A change of pace….we will be bombarded with stats and reports for the next few days so let’s try and change the tone.

I know I do go on about the War Department and it’s inflated budget that grows yearly….and I rail about the sycophants with buckets on money that buy off Congress and the White House….the corruption is just getting worse with every admin that comes to power.

For instance one of the preeminent defense industry has just bee caught gouging.

Indictments of arms contractors for corruption and malfeasance are not uncommon, but recently revealed cases of illegal conduct by RTX (formerly Raytheon) are extraordinary even by the relatively lax standards of the defense industry.

The company has agreed to pay nearly $1 billion in fines, which is one of the highest figures ever for corruption in the arms sector. To incur these fines, RTX participated in price gouging on Pentagon contracts, bribing officials in Qatar, and sharing sensitive information with China.

Engaging in illegal conduct on this scale suggests that, far from being an aberration, this behavior may be business as usual for the company. Given the scale of RTX’s malfeasance, the Justice Department should take a close look at the practices of other arms contractors to determine whether these infractions are industry standard.

The company’s approach is reminiscent of the way arms companies did business in the 1960s, when, for example, massive cost overruns on Lockheed Martin’s C-5 transport plane drew fire from internal critics like Ernest Fitzgerald and congressional gadflies, like the-Democratic Sen. William Proxmire of Wisconsin.

Resorting to bribery has been less prevalent since Sen. Proxmire pushed through the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, which was a response to a massive scandal involving the bribery of officials in Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia. The exposure brought about by the scandal – which covered events going back to the 1950s that were not known to the general public until a set of 1975 Senate hearings on the activities of multinational corporations showed the world how bribery was used to sway the decisions of foreign policy makers. This resulted in major consequences, including the conviction of former Japanese Premier Kakuei Tanaka, along with 10 other business people and government officials.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/raytheon-corruption/

This is disgraceful….if these thieves are caught red handed then they should be fined and sent to the bottom of any future contracts.

I wish I could say this was a one off incident….but it is all too common.

Then there is Boeing, you know the plane maker that has been doing shoddy work, it was also caught gouging….

A new report from a Department of Defense watchdog claims Boeing managed to slip a few pricey items through, reports Reuters, inflating the cost of a dozen spare parts for C-17 transport planes used by the Air Force to the tune of almost $1 million. According to the DOD’s Office of Inspector General report released Tuesday, included in those spare parts were bathroom soap dispensers that ran the military arm nearly $150,000 in unnecessary costs. The markup on the soap dispensers was 7,943%, the report noted—or more than 80 times what similar commercially available dispensers cost, per CBS News.

“The Air Force needs to establish and implement more effective internal controls to help prevent overpaying for spare parts for the remainder of this contract, which continues through 2031,” says Defense Department Inspector General Robert Storch in a statement. He makes the point that “significant overpayments for spare parts may reduce the number of spare parts that Boeing can purchase on the contract, potentially reducing C-17 readiness worldwide.”

Under that contract, Boeing is the entity that buys the spare parts for the C-17 planes, then is reimbursed by the Air Force. The inspector general’s review was spurred by an anonymous tip about the soap dispensers. Boeing, meanwhile, says the spare parts had to be significantly modified to meet military specs, and that it plans to dive into the details in its own written response “in the coming days,” per Reuters. The Air Force says it concurs with the “intent” of the watchdog’s recommendation to “determine whether spare parts prices are allowable and reasonable before payment,” adding that it would seek to recoup more than $902,000, reports USA Today.

These are not solo incidents this practice is all too common and there is little oversight anyone thanks to the GOP and stupidity.

This is taxpayer money and should be reported whenever abuse has been rooted out….but rooting it out seems to be a huge obstacle.

But that is just my wish for this government.

Taxpayer cash side note: 

A new report by the Israeli outlet Calcalist reviewed Israeli military spending on wars since October 7, finding that Washington is funding 70% of Tel Aviv’s military costs. In a little over a year, the US has provided Israel with more than $20 billion in military aid. 

“The scope of American aid since the beginning of the war is about 85 billion shekels… According to official estimates by the Bank of Israel, the total cost of the war is…approximately NIS 118 billion.” It continues, “Therefore, according to a simple calculation, The Americans financed about 70% of the war effort.”

According to the Cost of War Project, the US has given Israel $22.57 billion in military aid since the Hamas attack. Calcalist concludes without US support, Tel Aviv’s war would simply be unaffordable.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/washington-is-funding-70-of-israels-wars/

And no one seems to care how much money is being pissed away on these endless wars.

Why is that?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”