$16 Dollar Muffins and $8 Dollar Coffee, Courtesy of YOU! The Taxpayer!

[color=dodgerblue]This is my first thread, so go easy on me (:

It's great to know that our tax dollars are being spent on $16 dollar muffins, $10 cookies and $8 dollar cups of coffee. Most of us could never afford to buy those things for ourselves but yet we are paying for the Justice Department to serve these types of refreshments at a 2009 legal conference.

I mean seriously? 16 bucks for a muffin? Who in their right mind pays that kind of money for a muffin?

FAIL.

Source

"We found the Department (of Justice) spent $16 on each of the 250 muffins served at an August 2009 legal conference in Washington," said a DOJ Office of Inspector General report released on Tuesday.

The department spent $32 per person on snacks of Cracker Jack, popcorn, and candy bars and coffee that cost $8.24 per cup at another conference, the report said.
The DOJ also spent nearly $600,000 for event planning services for five conferences, the document said.

The DOJ spent $121 million on conferences in fiscal 2008 and 2009, which exceeded its own spending limits and appeared to be extravagant and wasteful, according to the report that examined 10 conferences held during that period.

reply to post by daryllyn


I wish to GOD I was that muffin man, I mean the one who sold them the muffins!! Dang that's a whopper of revenue for that muffin maker!!!

reply to post by ldyserenity


[color=dodgerblue]Screw college!

I am going into the muffin business!

I know its kind of old news, even though its a current story on Yahoo, but it is just so ridiculous that I had to make a post.

reply to post by ldyserenity


In some venues, caterers jack up the prices of things like muffins or what have you. If you wish to use the venue, you have no choice but to use the over-priced caterer.

Who knows, maybe the venue with $16 muffins was much cheaper than the venue with $2 muffins. (I doubt it.)

reply to post by daryllyn


Agreed. The main problem is the Gov't entity booking the meeting - they should have bargained for reasonable rates - at least within the per diem standards used by other Gov't entities. If it is within per diem standards (meaning that it doesn't leave you only enough for a pack of peanuts for the rest of the day) - then we need someone to revise current per diem standards.

On the otherhand - I also blame the host organization. Making a profit is one thing - price gouging is another...

[color=dodgerblue]And we wonder why we are broke.

$600,000 for 'event planning services' for only 5 events. That's insane!

[color=deepskyblue]ETA: I could probably make 6 dozen muffins for $16 bucks. No one should be allowed to charge that much for a muffin. How on earth are they staying in business with prices like that?

reply to post by daryllyn


i'm interested in knowing how many attended each conference. 'big food' has run amuck in our fair land. maybe, just maybe, the muffins were a lil large, and were shared among several people.

$8.00 coffee sounds like Starbucks. my guess is a lot of machinery had to be brought in, and highly trained (lol) professionals were on hand to dispense the liquid gold.

not saying this is a-okay. just saying, i can see how this may take place. makes me wonder how much Lunch cost.

reply to post by LargeFries

[color=dodgerblue]The head count for one of the events was 250, but the article doesn't say if muffins and coffee were involved at that specific event.

I used to work at Starbucks as a barista. Highly trained? Not so much. (:

They must be very "special" muffins. On a more serious note, it's not uncommon for companies to overcharge the Government for services that would have been a third of the cost otherwise. I can only guess as to why and how it happens. Maybe the caterer knew someone on the inside and figured with their connections they could make a few extra bucks ripping the tax payers off. Politicians and Government workers aren't footing the bill, so why should they care how much their muffins or coffee costs? They enjoy helping their friends out.

Example of companies overcharging: Fleecing of the Government - IT Contractors Severely Overcharging for Classified Spillage Cleaning

Current reports have EDS charging the Navy to the tune of approximately $5 million annually, a figure roughly 10 times the cost of merely replacing the infected hard disk drives with new ones. Cleaning up after these types of security incidents is no laughing matter. The process is designed to be long and arduous for one significant reason – preventing the accidental compromise and potential loss of classified data. With the core intent of ensuring no classified residual data exists upon completion of all required cleaning actions, the process by which servers and workstations are cleansed is actually a relatively simple task for properly trained IT professionals. Although time consuming, the vast majority of the process is automated.

Of course we can't leave out companies like Haliburton: A Region Inflamed: Reconstruction; US Sees Evidence of Overcharging in Iraq Contract

A Pentagon investigation has found evidence that a subsidiary of the politically connected Halliburton Company overcharged the government by as much as $61 million for fuel delivered to Iraq under huge no-bid reconstruction contracts, senior military officials said Thursday. The subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root, also submitted a proposal for cafeteria services that seemed to be inflated by $67 million, the officials said. The Pentagon rejected that proposal, they said.

There are countless companies overcharging the Government on a daily basis, and it's because Politicians have figured out how to steal tax payer money under the radar. Build or support a company, receive Government contracts, do the work, charge exorbitant amounts of money, receive "donations" or under-the-table kick backs. Gore was going to sell us Carbon credits through his company and charge the Government for carbon clean up. They're all con-artists and thieves.

