scary when HAI has an idea
Like a giraffe riding an elephant
Mmhm
@@newsaxonyproductions7871slush fund 😂
HAI aka Half An Idea
@@anonimmouse17 giraffe as interesting
It sounds like the government DOES have an idea, only there is no centralized database. Most of these are not lost, because there is at least one government agency which keeps track of it.
Sounds like a job for a programming intern…
I suspect that what goes for the agencies also goes for some departments within those agencies, consider the possibility: the last person to know about a property going on retirement while the file for it languidness in a filing cabinet found within the basement of a almost abandoned federal building.
@@alexlandherr
What is a programmer going to do? Bad data in = bad data out
Computer nerds aren't magicians and computers aren't magic wands.
@@Kyle496 that idea might actually work though...
If you take multiple sources of data, and cross reference them, you should be able to filter out any errors.
Then you can make a centralized website where different government agencies can update their own information.
(Just be sure to promise that intern 0.1% of the profit or so...)
Yes, clickbait bullshit
There's one building, the Boathouse, at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, that has no government records of it being built. It was built by Marines with almost entirely supplies stolen from the Navy Engineers that we're building the nearby Railroad. No orders existed for it's building. It wasn't officially a building on base for a while then it was given a building number.
Probably building 989, which is right next to building 42 and across the street from building 626.
That seems like a good psychological horror story. Building that gets built out of nowhere.
This is one of the most "Marine" things I've read in awhile. 🤣
Build
the GSA auctions website is a hidden gem. Just a while couple weeks ago they were auctioning off 3 bitcoin. And also a UH-60 blackhawk helicopter.
Ah, that's exactly what's on my shopping list.
If the government doesn't know it's own building, then can a squatter take it via adverse possession?
Yes, but it takes 10 to 15 years of continuous, conspicuous occupation in order to make the claim.
If any part of that makes them liable for your health (from the previously mentioned asbestos or mold) I imagine they’ll flashbang you and shoot your dog for your safety.
Honestly, it's probably not a bad strategy if you have the time and are willing to take the risk.Just do the research on the law in the property's location - probably want to avoid the states where you have to pay property taxes to show adverse possession - and be prepared for the risk that 14 years into the project, Uncle Sam might come and evict you from the home you almost got. But really, so long as you haven't paid more for upkeep than you otherwise would have paid in rent, you're not going to end up worse off.
And remember, Sam's report is basically saying they have no centralized record of the property, not that no one in the government knows about it. You're looking specifically for property the government isn't maintaining, and no one ever comes to check up on, since providing maintenance or an eviction notice (even if it wasn't enforced) at any time for 10-15 years would disprove adverse possession.
depends on the state
The State of Washington has statutes dating back to the 19th century preempting adverse possession claims against public property. Other states will likely have similar rules.
There is a very creepy abandoned hospital owned by the feds in my hometown-would love to see it gone, but the feds apparently don’t know they own it
We should take the hospital, and push it somewhere else!
Its free real estate
Have something like that near me as well.
An abandoned Metal Asylum.... right beside a huge, pretty out there, government facility.
Old, falling apart and "dont know what they want to do with it" perpetually.
Neat spot for urban-ish exploration when the goons aren't prowling the place.
Sounds absolutely perfect for urban exploration or ghost hunting :D
just adverse possession it for awhile and you will be the new owner of it
I just went on the GSA auction site while bored at work, and I've gotta say, the lighthouses are somehow not the coolest listing.
They're selling a 224-foot NOAA survey vessel for pennies.
It's a whole-ass ship with multiple sleeping quarters, bathrooms, laundry facilities, a machine shop, an electronics lab, and sonar/seafloor mapping equipment, as well as some massive boom arms for lifting heavy objects. It has an estimated "range" of over 20K nautical miles or 35 days at sea.
If anyone wants to start a shipwreck salvage business or become the ultimate doomsday prepper, the current bid is less than $16.5K; it says that doesn't meet the reserve, so it's not going to sell for that, but oh boy it's such a cool ship
So... they're not selling it for pennies, they're selling it for at least the reserve price, which could be 5 million dollars for all we know at this point.
