[Superman]

As many of you know, I work in the public works construction industry. Public agencies are generally required to award a contract to the lowest bidder. In Europe, they have a system that makes much more sense. They throw out the "outlier" bids, average the rest and award the contract to the bidder that comes closest to the mean.

In looking at bid amounts, very often the very good, known, local, efficient contractors' bids are incredibly close. Sometimes amazingly close to each other. And then sometimes there is some yayhoo that submits a bid that is tens of thousands of dollars, maybe 30%, lower. Trust me when I tell you that it is not advantageous or advisable to award the contract to the yayhoo. In the long run, any of the other bidders would have been less expensive than the lowball guy. But hey, rules are rules and the cretins who listen to conservative talk show radio think it's simple, and think it's a waste of money to not use the lowest bidder. I wish the public were a lot smarter than they apparently are.