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Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

breakingdefense.com

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Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#221

Post by chatmasta »

MrMetlHed wrote: post #38

Worked with a guy ten years ago that would obsessively read these reports from the Pentagon. Here's a couple of his stories about the matter: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/pentagon/ and https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-mari... (very old and I apologize for my horrific javascript at the time.) It sounds like nothing has changed. Relevant to this crowd, maybe: "Most of the Cobol code the P…

See also, "John Stewart Questions Defense Deputy Secretary on Budget:" https://youtube.com/watch?v=50MusF365U0

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#222

Post by giantg2 »

uticus wrote: post #44
MrMetlHed wrote: post #38

Worked with a guy ten years ago that would obsessively read these reports from the Pentagon. Here's a couple of his stories about the matter: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/pentagon/ and https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-mari... (very old and I apologize for my horrific javascript at the time.) It sounds like nothing has changed. Relevant to this crowd, maybe: "Most of the Cobol code the P…

Of course, devil's advocate would point out COBOL in 60s was written with a lot more focus on lasting in general. They didn't largely have the same general attitude of 'we iterate quickly with our script kiddies' as is prevalent today. Not that all software from then was wonderful. Or that COBOL magically guarantees great code. But, on the flip side, you can't say the code base isn't battle-hardened (to various liter…

Even when I started 12 years ago in Java/JSF/Oracle stack there seemed to be way more focus on durability and longevity. The system I started on was architected in a way that made it easy to modify and integrate with other system. It worked well. Eventually it's scope creeped, which would necessitate modernization. But it was very maintainable and lasted years.

Now the systems I work on are hot garbage because the tech is constantly needing upgraded versions, changes to the code are onerous because of the way the system was designed, we are constantly having data issues for various reasons, and people jump teams every 2 years so there's no continuity.

I'm convinced it's a leadership issue. Push for speed and you'll get it. It will cost you in other areas.

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#223

Post by giantg2 »

ebiester wrote: post #183
docandrew wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder though whether the up-front costs incurred by your team would eventually be outweighed by the long-term costs of the quick team.

I am not convinced that it would. The quick team will get to learn three times as much and adapt to the actual customer need. The cost of change in a system built with stability as a quality attribute will be higher. (As you can see from a system like the old mainframes!)

Mainframes are expensive because they're niche and basically a duopoly. The companies supplying them know their days are numbered and charge high prices before the market goes dry.

In my experience, the quick teams only learn the surface content. A lack of depth tends to result in more errors down the road and poor architecture. But I guess it doesn't matter since half your team will jump to the next project company in 2-3 years anyways and take that knowledge with them.

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#225

Post by earthscienceman »

queuebert wrote: post #187
dostick wrote: post #124

60% of 35 trillion is unaccounted for. With this kind of money they can build whole separate world under earth surface. Nothing they can't buy with that money.

That's 420 years of the NIH budget. They lost FOUR CENTURIES worth of groundbreaking medical research. We have really eff-ed up priorities. In other units that I'm known for, that's 550 Enrons.

When you measure it like that... something really tingles and puts it into perspective. That also shows how much progress we make with how little money. To put it in units I know:

I work on a team that operates ~the only climate research station in Greenland, the fastest melting piece of ice on earth. The total cost of our project is ~10e-7 of the money they lost. You could build, operate, and employ ~10,000,000 scientists at 1,050,000 climate research stations with that kind of money.

Let's just say our forecasts and climate projections would be pretty spot on with that sort of funding.

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#226

Post by bumby »

bastawhiz wrote: post #167
bumby wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of Murphy's Laws of Combat: No combat ready unit ever passed inspection. No inspection ready unit ever passed combat. Managers need to be careful of Goodhart's law. (in this case "passing inspection" may not be the best target)

And yet hundreds of thousands of companies pass the same audits. The call for audits came from ridiculous amounts of misreporting and waste. Accounting systems that can't do accounting and deal with trillions of taxpayer dollars should not have the goalposts moved. A 0.001% error in a trillion dollar system is ten million dollars. That's taxpayer money that could fix derelict bridges or pay for thousands of children…

I agree with you, but I’d venture to guess most of those companies would use “combat” in that sense as an analogy.

The DoD does not.

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#227

Post by Exoristos »

Mistletoe wrote: post #3

Can anyone explain to me why it is awful for a person to live in debt but it is okay for the federal government to do so? I've never understood this in the least, other than the "kick the can down the road, America superpower backed by military blah, blah, blah" very weak argument. History is full of the carnage of failed empires that had this same idea. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN 32 trillion in debt…

Similar reason it's a bad idea for you to be in debt to Tony Soprano, but not necessarily for him to be in debt to you.

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#228

Post by jongjong »

omginternets wrote: post #224
metabagel wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside the Bay Area, $250K is top dollar.

It definitely is not.

WTF. I worked on some high exposure projects as a senior dev and never a final offer above $130k USD. Even after haggling hard at a company I had been at for 3 years and they told me I was their top, highest paid engineer and it led me to quit. Then I got approached by Facebook to work in London HQ and the offer they were dangling was £100GBP which was about $130k USD. Highest offer I ever got before I even got to the final round of interviews was $160k USD from a well known crypto company but for some reason the head of engineering didn't show up to the final interview at the last minute after I flew through all the tech tests as those devs who interviewed admitted. It was weird.

I always assumed the reported 250k plus salaries were fake news or only reserved for children of powerful people.

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#229

Post by gautamcgoel »

count wrote: post #170
psunavy03 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with 20 years active and reserve time, the only thing I'd really tweak here is that the budget is somewhat centralized; it's just the execution that's decentralized. DOD is an Executive Branch department that operates on money programmed by Congress. Agencies choose, within limits of Title 10 US Code, how to spend that money, but the "pots" or "flavors" of money they have to spend are allocated in the Cong…

Heh, most of the DoD is. But DoD also has non Title10/PPBE-programmed funding (foreign military sales, contingency and humanitarian operations funds, MWR funds and incomes, support-to-other-agency (e.g. the US Navy NAVWAR organization provides SUBSTANTIAL IT and cyber expertise to non-DoD entities and other federal agencies such as the FBI and DHS). The DoD is like the End Game Boss on legal and financial edge cases.

Where can I read more about this non Title 10 funding?

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#230

Post by jongjong »

askonomm wrote: post #18
teaearlgraycold wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I don’t know if what the government is doing is the best long term decision. But the US’s national debt could be compared to a mortgage. And the government’s income is massive so they can be in trillions of debt without it exceeding what they can reasonably pay off (never paying it all off, but paying off individual loans). So by your analogy, is it actually bad for a normal person to be in debt? Normal people hav…

Has the number ever decreased? As in, have they actually paid things off? Without actual numbers, U.S feels increasingly like a high-school bully who borrows money and then threatens with violence when that money is wanted back.

Agreed. If a government never intends to reduce its debt load, it may as well just start printing money outright and giving it to their friends. In fact that would be fairer because debt creates an artificial burden on the shoulders of the population who then has to pay a second time for all that mismanagement and/or corruption. First they pay through inflation, secondly they pay through enslavement to repay the debt which backed the inflation which enriched those who are now enslaving them.
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