Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/05/28/go-ro-go.html
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Good. Let’s have more of this. This is what “draining the swamp” truly looks like.
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Are you kidding me? 16 million? That’s all!?!?! That isn’t even a fraction of a drop in the bucket.
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As long as politicians can profit through kickbacks, lobbyists, and campaign donations, we are fucked.
This is less an example of draining the swamp as it is skimming a bit of the crust off the top.
Do we have any hope of ever shaming our politicians?
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The real win will be if they can stop future price gouging. I’m dubious because it seems like this company is set up specifically to corner the market and then act like a monopolist.
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Debar the firm, it’s owners and board from doing business with the government for 10 years.
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Can’t work if they are they ONLY place you can get certain things from.
Bring back the Truman Committee!
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Take the hit until you nationalize them.
There needs to be a serious consequence to these and pharmabro’s. Nationalize- then sell the non-exclusive rights to several companies at pennies on the dollar.
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Get all money out of politics!!!
'cause that’ll happen. Somehow. Magically…
Many attempts have been made to rein in Transdigm (who, despite their massive profits, clearly can’t afford to buy a vowel…
Snorted my beverage, @doctorow!
Wonder what congressmen/women own stock in this crime organization?
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unfortunately this goes both ways…the Pentagon has routinely told Congress “Hey, cancel the order/bid we don’t need that work/materials any longer” and Congress has said “Nope…it means jobs/votes in my district…we’re spending the money on shit you don’t need anyway”
Glad reason worked out here at least.
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They should be satisfied with the usual 300% excess profit on parts that most companies charge.
The company I worked for actually gave the USCG the plans for our parts so they could make them when they were at sea. Pretty simple parts that you could measure and come up with a replacement, so it wasn’t that big of deal, as we liked to keep our customers happy, especially government that had a lot of extra requirements that made us some good money.
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Good point. The group in the article below got much more than 16 million combined, and we’ll probably never find out where it all went.
That’s gonna be tough when dealing with amoral people who have no sense of empathy.
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The military and defense spending accounts for a ridiculous ridiculous ridiculous amount of our budget.
I cannot imagine that all of it or even a third of it is actually justifiable.
Find companies like this throw their dirty laundry into the limelight and watch them squeal like the greedy pigs they are. I am willing to bet most of defense spending is egregious bullshit more than any other area of government. Scrutinize the hell out of these idiots and make sure every penny was worth it and you might even be able to fund a second America with what you save
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Next we need Ro Khanna and the House Oversight Committee to turn their attention to the “excess profits” that the pharmaceutical companies gouge us for.
That’s because this company is set up specifically to corner the market by dirty tricks that make a monopolist look like an incredibly intelligent con man.
This is what’s wrong with American government and political debate in a nutshell-- you can’t question the military or you’re soft on defense, you can’t question price gouging or you’re a commie, and you can’t defend the costs of social programs or you’re enabling lazy freeloaders.
What we really need are more candidates who get up on the podium and crunch the numbers in a way people can understand, and which cut through bullshit talking points: “We spend more on the military than Russia, China, and 6 other nations combined. We spend more every year, so under Obama we were spending more than under Reagan, even when adjusted for inflation. The military has no reliable accounting so we don’t even know what we’re paying for, and the way they do their accounting implies they are cooking the books. Literal wrapped pallets of US dollars, fresh from the US Mint, disappeared in Iraq. And yet somehow there is no money for national health care.”
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