Link? I can't find it.
@@westrim I mentioned that, yeah. I'm surprised the reserve was not listed anywhere but surely the starting bid wasn't 1% of the reserve or anything, right? That would be an insane way to run an auction.
@@theneonbop the auction was set to end in a few hours when I saw it, but here: gsaauctions.gov/auctions/preview/250425
Wow, I never thought my former employer would be mentioned. I remember one time during a routine audit, we identified land with UXO and used car tires dumped on the land we were attempting to sell. It couldn't be sold for any public land use due to the UXO. It was discussed that cattle farming might be an acceptable use, since it is okay a cow blows up instead of a child.
0:19 there is absolutely nothing scarier than finding out that not only is the restaurant I’ve eaten at several times featured in HAI, but that it’s also owned by the *federal government*
It's not owned by the government, it's just near the Army Medical Recruitment Center. That was a segue gag.
I think you'd be surprised to find out how many corporations are just government front companies. Government is code for military, BTW.
Non Governmental Organizations, which are just "private" companies in contract with the military, aka government, do the bidding they aren't constitutionally allowed to do.
The U.S., which is different from the USA, is a corporation. Their sole purpose is to generate profits for the U.S. shareholders. The shareholders aren't us, FYI.
As a doordash driver I've been there numerous times, weird to see it in an HAI video
@@Horrible_DeplorableI think your definitions are a lot more flexible than you seem to believe. I can start an NGO tomorrow and do absolutely nothing and it's still an NGO lol
An NGO is NOT a company. It's a non-profit organisation that isn't owned/controlled by any government. Examples include the Red Cross, Doctors without borders, and Habitat for humanity.
You should definitely buy a lighthouse, and make it HAI world headquarters
He could put in a dimmer switch to make it Half as Illuminated.
@@Merennullithis is amazing
Next video.. 'Why living in a light house would suck.'
But a lighthouse wouldn't be big enough to fit the mascot, Giraffe as Interesting.
The current bids are $16,000-$161,000
5:14 "I don't own a lighthouse. But you know what I do own, along with several of your favorite creators. Nebula"
Good to know sam has branched out from owning staff to owning my favorite creators as well.
President Dodgeball is definitely how I'm referring to him from now on
I think you'll find his real name is President Dodgeshoe.
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” -Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:23
“Everything predicted by the enemies of banks, in the beginning, is now coming to pass. We are to be ruined now by the deluge of bank paper. It is cruel that such revolutions in private fortunes should be at the mercy of avaricious adventurers, who, instead of employing their capital, if any they have, in manufactures, commerce, and other useful pursuits, make it an instrument to burden all the interchanges of property with their swindling profits, profits which are the price of no useful industry of theirs.” -Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME
Things George W Bush dodged:
1.) shoe
2.) charges for war crimes
3.) that 2nd shoe
@@Matt-xc6sp lefty or righty the both work for the men in aprons and the unlawful central banks
That joke was such a banger!!
People will often say the government is too big and bloated and needs to be run more like a business, and this would seem a good example. But I can tell you from working inside the corporate office of a Fortune 20 company that this is a situation businesses also deal with. I see competing interests and in-fighting among different departments and groups at work all the time. I've also seen numerous instances of group A needing something to get their job done, but group B totally ignores it because it's not part of their core work and they don't deem it important to them. And I would bet my annual salary that the company has millions in unused assets and doesn't know what assets it does and does not have.
This is a general problem of size and complexity of any organization. It's not just a government issue.
Still surprised your staff haven't started a mutiny over the weird requests you ask of them
That would make them lose their food quota for the day
I don't get how these people work for youtubers; the youtuber makes literal millions while the editors and researchers get paid chump change
@@pyropulseIXXIat least for HAI i think its more fair than these bits make it out to be
@@pyropulseIXXI i get the idea that HAI doesnt exactly make millions ngl
@@pyropulseIXXIThat's probably a little misleading for most channels. When you see those infographics about "how much X TH-camr makes" they just look at the channel's total income so what they're really saying is "how much income a small business they're running makes". That's going to disappear when you take into account half a dozen full time employees, office rental, taxes, equipment, etc.
