What the Pentagons missiles and bombs actually cost prepare to be disgusted..

a reply to: FauxMulder

Do tell, chief.

Everyone else can just read this.

fas.org...

"I want to believe," indeed.

Im more pissed about life saving treatments of octogenarians. What a waste of money.

originally posted by: 0zzymand0s
a reply to: FauxMulder

Do tell, chief.

Everyone else can just read this.

fas.org...

"I want to believe," indeed.

Thanks for linking an irrelevant hundred + page document on the theory and uses of fasteners and the different types.

This doesnt change the fact that the mark up is ludicrous.

The fasteners used are the same that are used in industries all across the country.

I've worked in both.

a reply to: Bluntone22

no kidding just think what a box of rubber gloves or gauze pads is going to cost.

a reply to: FauxMulder

Not always. There are parts and bits used in the military that look perfectly normal, but are hardened differently, or are designed to break directly than their civilian counterparts. It's the same with parts in aviation.

a reply to: dfnj2015

The hammer was BS that has grown in proportion. The cost was due to accounting, not the actual cost. There's also the issue of whether or not parts are still being produced. Parts for something no longer in production are going to cost a lot more than parts that are still being mass produced.

originally posted by: Metallicus
Until we stop wasting money on these weapons of war and attacking people for reasons I can’t personally fathom I don’t see how anyone can justify cutting existing social programs. I am no socialist, but it seems to me we should be spending on American citizens long before we should be paying to bomb people half way across the world.

Simple. The defense budget only takes up about 20% of the entire federal budget. The vast majority of the money the federal government spends, and therefore the vast majority of the debt, is because of domestic programs, not defense spending. See the link in my sig. You could literally cut defense spending to 0 and we'd still be running a budget deficit. Social spending MUST be cut to balance the budget. It's a simple math.

There's also an ideological argument in that defense is actually spelled out in the Constitution as something the federal government needs to provide. Social programs aren't. That stuff should be handled by the States.

Re: what these things cost, I saw first-hand how there is waste in the defense budget. I used to procure supplies for my squadron, and there was a lot of bureaucratic red tape that led to waste. But for the big-ticket items, there's 2 very important things driving up cost:

1 - we have a high demand for them, because we like our people to have great equipment when they have to go to war. That leads to a lot less of our people dying. You don't have to agree with the wars to acknowledge that at least when we send our people to war, they're dying in far fewer numbers than they would if we didn't have all our fancy toys.

2 - there is limited supply of these things. You can't go get them at Walmart. For some of our equipment there's literally only one company that makes them. That is gonna make them expensive, it's basic economics.

a reply to: face23785

Then you also run into my favorite part of budgeting, use it or lose it. Units go out and spend insane amounts of money on something, simply because it's the end of the FY, and they have money left.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: face23785

Then you also run into my favorite part of budgeting, use it or lose it. Units go out and spend insane amounts of money on something, simply because it's the end of the FY, and they have money left.

Yes, that absolutely happens. I've been tasked to do that before. I don't know how the other branches do it, but in the Air Force it was at least a disciplined process. How we did it was each unit submits a "wish list" to the Wing a few months before the end of the FY, and the Wing commander has meetings with the squadron commanders to justify why they need their items, and the Wing prioritizes the list. Then they suck up all the leftover money and divy it out item by item to go down the consolidated buy list in priority order. The result is that usually what ends up being bought are things that are genuinely needed, although there are exceptions for sure. I've seen some sketchy stuff get bought with that "leftover" money.

I believe the President's new budget proposal includes a provision to try to stop the use-it-or-lose-it spending at the end of the fiscal year.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Sure for some specialized parts.

For the most part though, the little screws, rivets, 7/16 bolts and the like we used, are all normal run of the mill hardware widely available.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: dfnj2015

Here's another one:

www.latimes.com...

"$37 screws, a $7,622 coffee maker, $640 toilet seats; : suppliers to our military just won’t be oversold"

I dunno about the other two, but I guarantee that coffee maker isn't your average kitchen coffee maker. It's probably a unique design, like something that had to be custom-designed to fit and integrate into the on-board systems of a B-1 or something. The article also mentions a claw hammer that "looks like" a $10 hardware store hammer. Just because it looks like that doesn't mean it is.

