… and $3B goes a lot further in North Korea than in the US – they don’t have that big “skim rate” to the defense industry.
I’m amazed at the resourcefulness of our enemies. The whole 9/11 plot by the 15 Saudis cost less than $400,000. They even saved money by telling their Florida flight instructor that they had no interest in learning how to land the plane. Too bad the Pentagon can’t operate with that kind of efficiency – all we get is $200 wrenches and $15,000 toilet seats.
intercst
Congress set the requirements, so blame them…
That was a function of DoD procurement. I read of one case where the Air Force needed a new foot for a stool, on an AWACS. They sent the purchase order to Boeing. Boeing sent a purchase order to the vendor of the stool. The stool vendor sent a purchase order to it’s foot vendor. The foot went back up the supply chain, with every stop along the way adding for overhead and profit.
DoD procurement rules are well intentioned, only use properly vetted vendors, with oversight. The corner hardware store is not properly vetted. Meanwhile, the MIC has worked out how best to game DoD procurement.
Steve
We hear about that hammer! What was it 25 years ago? We will die hearing about that hammer.
Nailed it.
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It looks like there is a tax on crypto. Maybe other nations should join NK.
I’m pretty sure the defense industry lobbyists set the requirements. At least half of the $4 Trillion we spent on the Iraq & Afghanistan wars never got any further than the Washington DC suburbs.
intercst
They were not “hammers” in the sense of carpentry, etc. They were marking hammers used by inspectors of military aircraft parts–so each hammer (maybe 6 of them, total) was made with a unique marking symbol for each inspector. When a part was inspected and passed, the item was hit one time with that inspector’s hammer. Think about marking the wing components of a high-end spy aircraft. Don’t want to hit too hard or multiple times–or the part might need to be remade…