There are TH-camrs that do legitimately make millions but those are usually your personalities that get a hundred million views, I doubt many people running one of these 'edutainment' channels are making anything like that.
Just like how the military doesn’t know where its money goes… (and is the only federal agency that hasn’t passed an audit)
Military: receives huge budget
Also Military: Can’t explain what it’s all gone to
well even if you could you couldnt because there are huge black projects
@@FELiPES101 you could just say spent $$$$ on not your fucking bussines, for each black project
@@ninosegersi think you'd just have the same issue lol
Would you like the public to know about the experimental aircraft we use at Area 51? The SR-71 Blackbird looks like a fucking space ship and it was made in the 50s
Pretty simple to fix. Tell all agency's that they can't request any new additional funding unless they report accurately and uniformly all their properties.
This was how the drinking age was set (states continued to receive existing funding, but were barred from any new funding for highways unless they set the drinking age to 21)
If an agency has its cash flow threatened they will straighten up real quick
And exactly how would anyone know if all the properties were being accurately reported?
Lol facts
That is not an accurate comparison at all.
Maybe we shouldn't promote intergovernmental extortion, which completely subverts the checks and balances our government is supposed to have.
Do the inverse. States need to charge the federal government property tax
1.7 billion sounds like a huge amount of money until you remember that the government spends 6.5 trillion a year, so this waste accounts for less than .03 percent of government spending. It's the equivalent of someone who makes $60000 dollars a year losing 15-20 bucks. Kinda annoying, but not something you spend a ton of time worrying about
You would be wise to remember who has to pay for of those insignificant sums every year. Not only that, but US politicians keep piling onto the point where they are continuously borrowing money on top of the income from taxation. The debt ceiling is the theoretical limit to how much politicians are permitted to borrow, but since they also control upping this, they do! It's no wonder why no one wants to contribute their fair share, this is simply not good enough for the gluttony of congress.
@@GeorgeVCohea The worst part is, the debt ceiling often _encourages_ overspending. Use it or lose it.
That said, I don't think anyone would complain about the government cutting excess spending. The problem most people have is what the government tends to consider "excess", especially when under Republican control:
- Anything that helps average people is considered excess. Social security, healthcare, housing, education, etc.
- Anything that helps the rich and powerful or large corporations is considered critical.
It should be easy to see why anyone who doesn't see themselves as a "temporarily embarrassed billionaire" might have a problem with those definitions.
Unfortunately we're also very good at PR campaigns. "Cut spending!" with no context sounds great. But as soon as the context starts coming into question we get a "hey look some oppressed group thinks they should have rights that's communist or something better pay attention to that instead!"
So we end up with voters constantly bitching about the national debt and the state of the economy while consistently voting to make those issues worse because they're more concerned about some over-exaggerated border "crisis" that doesn't actually affect much of anything beyond the news cycle.
We should worry about how much they spend
@@alphabetazeta5373 > We should worry about how much they spend
Its much more important to worry about what they're spending it on.
Far too many Americans just blindly demand spending cuts without paying any attention whatsoever to what gets cut.
Then they act completely confused when roads are full of potholes or when they have to start sending their kid to school with a roll of TP because the school can't afford to stock the bathrooms anymore.
@@altrag
Fuel tax is supposed to cover potholes, and whilst I have heard Republicans calling to end a lot of cruel spending, I cannot remember them ever publicly calling to get rid of the fuel tax. This is one that even Amazon pays!
As someone who manages property on a DOL contract this is fairly accurate. A lot of locations separate property into a few types; real property (Land,buildings, permanent fixtures), expendable property (toilet paper, office supplies), and movable durable property both sensitive (electronics, high theft risk items) and non-sensitive (furniture, gas cans, carts). Of all 4 of those they only do regular reports on the sensitive property.
As a USCG contracting, logistics, and property officer, I say you are incorrect. All real property, as well as everything except expendable stocks are inventoried and triple certified at every command level ANNUALLY. This is a CFO mandated reporting requirement. Reported by each Branch to the GAO for Congressional Budget Oversight.
