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The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

responsiblestatecraft.org

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Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#51

Post by danhor »

ceejayoz wrote: post #42
markus_zhang wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean seriously, you really believe this?

They’re buying four trash cans at a time via a process that can take months of paperwork by the contractor. It’s simply not designed for such low volume scenarios. It’s a bit like doing a custom PCB design and fabrication run for personal reasons. It’ll be $10 worth of components, but a half dozen might cost you $1k if you want someone else to set up a run on their machines to make ‘em. The Stinger missile example fu…

Bad example, JLCPCB will do PCBA for just a few dollars.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#52

Post by aardvarkr »

InTheArena wrote: post #30

Part of the problem here is that the mechanism designed to protect tax-payers (the incredibly complex framework around government procurement) shield players from competition (Aka, the same effect as healthcare market in the USA. This is why modern USA subs use Xbox controllers for joysticks. You can walk out and expense them. The same, if subject to the program, would be a $1k unit cost based on the twin reasoning o…

Subs use Xbox controllers to control the periscope because they found that the controllers were far more intuitive to learn and operate.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#53

Post by hef19898 »

ramses0 wrote: post #44
junon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A trash can needs to be tested and certified for use in the Pentagon? ... holding a small collection of waste is that intense eh?

The traditional response is “over-specification” with a coffee pot on a commercial airliner needing to be certified against becoming a dangerous missile in the event of a plane crash (shatter, break, etc). Yes, it may be that the trash can or plastic had to be certified against breaking in a weird way since it’s a military plane and you don’t want plastic shrapnel in your soldiers (or whatever). It _could_ be that Bo…

You should have a look at the prices for aircraft spares, even re-used ones, and how much the same item costs when sourced for production. And that is without adding another 50% to the price in orser to get lead times down from 15 weeks to 15 days, from 15 days to 15 hours.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#55

Post by scotty79 »

cushychicken wrote: post #40
batch12 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I can deliver a trashcan that matches specs for a mere 40k.

I encourage you to submit a coubterproposal! I'm sure you'd learn a ton about plane based trash cans.

And about how fake all the documentation is and about mob-like web of people involved in all of this.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#56

Post by MontyCarloHall »

afterburner wrote: post #34
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #8

While defense spending is the most egregious, governmental budgets are inflated across the board in the US. For instance, the US spends far more per capita on infrastructure and education than other industrialized countries, for at best comparable (and often worse) results. I wonder how much of this is due to the US’s unique ability to essentially endlessly deficit spend. If the supply of governmental funding is effe…

> US’s unique ability to essentially endlessly deficit spend This is not unique to the US, nor even unique to countries. Almost all countries deficit spend endlessly, which is fine as long as it's offset by economic growth. And that deficit spending can speed up that economic growth. The US's uniqueness is being massively wealthy, so its deficits are bigger.

The US has the fourth highest debt:GDP ratio amongst OECD countries; only Japan, Greece, and Italy are higher, whose high debts are mainly due to severe economic problems, and are not offset by growth.

The US is unique in that (thus far) its massive deficit spending has been offset by growth, although it remains to be seen how long that’s sustainable.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#57

Post by nyjah »

In the early days of automated billing at the defense department there were a couple of ladies that figured out they could way over bill for small things like nuts and bolts. There’s an American Greed episode about it. They eventually got caught because they accidentally sent the same invoice twice and that flagged the system and triggered an investigation. Episode is from 2010

https://imdb.com/title/tt2378874/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#58

Post by cushychicken »

goodoldneon wrote: post #39
cushychicken wrote: post #24

This is a reducto ad absurdum example of how the US government is paying out the nose to keep a bunch of manufacturing and development work on-shore in the USA. Yeah, sure, it's a trash can, there's no reason it should cost $50k. We're all agreed that's an absurd amount to pay for a trash container. The government isn't just paying for the trash can. They're paying for people to design, tool, and maintain that design…

“Military spending is good for the economy” is basically the same as the broken window fallacy. There’s a massive opportunity cost

There's also massive benefits which are hard to directly measure.

Doing advanced, completely unprofitable basic research, for one thing. These are the sorts of projects that spawned GPS, the Internet, and IC manufacturing. Wasn't super profitable at the time of conception, but the military doesn't care. They need capability, irrespective of price. All of these technologies are now keystones of numerous gigantic American companies with billion dollar plus valuations.

Building up US based scientific and manufacturing know-how, for another. Plenty of people take the skills they learn at Raytheon or an FFRDC and use them to start profitable small businesses, which in turn employ more people and generate more tax revenue.

Not that I expect many people reading this to care about that. "Military spending bad" is too easy and convenient a slogan.

It doesn't solve every problem - there are a shitload of people in America receiving inadequate education, nutrition, and healthcare, for example. But it certainly helps keep a lot of Americans employed and paying their mortgages, which is a non-trivial benefit.

Re: The Pentagon’s $52k trash can

#60

Post by koolba »

scotty79 wrote: post #50
cushychicken wrote: post #24

This is a reducto ad absurdum example of how the US government is paying out the nose to keep a bunch of manufacturing and development work on-shore in the USA. Yeah, sure, it's a trash can, there's no reason it should cost $50k. We're all agreed that's an absurd amount to pay for a trash container. The government isn't just paying for the trash can. They're paying for people to design, tool, and maintain that design…

> It keeps people employed, ... What fraction of that $50k landed in the hands of the workers, do you think?

Are we counting tips for the masseuse when the CEO goes to the spa?
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