So if you take all the instances of accounting fraud, and add up all the dollar numbers involved in those instances, they add up to $6.5 trillion? Is that a helpful number in understanding the scope of this problem?
I’m sticking with the forlorn hope this is all a massive cover up of the super-black-budget funding of Delta Green in it’s ongoing secret war against Cthulhu.
I’m hoping the same, but instead of Delta Green, I’m hoping that it’s Task Force: VALKYRIE in their fight against vampires, werewolves, mages and other things that go bump in the night.
That’s what it’s looking like, and over the course of a decade or so. One year they lose ten, which then gets compounded the next year and it just ripples down.
The crazy story is that they still lost 62 billion dollars and are all “but it’s only 62 billion, let’s calm down!”
Of course it doesn’t make sense. If the accountants had done their job instead of making shit up, the numbers would add up.
The ostensible use case for accounting is to make sure that the guys issuing checks don’t believe that they have 6.5 trillion dollars to play with, and thus overdraw your accounts, but rather, spend it prudently.
People confused by / complaining about the headline:
If I stick up a bank and steal $10,000 and then someone else steals that from me, there will have been $20,000 worth of theft that took place even though there was only ever $10,000 involved.
Making up numbers to reconcile one account and then making up numbers to reconcile a sub-account is two counts of fraud. The second instance doesn’t get away with it just because the fraudulent adjustment was already made once upstream.
It reminds me of people complaining about the inheritance tax on the grounds that “income tax has already been paid on that money.” Aside from property tax (which makes little sense — the assumption seems to be that if you own real estate you make income from it, as if property owners all have plantations or AirBnB accounts) tax isn’t paid on assets, it’s paid on transactions. Your grocer isn’t excused from paying sales tax on the stuff he buys on account of having collected sales tax when you bought groceries.
Actually, groceries are weirdly exempt in some cases. I used to work at a restaurant and we had to take our tax exemption form around if we had to run out for supplies, we wouldn’t pay any taxes on any groceries we purchased because we were going to charge taxes on those groceries after we made them into food. So that is literally a case of not paying taxes on the same food twice.
And to add to the reasons to be pissed, the VA system is a fucking shambles. People who signed up are not getting the health care they deserve to have.
Yeah, you don’t pay sales tax on items intended for resale. I meant when your grocer buys groceries of his own, or a TV or a car or something.
It’s kind of a fascinating problem. How many thousands of soldiers have some level of purchasing authority? Even if it’s just $2500 on a government CC. A lot of the fraud probably starts as really innocuous stuff (gatorade mix, for instance), but as it ripples through so many layers of indifferent accounting it turns into something not innocuous at all. How do you make these purchasers care about what they’re doing? It’s difficult to convince a 20 year old that properly documenting a $15 purchase makes a difference either way.
There are two million soldiers total. That means each one needs to spend more than $15. This isn’t the small purchase from soldiers, this is someone buying twenty jets and not keeping track of the money.
For the most part soldiers don’t get spendable money. They have to keep track of everything and turn it back in, including every round. You throw a smoke grenade during training? You keep the pin since you need to turn it in. You get to the firing range, get your 30 round clip and clean up the brass. These guys aren’t getting credit cards for their use, they go to the quartermaster for socks for goodness’ sake.
And you, sir, are a trolley. I said I was confused.
We could argue about what’s driving trollies or not. I was direct about seeing through the “just confused”, “just asking questions” concern driving trollies.
Lets just say that I’m exasperated. If I was confused, I would have been polite.
Of the likely factions revealed in that line of publication I suspect you’re right.
Others are possible of course, but I’d expect the $yndicate to run a tighter ship. Or at least be better at cover up.
My original post, said:
I saw this yesterday and couldn’t quite make sense out of it. How can the army commit $6 trillion in fraud in a year when their budget is $500 billion?
Something is as wrong with the reporting as is with the army’s accounting.
I posed an honest question and mildly criticized the reporting which didn’t explain the obvious paradox. You responded by calling me names and stating facts without sources - but saying I should do the research before posing questions in a discussion forum. If you are exasperated, it is probably because you pick a lot of fights. Try polite first, you might find it relaxing. At least you will be able to comfort yourself that you took the high road. Now you just have one more person in the world angry with you.
Dude, he isn’t worth your anger.
If I remember right Delta Green funds come from the United States military bands budget.
So, probably, yes.
Imagine they were caught overspending on veteran’s health…
…an outrageous fantasy in this world.
I’m not an accountant’ so I can’t really figure out the meaning of statements such as:
They have the receipts to prove 2.29 trillion dollars worth of adjustments?
FCrap!! You are right - and I was wrong. The total delta is 65 billion - still a huge amount compared to the budgets of important things that are underfunded - but NOT what I thought.
My apologies, everyone. 