@@Zach-ku6euI'd bet you're both right, because someone once said "eh, who cares, we have more than enough toilet paper" and just stopped caring about it, and since our Congress is literally the second smallest legislature relative to national population on Earth no one has noticed the fudged or missing numbers because that person was absolutely right that no one cares, and it'll probably come back to bite *someone* in the ass eventually. The only reason it probably hasn't is because any sitting member of Congress who would bring it up in an election campaign would look like an idiot for bitching about how many toilet paper rolls the DOL is using, the only ones who would bitch that much are Republicans, and they kind of have a messaging problem with regards to caring too much about what individuals do in the bathroom.
Creating a new agency to deal with it wasn't a bad idea. Taking the responsibilities of dealing with all the costly aspects of it from the agencies involved removes the incentive to hide the properties. It needs to be coupled, though, with incentive to reveal the properties, though, such as a percentage given to the agency budget OR some form of penalty for hiding unused property and an auditing process to seek them out.
There also needs to be a reporting standard with enforcement. Every government agency talking to other government agencies eventually is forced to adopt reporting standards to make these things function. If it's an enforced requirement, it doesn't matter if your internal system is a different format. You either modify your system to output what is required, you replace your system with one that does, or you get replaced by someone who will do one of those two things. Federal agencies may have a degree of autonomy, but only in so far as the top level of their branch (Congress, President or Supreme Court) allows - so this ultimately is a problem of Congress and Presidents refusing to crack down on it.
maybe not entirely refusing, passing the smallest bill is already a huge challenge, let alone passing a bill with enough power to change so many agencies
@@ovencake523 While it may be difficult to pass high profile things in the post-2016 climate in Washington, a lot of things still get passed, with little mention, when both parties want them to be. While we were hearing that "nothing" was passing last year, 308 bills passed.
This isn't a partisan issue, and would benefit the politicians of both parties because it's a way to be seen as cutting waste and it would free up resources for other goals. The reason this only gets a feigned effort is because it would impact the autonomy of political appointees in federal agencies, and that is a boat they are very careful about rocking.
I don't see why we couldn't give the job to the ATF as useless as they are
@@gobblegobble239They have very specific articles of the Constitution they were established to violate. Separation of criminal duties is important. 😛
IMO the issue is that the new agency (or maybe should be part of the GSA) was a board that made recommendations, rather than taking recommendations from agencies and handling all of the new-owner-finding.
Fun fact: The State Dept owns the former Iranian Embassy in San Francisco. It is a mansion in the Pacific Heights neighborhood.
I worked for Air Force Civil Engineering one summer. They had water tanks on base property that they didn’t even know that they managed and not an outside contractor. These tanks hadn’t been inspected for years. This video is believable.
AF veteran here. This video is VERY believable. 😂
You can tell this was a recently produced video, because the screenshots from the GSA auction site are the shiny new one that they just rolled out like a week ago.
Whenever something decentralized serves the public good better, the US centralizes it, but when centralization instead serves the public good, the US decentralizes, lol.
It does seem to be like that..
more than a few historic gems have been left to rot because of this
The "president dodgeball" line got me to laugh out loud. That clip is one of the earliest political memories I have.
Just checking in on that sentence at the start of the ad: does Sam own Nebula with some other creators or does Sam own some other creators and also owns Nebula?
Any clarification would be helpful, thanks.
Should be the former, the 4th most recent video on Wendover Productions might help you out! Guess this comment wouldn’t show if I linked it
He made a video about the founding of Nebula this tells you more.
Obviously Sam owns other channels like RealLifeLore, they're in the basement with his Wendover employees.
sam owns you
he is one of the founder owners of Nebula
My house used to be owned by HUD. Thankfully they didn't know the value :D so I got a 130k house (now worth 300k) for 85k.