I'm not saying there isn't waste, just that you have to be careful with these things. In their excitement to trump up "wasteful" defense spending, sometimes the media and academia doesn't do very good research. For example, in one of my college textbooks last year, in a part about defense spending they pointed out an instance where the Air Force spent $600 on a toaster. They made it sound like it was a common household toaster. I decided to look into the specific instance the book mentioned. Turns out, the toaster was an industrial kitchen toaster that normally cost about $450. The reason the government paid more for it was because they paid for express shipping.

There are sometimes legitimate reasons why we pay extreme prices for things. Sometimes we are mandated by law to buy "green" products, even though a "brown" product is cheaper. Sometimes we are mandated to purchase something from women- or minority-owned businesses, even if their product is more expensive. Sometimes we pay more for express shipping if an item is needed ASAP, and we often buy extended warranties. Again, none of this is to say waste doesn't happen, but there are lots of misleading stories out there too.

a reply to: face23785

I hope to God they do. I've never understood why they don't roll it over. That makes so much more sense.

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

originally posted by: Metallicus
Until we stop wasting money on these weapons of war and attacking people for reasons I can’t personally fathom I don’t see how anyone can justify cutting existing social programs. I am no socialist, but it seems to me we should be spending on American citizens long before we should be paying to bomb people half way across the world.

Well you don't make money through social programs for citizens you make money through war, and money is all that matters.

You can't make money in the healthcare sector? Education? Housing? Any of the other areas where we have social programs? There's no money to be made? All of that stuff is provided by charity organizations, not for profit?

You guys really don't think through these talking points. You just regurgitate whatever you're told to regurgitate, no questions asked. Sickening.

a reply to: face23785

The claw hammer is an odd one. Its actual cost was $15-20. But when they did their accounting, it got lumped into the R&D costs for the entire lump of parts. When the costs were broken down, the hammer, on paper, was $435.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: face23785

The claw hammer is an odd one. Its actual cost was $15-20. But when they did their accounting, it got lumped into the R&D costs for the entire lump of parts. When the costs were broken down, the hammer, on paper, was $435.

Accounting "tricks" and errors definitely account for a lot of misconceptions around military spending. For example, whenever you see those stories about the "missing trillions" from the Pentagon, if you look into it, the money isn't actually missing.

Basically what happens is we're appropriated X amount to buy Y equipment. Y equipment is accounted for, but there's something wrong with the paper trail for the X money. Obviously the X money got spent on what it was supposed to be spent on, because Y equipment didn't just appear out of thin air and it didn't get freaking donated to the military.

The analogy I use is it's like if you send your wife to the store with $100, she comes back with $100 worth of groceries but no receipt, and you accuse her of "losing" the money. It's logically asinine, but for people that want to slash the military to pay for social programs, no logic is needed.

a reply to: face23785

"Well, I 'm pretty sure I'm right. At least I think I am. I dunno... Can you look that up for me? Look up 'money is all that matters' and 'wars make all the money.' I'll wait."

The sad thing is you can watch the news, or youtube, or movies, or TV, or whatever and hear these same ridiculous talking points. The best part is when you stop the flow and ask why. If they can't walk it back they'll pivot to some other recreational outrage. It's literal mind-control programming. When it breaks you can feel it falling off you like a layer of dirt and sweat in the shower.

a reply to: face23785

The biggest problem with the "missing" money is that until recently there were 200 different accounting programs, none of which were actually compatible with any other. So you have the guys trying to reconcile the main budget, relying on emails and hand written information, because they can't just import everything into the system.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Unfortunately, that is exactly what happens when things like accounting software are added over fifty years through an ever-evolving process with tons of ever-shifting variables.

Too bad it would take an act of Congress to fix it going forward at least.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Again I bring up my earlier point.
The idea of our government controlling my healthcare is fricken scary.

200 accounting programs with no accountability.
Maybe some of that has been ironed out but insurance for 300+ million people will be a huge bloated system.

originally posted by: 0zzymand0s
a reply to: Zaphod58

Unfortunately, that is exactly what happens when things like accounting software are added over fifty years through an ever-evolving process with tons of ever-shifting variables.

Too bad it would take an act of Congress to fix it going forward at least.

It doesn't help that it takes forever to get any new software approved for government use because of, again, bureaucracy. This is just another reason why a government solution to any problem should be the last resort, because it will never be efficient or cost-effective. It's not because of some sinister inside plot, it's because inefficiency and costliness are fundamentally inherent to government. They simply can't be removed from the government process.