The Pentagon needs the DOGEs, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. They have always paid ridiculous prices for everything. The companies we buy from gouge us. It isn’t grocers gouging us.
Leading military contractors like Boeing raised the prices of several everyday products after receiving non-competitive contracts, costing taxpayers more than $1.3 million.
Responsible Statecraft
Until 2010, Boeing charged an average of $300 for a trash container used in the E-3 Sentry, a surveillance and radar plane based on the 707 civilian airliner. When the 707 fell out of use in the United States, the trash can was no longer a “commercial” item, meaning that Boeing was not obligated to keep its price at previous levels, according to a weapons industry source who spoke to RS.
In 2020, the Pentagon paid Boeing over $200,000 for four trash cans, translating to roughly $51,606 per unit. In a 2021 contract, the company charged $36,640 each for 11 trash containers, resulting in a total cost of more than $400,000. The apparent overcharge cost taxpayers an extra $600,000 between the two contracts.
In another case, Lockheed Martin hiked the price of an electrical conduit for the P-3 plane as much as 14-fold, costing the Pentagon an additional $133,000 between 2008 and 2015. Keep reading…
It is legalized corruption, and it mostly occurs with non-compete contracts (lack of competition). There is no accountability for lower-cost items. It especially happens with lower-cost items. The Truthful Cost & Pricing Statue only covers accountability for goods over $2,000,000.
The people want better prices, Congress wants to get reelected, the Defense Department wants more money, and the contractors want more money. Thanks to lobbyists, Congress doesn’t want to be labeled weak on terror. The contractor doesn’t have to reveal the costs. It’s a dangerous mix, and the people just can’t compete with these forces.
The government is too big for anyone to care or even try.
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Anyone over the age of 30 can tell you this sh*t is NOT news
The entire Russian military budget is less than a 100 billion $$ and they are crushing NATO. The Pentagram and their unaccounted for trillions is a money laundering operation.
Anyone whose even attempted to comply with a federal contract know the costs involved. The DoD wants 60K man hours of testing with equipment you have to build from scratch, then they contract your company for 12 pieces. Hell yeah they’re going to be $300 a piece. The DoD wants to go through your trash to make sure you haven’t disposed of anything banned by the EPA, even if you’ve been in business for 75 years. They want to review your employee rosters to ensure that you have enough of the “right” [for this week] people on your books, even if they are not the people qualified enough to help the Company GET the contract. FURTHERMORE – the DoD AGREED TO THE PRICE.
$300 per trash can. Hell yeah.
I think I read it was closer to $51k per trashcan…
There is a big dark hole in the Pentagon called Black Ops. Large amounts of money are thrown down this hole from the exorbitant prices pay for common things. Some of the items Black Ops gave us the Lockheed U-2 spy plane, the Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird”, and the latest US secret aircraft orbiting the earth in space.
“Black Budgets” need to be eliminated because they are hiding everything from us, American citizens, who get stuck for the bill with zero accountability from the criminals charging exhorbitant prices & the criminals voting the payments be made(so they get their under the table bribes)! Isn’t anybody curious how the 10 richest counties in the U.S. surround Washingtoon’s SWAMP & how people “suddenly” become millionaires after only 2 years in Washingtoon on a $175,000 per year salary?
Not to mention the Pentagon has failed yet another audit. Literally trillions of tax dollars unaccounted for. Let that number of zeros sink in…
President Eisenhower, in his farewell address, warned of such abuses and also of the danger of men like Dr. Fauci.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocation, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet in holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.