Price Gouging and the Pentagon’s $52K Garbage Can
By M Dowling
The Pentagon needs the DOGEs, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. They have always paid ridiculous prices for everything. The companies we buy from gouge us. It isn’t grocers gouging us.
Leading military contractors like Boeing raised the prices of several everyday products after receiving non-competitive contracts, costing taxpayers more than $1.3 million.
Responsible Statecraft
Until 2010, Boeing charged an average of $300 for a trash container used in the E-3 Sentry, a surveillance and radar plane based on the 707 civilian airliner. When the 707 fell out of use in the United States, the trash can was no longer a “commercial” item, meaning that Boeing was not obligated to keep its price at previous levels, according to a weapons industry source who spoke to RS.
In 2020, the Pentagon paid Boeing over $200,000 for four trash cans, translating to roughly $51,606 per unit. In a 2021 contract, the company charged $36,640 each for 11 trash containers, resulting in a total cost of more than $400,000. The apparent overcharge cost taxpayers an extra $600,000 between the two contracts.
In another case, Lockheed Martin hiked the price of an electrical conduit for the P-3 plane as much as 14-fold, costing the Pentagon an additional $133,000 between 2008 and 2015. Keep reading…
It is legalized corruption, and it mostly occurs with non-compete contracts (lack of competition). There is no accountability for lower-cost items. It especially happens with lower-cost items. The Truthful Cost & Pricing Statue only covers accountability for goods over $2,000,000.
The people want better prices, Congress wants to get reelected, the Defense Department wants more money, and the contractors want more money. Thanks to lobbyists, Congress doesn’t want to be labeled weak on terror. The contractor doesn’t have to reveal the costs. It’s a dangerous mix, and the people just can’t compete with these forces.
The government is too big for anyone to care or even try.
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