Nobody knows anything or is able to keep track of anything. Up to this day, most paperwork is on, well, paper. And the amount of forgotten boxes standing around in every major company, government or any other entity of significant size and age is just depressing. That's why those conspiracy people don't have clue. People can barely organize a garage sale before their organizational talents are at their limit
Don't attribute things that can be gross negligence to malice
You're very much correct
Most major companies are blindingly efficient compared to the US government.
Digitization is ongoing, but boy is there a lot to do. I was on a project for a year scanning voter change of address paperwork from a single decade. There was 5 pallets worth, dozens of boxes and hundreds of thousands of forms.. Thankfully, it had already been databased, so we were just making digital copies and shredding the physical copies.
@@dereklenzen2330I'm willing to bet that's not true.
@dereklenzen2330 efficient, perhaps. Efficiency does not equal keeping track of stuff, though - and can be diametrically opposed. They spend as little as possible on things that don't make money, such as organizing your files
It’s so frustrating that an agency or program with excess property can’t sell it and keep the proceeds… stuff just ends up in the dump because it doesn’t pay to surplus it.
If you ever resent the fact that you have to do an unwieldy amount of paperwork for your job (and I know I do, quite often), just remember that there's a realistic chance that not having people do that paperwork could be even worse.
As a USCG vet, them not knowing that their buildings are in need/not in need of repair tracks. The whole services infrastructure, from buildings and boats, to weapons and ppe all need an overhaul.
But they broke. Do more with less. Semper p baby
Thanks for the clear scale of 1 giraffe stacked on top of an elephant. That is indeed a very precise unit of measure.
The number one issue in government is the inability to enforce compliance between agencies. There’s no real way to do anything to an agency that just simply refuses to comply with a directive. Their budgets come from Congress and Congress isn’t going to just cut their budget because one of the agencies said that they’re being mean to them. It’s exact same thing in state government as well. Add to that the capitalist driven media creation of the Ron Swanson stereotype and you end up with the most dysfunctional nightmare you’ve ever seen
A big issue thet you briefly mentioned was the fact that tons of these buildings are old and have serious asbestos issues. So its just super expensive to fix and no one wants to foot the bill lol.
Can’t they just demolish and sell it as farmland?
I’m absolutely sure I’m about to be corrected for various flaws in that plan.
The channel is on Amy’s shoulders
One other thing to consider. Whenever GSA plans to do something to one of their buildings--whether it's fixing a roof to be more energy efficient, adding artwork to the public space in a court house lobby, or redesigning space for new occupants--there will always be Federal, State, and local politicians who will either champion the action, fight it, or just want to add their two cents to the plan. Nothing is easy. Every GSA building that ever been built has had to have had it's funding approved by Congress. Likewise with excessing.
Always a good day when GiraffeAsInteresting makes a cameo
As a longtime resident of Nebraska, the entire state is Nowhere and probably half the properties in the rural areas are very similar to that one
Anything new with corn?
The first mention of GSA summed up the whole video in my head lol
Man oh man have they never heard the expression "as-is, where-is, no warranty of any kind"?
Just the right video sort of video to be watching at 3:30am while in a hospital having broke my foot!
Hope you feel better bro 💪
Never hurts to raise awareness of a stupid issue like this. Some people will be interested, and someone may be interested enough to do something about it.
If I had the money and lived in the US I'd definitely go ahead and buy one of those lighthouses, not sure why but it's really tempting.
Now I'm wondering if my country has any lighthouses up for sale, although I'd need to move to the other side of the country.
Sadly you have to maintain it very specifically and even well funded nonprofits are passing on the chance, as it’s difficult and expensive
The current bids are $16,000-$161,000.
@@theperfectmix2 it's not particularly expensive, I'll give you that, but I ain't moving half across the planet... not like the US would allow me to move in either, I'd probably get insta-rejected the moment they see I'm from a 3rd world country.
That "Mold Paintball" made me choke on my lunch, lmao
1:11 "President Dodgeball" - #LMAO
Let's make HAI own their own personal lighthouse!
"Suffering from success" Landlord Edition
At 0:42, the building shown is actually the New York state court building, not the federal courthouse, which is right next to it.
