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The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

responsiblestatecraft.org

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Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#301

Post by crote »

paulddraper wrote: post #233
ceejayoz wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see no reason why this couldn't have happened here: "oh, your trash cans are going EOL; we expect to need 40 of them in the next 30 years, please produce them before you EOL them". Congress. The big stink would go from "we bought four $52k trash cans" to "we bought hundreds of trash cans we won't need for a decade, if ever!" Examples: Rand Paul complaining about things like $8M in unused solar panels: https://www…

Hyperbole. Orders of magnitude different. 4 extra =/= hundreds extra --- And why did the government spend $8M(!!) in unused solar panels? I could have gotten 26,000+ trash cans at $300 each!

You don't know in advance that you need 4 extra. Maybe the planes get replaced quickly and you're left with a hundred trash cans, maybe they keep using them for a century and you need a thousand more.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#302

Post by fivre »

ajmurmann wrote: post #227
DropInIn wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sort of business sounds like what we want in milsec and government suppliers, no? Reliable even down to the bug behaviors...

The reliable bug behavior is an underappreciated point and can be hard to understand. I work on software that gets deployed on-prem by customers and had very powerful capabilities for deploying your own code to it etc. There have been a few discussions about some bug fixes and in particular security fixes being appropriate in a patch release when following SemVer. Something might be unintentional or insecure, but cus…

I have had this concern raised, and I'm unclear how, if you adhere to that model of compatibility, that you don't effectively dispense with semver altogether and make every release a major version bump, as every change is breaking if you relied on broken or insecure behavior in earlier versions.

IMO it makes more sense to communicate the expected impact of the changes, so that downstream can read a patch bump as unlikely to cause issues.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#303

Post by wmeredith »

tptacek wrote: post #294

Didn't we just recently run a story here about how these prices aren't real, but are rather an accounting artifact of a whole package of services being billed out pro rata across a bunch of line items? That's also reminiscent of how hospital pricing works: the line-item billing you see is shocking, but bears little relationship to the actual accounts payable process the insurers deal with.

So that's a different problem than a $50k trashcan, but it's still a huge problem, and the headline is just as enraging. The military-industrial complex is evil.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#304

Post by mynameisvlad »

ceejayoz wrote: post #280
mynameisvlad wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s. A. Trash. Can. This isn’t some specialized part that the plane requires to fly. It’s just a trash can. Hell, just go to Target and buy one that’s similarly sized. It would be cheaper to fly across the country to find one at this point.

It is a trash can that must contain a waste fire so it doesn't burn through the wall of the plane or suffocate the crew. It is a trash can that must not fly around the E-3's cabin if they're making evasive maneuvers. It is a trash can that must fit in a specific spot in a plane first made in 1957 and ended production in the 1970s. It must have been confirmed via a vigorous process to fulfill all these requirements an…

> You can not buy one of these at Target. They are not putting little plastic bins by the workstations in an AWACS plane.

You do realize there are multiple trash cans available, right? Some that are metal. Of many different sizes.

It would take less time to go store to store across the country and source 4 trash cans than it would to do this ludicrous process.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#305

Post by crote »

jollyllama wrote: post #170
markus_zhang wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean seriously, you really believe this?

It's surprising to see people carrying water for the MIC in this way. Boeing already has the machines to make these kinds of things. It's just going to be sheet metal and plastic molds. Even assuming a one-off custom-fab job, $52k is obscene.

The plane was introduced nearly 70 years ago. Why would they keep around obsolete machines for which the last plane left the factory literally decades ago?

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#306

Post by pphysch »

crazygringo wrote: post #300
pphysch wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not that is true in this particular case, it is indefensible that the most consequential spending (PUBLIC funds for MILITARY & MEDICAL supplies) can't be properly itemized. As another top comment describes, they can afford 9 months to fix a minor bug in military software but they can't afford spending a little more time with proper itemization? I don't buy it.

Define properly itemized. How do you allocate the e.g. design and testing and molding one-time costs when you have no idea if you'll ultimately manufacture 5 for a prototype or 5,000 if Congress places a big order?

The government paid a lump sum for a bunch of stuff. They should be able to verify that the items received represent the lump sum. To do that, they need to itemize the purchases. 1 trash can costs $300, etc.

There are many obvious reasons for this. For example, avoiding fraud and record-keeping (we need 4 more trash cans; how much did we pay last time?).

If we paid $300/can last year, and now Boeing wants $52000/can, we should say "no" and demand Boeing bring down their price or else we will entertain other bidders, to which we can provide exact specifications and retired examples of the required product.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#307

Post by tptacek »

wmeredith wrote: post #303
tptacek wrote: post #294

Didn't we just recently run a story here about how these prices aren't real, but are rather an accounting artifact of a whole package of services being billed out pro rata across a bunch of line items? That's also reminiscent of how hospital pricing works: the line-item billing you see is shocking, but bears little relationship to the actual accounts payable process the insurers deal with.

So that's a different problem than a $50k trashcan, but it's still a huge problem, and the headline is just as enraging. The military-industrial complex is evil.

I don't disagree that there's a problem, but thinking about $50,000 trash cans isn't getting us any closer to solving it, because we're not actually buying $50,000 trash cans. If my understanding is accurate.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#308

Post by tptacek »

crazygringo wrote: post #300
pphysch wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not that is true in this particular case, it is indefensible that the most consequential spending (PUBLIC funds for MILITARY & MEDICAL supplies) can't be properly itemized. As another top comment describes, they can afford 9 months to fix a minor bug in military software but they can't afford spending a little more time with proper itemization? I don't buy it.

Define properly itemized. How do you allocate the e.g. design and testing and molding one-time costs when you have no idea if you'll ultimately manufacture 5 for a prototype or 5,000 if Congress places a big order?

Just a pedantic note here: if my understanding is correct, the dollars on these trash cans might have nothing to do with design and testing of the trash can, or anything whatsoever to do with the trash can; they might instead just be a pro rata category that a larger procurement gets spread into, and the meaningful number is that larger procurement number. Like, the trash can could be an abstract pro rata line item for, I don't know, a stealth bomber.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#309

Post by kcatskcolbdi »

xxpor wrote: post #270
kcatskcolbdi wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The military bought the hammer, Kelman explained, bundled into one bulk purchase of many different spare parts. But when the contractors allocated their engineering expenses among the individual spare parts on the list-a bookkeeping exercise that had no effect on the price the Pentagon paid overall-they simply treated every item the same. So the hammer, originally $15, picked up the same amount of research and devel…

It's still a story of people getting mad about something they don't understand.

If someone shoots me in the foot I don't need to understand the mechanics of a gun to get upset about it.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#310

Post by Jochim »

ceejayoz wrote: post #280
mynameisvlad wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s. A. Trash. Can. This isn’t some specialized part that the plane requires to fly. It’s just a trash can. Hell, just go to Target and buy one that’s similarly sized. It would be cheaper to fly across the country to find one at this point.

It is a trash can that must contain a waste fire so it doesn't burn through the wall of the plane or suffocate the crew. It is a trash can that must not fly around the E-3's cabin if they're making evasive maneuvers. It is a trash can that must fit in a specific spot in a plane first made in 1957 and ended production in the 1970s. It must have been confirmed via a vigorous process to fulfill all these requirements an…

> You can not buy one of these at Target. They are not putting little plastic bins by the workstations in an AWACS plane.

Apparently you could buy one for $300 though. I own a bin that isn't far off that price, and I'm sure many people on the site have much fancier ones.

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