Good old Price Gouging! God bless the USA and it's terminally ill version of capitalism.

IRM

reply to post by daryllyn


You know the caterer is a relative of someone's that's how these folks work. Chaney was CEO of Halliburton and they got all the contracts to rebuild what we blew up. It all stays in the family so to speak. Still silly spending.

reply to post by 2manyquestions


[color=deepskyblue]That's insane. And sickening. And wrong. And such an incredible waste.

It is so far beyond time for a change in this country that it is not even funny!

What's so darn infuriating about that is, as the article points out (I believe, given it's the same one I read), the government did absolutely no cost-benefit analysis when planning these meetings. Sure, they get the meeting room for "free" if they buy food from the hotel, but obviously all the food and price-gauging adds up. You'd think someone would realize that they would be better off paying to rent the meeting space and bringing their own food from Costco. I'd certainly like to think that our government is capable of doing this kind of thinking for themselves when tossing around our tax dollars... and they probably are, they just don't CARE.

Originally posted by daryllyn
reply to post by 2manyquestions

 

[color=deepskyblue]That's insane. And sickening. And wrong. And such an incredible waste.

It is so far beyond time for a change in this country that it is not even funny!

edit on 21-9-2011 by daryllyn because: (no reason given)

I agree. It's not right, but we've somehow allowed them to get away with it. Another great example in the news at the moment is the Solyandra scandal. It's still fresh in the news. Obama Will Pay for Solyandra on Campaign Trail

Whether you call it a debacle, fraud or simply an outrage, the saga of Solyndra, the failed California solar technology startup that left public taxpayers on the hook for $535 million, will cast a long shadow over President Barack Obama on next year's campaign trail. Even as Solyndra executives this week ducked a congressional investigation and pleaded the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination, the anger on Capitol Hill continues to grow. The company went bankrupt two weeks ago, but its financial underpinnings were weak from the start and yet the Obama administration plunged ahead and pressured the Department of Energy to speed up and approve the $535 million in federal loan guarantees. For what? For Obama's green-energy photo op at the company's Fremont manufacturing plant? Or was it related to the Obama fund-raising work of George Kaiser, whose family was Solyndra's biggest investor?

Originally posted by ParanoidAmerican
reply to post by daryllyn

 

You know the caterer is a relative of someone's that's how these folks work. Chaney was CEO of Halliburton and they got all the contracts to rebuild what we blew up. It all stays in the family so to speak. Still silly spending.

edit on 21-9-2011 by ParanoidAmerican because: (no reason given)

edit on 21-9-2011 by ParanoidAmerican because: (no reason given)

[color=dodgerblue]Oh, well you have to keep it in the family when you are screwing over your fellow Americans. It's tradition.

We work ourselves to death so they can take our taxes so they can buy yachts, jets, vacations, insanely priced muffins, luxury hotel stays, and God knows what else, while the majority are just barely making it.

I sometimes wish that I never 'woke up'.

Originally posted by MentalPriapism
What's so darn infuriating about that is, as the article points out (I believe, given it's the same one I read), the government did absolutely no cost-benefit analysis when planning these meetings. Sure, they get the meeting room for "free" if they buy food from the hotel, but obviously all the food and price-gauging adds up. You'd think someone would realize that they would be better off paying to rent the meeting space and bringing their own food from Costco. I'd certainly like to think that our government is capable of doing this kind of thinking for themselves when tossing around our tax dollars... and they probably are, they just don't CARE.

[color=dodgerblue]I am incredibly frugal which might be why their carelessness with tax-dollars really pisses me off.

It's easy for them to blow money that doesn't belong to them.

We have people starving and the Justice Dept is spending $600,000 dollars on just five events. And that's only the Justice Dept.

I would like to see the total for all events for the entire Government. I bet it's staggering

Just further proof that the Government doesn't give a crap about us.

reply to post by daryllyn
Two words.
Krispy Kremes.
(I have coupons )

Seriously? It is the arrogance and superiority-complex of these clowns that create these stories.

We need humility, and a sense of obligation back in the public servants arena.

S&F

Originally posted by beezzer
reply to post by daryllyn

 

Two words.
Krispy Kremes.
(I have coupons

)

Seriously? It is the arrogance and superiority-complex of these clowns that create these stories.

We need humility, and a sense of obligation back in the public servants arena.

S&F

[color=dodgerblue]I love coupons (: I saved $35 on my grocery bill this week. I am not and extreme couponer, just for the record

Just because you have the money on hand to be able to spend $16 bucks on a muffin, doesn't mean you should.

I would like to meet these people. So I can slap them.

reply to post by daryllyn


They don't use all the money for food...they just lie and pocket it.

good post though.

Heck...

Darlin', you bring the Muffins and I'll supply the coffee.

$8 coffee?

you can create a cup of coffee for .$25 cents, max!

Think about health insurance; a hospital stay,

$40 dollar aspirin