I would guess that most people, unless they actually work for or with the federal government, have no idea how loose of an entity it actually is. It’s easy to shower blame on “the government”, it’s a lot more difficult to understand the complexities of often independent funding and legal control that were/are completely intentional to provide protections for the citizens. It absolutely can be inefficient and sometimes ineffective, but I think a lot of people forget that civil servants are literally just their neighbors doing the best they can at a scale that is nearly incomprehensible. It’s literally the largest employer in the US and its decisions affect nearly every single person on the planet.
The stock video of "Guy Talking with Hands" @ 5:00 synced up with the commentary really _REALLY_ well! haha
President Dodgeball 🤣
Kudos, Sam, today's HAI vid was also more than hasf as useful.
Happy 223rd birthday to the Coast Guard. Here’s to another year of ignoring building repairs. 🎉
We (well not me specifically) had this issue come up when I was working for my University (which is federal property).
Someone bequeathed land near to the University for student housing, which was a lovely gesture, but nobody knew if the University was going to have issues accepting it. The main issue being that the land isn't really suited to building a student dorm (its too little for one) but even if the university banked it and just slowly acquired more land and then redeveloped it - the site is is on former marshland and height restricted to 2 stories (I think with some special engineering the local council permits 3).
The issue then became what to do with it? It was pretty specifically given to the University with a caveat, this is isn't exactly a cheap area to get land in - someone would notice if it just got sold. Especially because the University has student accommodation earmarked for demolition in future expansion of the campus.
Oh I didn't give a resolution to the story.
The University ended up bequeathing it to the Student Guild (with the permission of her Son-the only relative they could find), which is independent of the University, but a statutory body under the State Government instead.
AFAIK its being used as some sort of transient housing for students suffering domestic violence.
Everyone holds their breath when HAI has an idea
Eddie Burbank goes to every single Rainforest Cafe and Margaritaville in the US and HAI goes to every federal building…
Amy is the real hero of this channel
That transition into the nebula ad was smoooth af
Most would point to this as an example of bloated government bureaucracy that doesn't work. However, it's the opposite. These agencies are able to ignore/deny what is happening with their assets because they need some level of independence to operate their core responsibilities without outside influence of competing interests... even within other areas of the government. If other agencies could just come in and tell them what to do legally, they would lose the level of autonomy they need to perform their work.
I am weirdly stoked that I can buy used government Hyundai Sonatas from the GSA
They do have not that many miles on them, and they typically sell for less than $15k. Most are used by military recruiters, prosecutors, and an assorted amount of Law Enforcement agencies. The GSA basically maintains a government rental car company, mostly comprised of Hyundais, Fords, and Chevys. If you ever look at a US government plate, most are owned by the GSA, but you can rarely see a DHS, FBI, or USDA plate.
One would think that US government would have a requirement to buy only US cars.
@@GeorgeVCohea Why? That's inefficient
@@Americanbadashh
There are people like that in bureaucrazy though, and there are The Big Three and now Tesla. So, the competition is not unreasonable. _“They took our jobs!_ also comes to mind.
It just seems govern mental enough to have expected.
BTW, what is something efficient that government does‽
President dodgeball TOOK ME OUT I wasn’t expecting that 😂😂😂
‘scary farmhouse in the middle of nowhere Nebraska’
ahhhh, so my childhood home?
The example home at 3:38 is quite literally covered in asbestos siding and asbestos roof coating.
Sam’s wrong, you can visit every federal property in the United States, you’ll just also have to visit every property in the United States.
There are some you might have trouble visiting without security clearances.
Wow the dogout in bannockburn, il in the intro. Michael Jordan’s estate is a stones throw away
I can't say anything, I don't even remember what I have in my fridge 10 seconds after looking in it.
Yes, bit your not getting paid to do that.
The real crime here is eating a hot dog with ketchup on it. Poor Amy.
FYI the army recruitment center and Dogout are in Bannockburn, Illinois.
0:15 "this bathroom in northern Wisconsin" damn wtf I live right by the twin ports, maybe I'll go here someday
I just read "Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State" by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, which does a great job of covering an adjacent area of the government not knowing things about itself.
