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Pentagon Lost Billions, Pennies At a Time
Hugh Pickens writes "MSNBC reports that in 1969, Walter T. Davey, an aeronautical engineer at North American Rockwell, discovered he was being overpaid by roughly 2 cents an hour, or one-third of 1 percent of his pay. Davey submitted the discovery to his superiors and suggested a simple fix. 'It was so simple to correct,' said Davey, a 79-year-old retired Air Force colonel, 'just change a few digits in the coding software.' The Project on Government Oversight, which reviewed Davey's findings last year, estimated the change could save taxpayers $270 million a year. Multiply by 40 years — the length of time since Davey made his discovery — and the figure grows to an astounding $10.8 billion. Legislators ignored Davey's letters, federal auditors deferred to Congress, and lobbyists 'descended on it and tore it into a piece of Swiss cheese' but legislators aren't eager to challenge the powerful defense lobby about a figure that's a relative pittance in the overall defense budget — even if it exceeds $100 million annually. 'A lot of people have taken advantage of the system to reap as much in taxpayer dollars as possible,' says Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight. 'But when you're going up against the contractor lobby — whether you're an individual across the country or a public interest group or a government employee — it's a tough road.'"
Be careful of these numbers. The range of goods and services available today are different, and this makes comparisons hard to evaluate. In 1969 my father earned about $5/hour. To live in the same house today with the same living standard, with his kids attending the same sort of schools and going to the same sort of university, he would need to earn around $100. This feels about right because his grandchild, in the same kind of job (but where pay rates have increased in real terms) earns nearer to $200/hour. This is because overall living standards have changed upwards. So my feeling is that $120/hour is nearer the mark.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Also, don't forget that anything major project is managed according to this chart. :-)
Now the fun part... Try and find the boxes in the diagram where something functional actually gets built!
Correct link: http://www.dau.mil/pubs/IDA/chart%20front.pdf ... and I have to say: wow.
This is why military projects start at $billions and go up from there.
The American taxpayers' dollars are the single most fantastic pile of loot on the planet. It is so big that pilfering it is a full-time job for millions of people. It's like a horde of scavengers around a perpetually gushing cornucopia.
Defense contractors are not even the big time scavengers here. No, the real T-Rexes in this game are the Federal employee unions, believe it or not. A defense contract comes and goes, and is generally audited. A union benefit is forever.
Disclaimer: I have nothing personally against unions, contractors or T-Rexes.
Fantasy: http://ferrisfantasy.blogspot.com/
Both funny and insightful.
To put it another way, government employees don't pay taxes, they're payed out of taxes. The fact that they fill out taxes is merely an accounting trick.
\u262D = \u5350
you have to be carefull comparing old prices in the uk because of the change in the value of the pound though decimalisation
How did decimilizing the pound change its value? It seems to me that only the value of the pence changed.
(Under the pre-decimal system, there are 20 shillings in a pound and 12 pence in a shilling which makes 240 pence in a pound. After decimilization, there are 100 new pence in a pound.)
Uhh, it IS wasteful spending of the FCS money, because what the military should actually be doing is streamlining the procurement process or implementing a fast-track procurement process for combat operations.
To put it into perspective, gold cost $34/ounce in 1971. So this guys can buy about 1 ounce of gold for every 6 hour he worked. Gold today cost almost exact $900/ounce. So you'll need to be paid about $150/hour to buy the same amount of gold with 6 hours of work.