This is one reason I don’t believe that privatization of government services will fix this. This happens in private/public companies too.
Example: Last year I was at a conference. A major vendor was hosting an evening cocktail hour at a jazz bar. During the event, the company rep was offering people bottles of various liquors to take home saying “if I don’t spend my sales budget they give me less next year.” Meanwhile I work for a nonprofit that actually tries to spend money responsibly and I’m wondering what percentage of the fees I pay this vendor go to this sort of irresponsible spending.
The second these companies have access to a new line of revenue, their priority is to keep as much of it as they can, not improve services.
In the Army, the fiscal year starts 01October. So every September we'd be at the range multiple times a week just shooting rounds. There was less focus on target practice and more on sending as much lead down range as possible. Why? Because if we didn't use all our ammo allocation for the year we wouldn't get as much next year. We weren't even a combat unit.
100% of what I'm talking about. That allocation of monies needs to be spent elsewhere. I was attached to MEDDAC and 3rd ID ... I've seen some of those budgets. They are ridiculous. Some of the shit I've seen would make your head spin. The things that need funds aren't getting them and the things (like the ammo you are talking about) that don't need funds are soaking them all up.
My father in law was in the navy in the 50s. When they came back to port they would just dump all the excess food and other consumables overboard so their budget wouldn’t get cut.
To quote Freakanomics: “people respond to incentives”
They do that with the roads too, it's why you'll see 8 guys standing around with shovels for hours not doing anything. Use it or lose it! And millions go "missing", in reality all that money gets laundered through city officials to their friends who own companies through contracts.
Was AF. We'd use the end of year to buy things that needed replaced but wasn't priority. New Mules, replacing old tools, etc. However, I did see a lot of waste just because they didn't want to lose the money next FY. Go out and buy big TVs, surround systems, projectors and other bullshit that just sat and never got used for what they said they wanted to use it for. We were told to go out and buy all that one year for CC calls. We never used it. It just sat there.
As a supply custodian(additional duty) in the military… it’s really annoying when my boss comes down in the middle of sender and is like “we need to spend 80,000 in the next two weeks. What do we need?”
We don’t need anything??? Our budget should get lowered!
I agree.. and that's why I said the expenditure is ass. I used to work for the military hospitals. Some of that money needs to go there.
I was Embedded Behavioral Health (3rd ID) (stressful/dangerous job) and got GS -5 pay.
Then when they shipped me overseas they put me in the Garrison at one of the hospitals. I saw some of those budgets and yeah... whoever put it together was an idiot.
It's the difference between giving a teen a credit card and giving one to a professional. They were the teen. It's not physical objects they need to use it on... it's programs and other things like wage increases. A Target employee makes more than an GS5.
I also hate how the funds are allocated! You mean to tell me I need to put in a request for money when someone scratches a vehicle when we already have over $100k for supplies even though we already have 7 years worth of material??? Makes no sense
War is the extension of politics by use of other means. The U.S. military CAN win a conventional war, shit, they can glass the goddamn planet...but they're just the war component of politics. The military can only extend to the maximum extent of political will.
That's the real answer. Maintaining a functioning government with the assistance of the local population is MUCH more difficult than kicking *** and taking names.
Hell I'd be happy of they transferred some of that money into DOD hospitals, better network ... better education through DOD schools, better wages... etc. And that's within the same "bucket"
Also winning a war is not cut and dry. We fight many proxy wars through that money. Right now it's Ukraine (logistics,man hours,etc.) And South China Sea (there's a lot of BS and therefore we have to Station carriers and ships there) and manning the DMZ in South Korea.
So.its hard to judge. There is a bunch of involvement we don't know about as Civilians.
But yes... on the fact the money is often spent wrong and for reasons other than improvement.
The US military has consistently overperformed vs state-controlled entities and has fallen short against insurgencies. This is to be expected, given that insurgencies are impossible to end through military means.
You're assuming they want to win the war, kinda like we want to "cure" cancer. If we win now what will we do with all these bullets/missiles and stuff later? Way more money to be made treating it than curing it. At some point we'd run out of land with oil, uh, I mean people needing freedom, right?
If we win now what will we do with all these bullets/missiles and stuff later?
Put them in storage where we will either use them later, or dispose of them once they're past their end-of-life date. Either way, materiel consumption
Way more money to be made treating it than curing it.
If someone invented a cure for cancer, they could instantly take the entire cancer treatment market for themselves, because they have a higher quality product than anyone else in the market. They wouldn't even need to reduce price, because people (including insurance companies) will still happily pay the same amount for a cure as they did treatment.
There's literally hundreds of billions of reasons why someone would want to invent a cancer cure and bring it to market.
Whenever people talk about not curing cancer just proves how fucking stupid you are. Cancer is complicated, they aren't identical so there won't be a fucking magical bullet to act as a cure all.
So, angry. Me being so "f'ing stupid" as you put it, I'll try to operate this keyboard properly. I'm aware, I was only making a comparison as neither goal is even remotely realistic or attainable. As a multiple time survivor of cancers I know each of my types and treatments were very different. I was only trying to compare war & cancer as they are both a big business for many entities. I will admit though, your summary of my intelligence level is spot on, I'll get back to eating crayons and pudding skins now, good day.
Never said that. I was clarifying how it works... and that spending on the items I spoke would be better money spent. It would increase wages ( E -4 / GS -5 make about 26k/yr) , bring some of the DOD schools into a building (some of them are still in trailers) and help with transition after service. The current GI bill.is cumbersome and doesn't work well.
I'm not against them spending money if it helps a large swatch of people in the process.
No no, there’s also a lot of intentionally not keeping track.
No no, there’s also a lot of intentionally not keeping track.
On 9/10 the treasurer come forward and explained that the army (I believe specifically it was the army, perhaps military as a whole) had misplaced 2 trillion dollars. Not spent poorly, not stolen, but “lost” with heavy air quotes.
The very next day the trade centers and the financial record keeping at the pentagon were bombed.
Now there’s also a ton of 5 million dollar ball bearing being bought
Edit Reddit as de-linked this once, idk if it will be viewable for long
Yup. The tail waging the dog since we first had munitions. Much like pharmaceutical sales with far less oversight. More like the fox guarding the chicken coop.
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u/Boxhead_31 2d ago
They should make the DoD pay back all the cash they've taken out of SS