I just started working for the GSA
More importantly: WHY don't you own a lighthouse? Think of how you could look down on Sam from Wendover Productions from the top of such a structure.
Because the current bids are $16,000-$161,000
Poor Amy , getting bossed around
The unrelated hotdog shop is like a minute from my house wtf
Right there with you on the lighthouse. Also acceptable: coastal bunker.
If you want to see efficiency, flip the justification. Make agencies justify building's needs, rather than reporting excess.
1. All (known) buildings are now scheduled for auction in ~one year
2. Points system for justification (points for capacity vs occupancy, sensitivity, distance from other federal buildings etc) - make this process low-friction.
3. Consolidate workers in nearby buildings where distance and capacity vs occupancy allows)
4. Sell off or lease remaining real estate
4a. Prioritize affordable homes.
consolidating workers during an ongoing pandemic is a bad idea
That flying shoe was the best thing about Dubya's presidency
Surely the way to solve this is to go back to basics. In a medium sized town, look at buildings on a map and cross out those that you know are own - StarBucks etc. See what's left and then visit them (or write to them) to see what the score is. Yes it is very labour intensive but this could be scaled up.
Great video 👍 Thank you 💜
sam owns our favourite creators?
In Brazil is too
I would totally bid on those lighthouses!!!
4:22 The FAST Act I see 👀
the irony about neb is i subbed because of you
I'm pretty sure most governments of large countries don't. There are many things that are still not digitalized and counting these things is completely useless because by the time you finish, it's already wrong. But there are efforts to digitalize the info.
One approach used in multiple countries is to start from the other end . Create land ownership maps county by county, assigning a name or number to each . Then record ownership of each unit for tax purposes . The list of units marked "federal gov" will come out in the end .
One famous case is England under William the Conqueror, whose entirely manual records database became known as the doomsday book because it facilitated confiscation by the government . In case William didn't like someone .
@@johndododoe1411 Nitpick: "Domesday", but English spelling was very different back in 1085-6.
the glorious return of giraffe as interesting
1:28 what that stock footage is of even😂
This is a similar situation for the number of employees. It's near impossible to get an exact count of how many current employees there currently are.
I really like that they have to offer all those buildings to people before they just sell it . But there should be something where they have to sell stuff if they don’t use it
president dodgeball is WILD
Amy is my favorite
1:11 -- that's "President dodge-shoe," not "President dodgeball!" 😂
The Wisconsin bathroom looks like one I’ve seen at devils lake
I do real estate for a government agency. None of this is all that surprising, unfortunately.
Property doesn't have to be evaluated for use as a homeless shelter, it has to be evaluated for use to help homeless people. Can be a clinic or counseling or whatever.
The inverse of this should also be considered in that procurement of property for government use is an even longer and costly process than selling it. If a property has potential for use down the road, it's cheaper for the budget and tax payer to hang onto it than sell it. Not to mention a lot of these pushes to privatize public land is heavily lobbied by real estate companies. And before anyone complains about waste and misuse let's not forget that the defense budget is by far the largest and most misappropriated portion of the taxpayer's money where over 50% now goes directly into private sector companies. The pentagon has routinely failed to balance ledgers and it is largely in part to private sector "public private" partnerships exploiting contracts and milking the federal government for all its worth. The lack of oversight and even reporting on this often gets swept over and ignored because essentially the defense budget has been turned into a stimulus package for the rich and powerful.
Just to put numbers to this claim that is almost $450BILLION a year that goes directly to private sector firms that charge nearly 3x per hour to the government than civilian employees doing the same thing. If we want to see our government work better and for the people we need to cut off the leeches that bleed our nation's budget dry.
I should also mention that private companies still get paid even if they fail to produce anything of value for the DoD and there's even less oversight on how that money is spent than with public civilian programs. I like that this type of content is produced but I really hope you also take the risks to challenge these extremely powerful and wasteful private sector entities, because they seem to just get away with blatant fraud and misappropriated funds constantly.
How about doing a vid on government vehicles?
1:13 😂President Dodgeball
I'm just glad the lobster situation worked out. Phew!