Amazon: Government – And Its Crony, Monopoly Straight-Jacket

No Man Is an Island - 

or Should Be a Government Monopoly

by Seton Motley, Contributing Author: Every intellectually honest person acknowledges government its own self – is a monopoly.

Only the government Post Office can legally deliver First Class mail – because government has made it illegal for anyone else to do so.

As a flood victim of Hurricane Irma – I can assure you government monopoly flood insurance is…mind-meltingly awful.

And just wait to see how un-great government-medicine Medicare-for-All will be. See: Everywhere on the planet with government-only medicine.

Any competition to government – exists only with the permission and controls of government. Which is hardly a level playing field.

Imagine a baseball umpire – also pitching for the other team.

For instance – governments run schools. You can only set up private education alternatives – with the punitive permissions of your government competition.

Yeah – that’s fair.

This is government – monopolies is what they do.

The old saw is: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Even when we get government to try a little outsourcing – it does so through its monopoly prism.

Government Has an Ongoing Problem Issuing Monopoly, Crony Contracts

To wit: The Defense Department’s contracting out its cloud computing backup.

In March, the following was on the verge of happening:

Defense Dept Gives Trump Enemy Bezos Ten-Year, Monopoly Cloud Contract

Amazon Web Services was going to get the whole thing – by itself. Which is an incredibly bad idea:

“(Y)ou want multiple providers – each offering overlapping portions of the Defense Department’s very many needs. Again, for a variety of reasons.

“One reason: You have multiple providers constantly competing with each other – to constantly provide the best possible service. No complacency there.

“And then there are the national security implications.

“If you have but one provider – and it suffers a service interruption – the entire Defense Department suffers service interruption.

“And for our military men and women serving in some really bad areas around the globe – service interruptions can and will be deadly.

“The Defense Department should build-in to their cloud computing what they build-in to just about everything else they do – multiple redundancies.

“Defense should have at least two providers providing each portion of the cloud service – so that if one crashes, you have at least one at-the-ready backup.

“So, say, at a bare minimum: Five providers – each providing 40% of the necessary services.

“For government school victims – that makes 200%. Which means two providers each are providing every part of the total cloud service.

“Backup. Fail-safe. Redundancy.

“Not one provider – all by its onesies, providing all of the service.”

Because no matter how good someone is – bad things happen.

Amazon Traffic Hijacked – Or Why You Don’t Give Anyone A Monopoly Government Contract

Amazon Is Having a Real Problem Staying Online and Operational

Thankfully, the Donald Trump Administration Defense Department backed away from the Barack Obama Administration-inherited Amazon monopoly brink.

Breaking: Amazon’s Defense Dept Cronyism Comes Under Trump Administration Review:

“It sounds like (Defense Department Chief Information Officer [CIO] Dana) Deasy – is Trump’s DoD Swamp Buster. And nowhere is the DoD Swampier – than in Amazon’s cozy, crony little JEDI cloud computing backwater.

“And Mister Deasy’s process – in just about a week – appears to have led him to not like very much the ten-year-monopoly contract Amazon’s ex-employee was about to hand Amazon.”

Wait – an ex-Amazon employee in Obama’s Defense Department hired…Amazon?

Cronyism: Having Your Ex-Employees Award Government Contracts…

“…makes it much more likely you’ll get government contracts….

“(W)here did Deap Ubhi work immediately prior to government? Why look…uber-Big Tech company Amazon. You know, the company owned and operated by Jeff Bezos – the world’s richest man and an outspoken anti-Trump agitator.

“And Ubhi didn’t just work for Amazon. He worked for Amazon Web Services (AWS) – Amazon’s cloud storage company.”

How very cozy.

Ex-Amazon employee Ubhi drafted the contractor description in such a way – so as only Amazon met the criteria. How very cozy.

Well, thankfully, Trump Defense CIO Deasy seems to have pulled back the government’s monopoly offer to Amazon.

And was saying some very heartening anti-monopoly things.

Department of Defense CIO on Cloud Tech: One Solution Won’t ‘Solve for All’

The Defense Department cloud computing contracting process began anew.

But government – is government. It is a monopoly hammer – and everything resembles a small metal spike with a broadened flat head.

Pentagon Doubles Down on ‘Single-Cloud’ Strategy for $10 Billion Contract:

“The Defense Department has doubled down on a decision to turn to just one cloud-computing provider for one of its biggest IT contracts in years, offering a rebuke to some in industry who fear this approach will give one company too much influence over the government’s information systems.”

Count me in as someone “who fear(s) this approach will give one company too much influence over the government’s information systems.”

Anyone paying any attention at all – should be concerned as well.

And oh look – uber-crony Amazon remains in the lead for the gig:

“Amazon Web Services, the cloud-computing unit of Amazon.com, is seen as a front-runner….”

Were Amazon to still get the exclusive gig – it would mean we discovered a great deal about the awfulness of the Amazon crony monopoly cloud computing deal.

But we would have learned – nothing.

Also a pernicious government trait.

Let us all hope that is not the ultimate outcome.
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Seton Motley is the President of Less Government and he contributes to ARRA News Service. Please feel free to follow him him on Twitter   /   Facebook.

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