Just a tiny example of terrible governmental spending.

It’s not the spending, it’s the contracts that these politicians give their defense contract buddies. They’ll build the cheapest overall product but charge outrageous replacement/maintenance fees. Politicians get a kickback and the taxpayer gets screwed.

Tinker started 3d printing parts in house because of the over spending and vendors discontinuing parts. I never worked in those shops but I knew joes who were real shit, some even with fab backgrounds, our military is capable and often willing to do the work. That’s what we need

I think it’s great that our government has appointed people willing to address this issue. Hopefully, it breaks the cycle where vendors contribute half their earnings to senators or congressmen, preventing reform. This cycle of fraud, waste, and abuse is widespread in government, especially in the industrial complex and insurance industry: overcharging, political contributions, and resistance to change. This may not be solved by 3D printing alone; the healthcare insurance industry is another area where this is common. Now you might see why they shut down the government over a fabricated healthcare issue they haven’t tried to fix for the past eight months or even four years. @Mericamemed @LibertyPillMeme @WhiteHouse @DOGE @SenateGOP @SenateDems @HouseGOP @HouseDems @GAO #MilitaryIndustrialComplex #DefenseSpending #FraudWasteAbuse #HealthcareReform

Thats not just terrible government spending, that's blood thirsty business leaders with a vampiric hold on the Ameircan tax payer. How about those businesses stand up and tell the America People why its better for national security that entire aircraft are grounded while they prepare a 313,000% markup?

Sounds like the military industrial establishment was corrupt and should be investigated, we would like reparations for the stolen funds if those war millionaires were profiteers, What laws are there against profiteers I wonder, sounds like treason if a war is going on

One thing he didn’t mention. The $47k was the turn in value. Meaning the manufacture only charges $47k if you give them your “broken” part. If you don’t turn in the broken part you pay full price. The manufacture then “refurbishes” the part by installing a new knob and sells it back to the military for another $47k when the next knob breaks.

Somewhere back in the anal-of-times, $5.00 hammers were sold for $300.00 Boeing comes to mind.. (I know my figures aren't exact as it's been decades ago, but the example is close enough).

It’s not just the price of the material. There is security involved, responsibility, life management and hopefully improvements. Not only that, it creates jobs outside of the military for those who can’t or don’t want to join. It’s not always just about money, but the story.

Welcome to the aviation grift - it’s not exclusive to the military either.

We use to have a "Fraud, Waste, and Abuse" program in the Marine Corps back in the late 80's and early 90's. It identified things like this. The program disappeared in the Clinton Era. Now ask yourself why. We were saving the government billions of dollars each year, and exposing all this fraud.

I used to be in this industry,the horrible part was, the government would never accept the suggestions, Which industry would constantly come up with, on how to lower these prices. It's like they wanted to keep them high!

Be careful with this, as this subject can become misleading fast. These are good examples, but I do remember when people threw a fit over aircraft grade bolts and nuts costing thousands of dollars… Tolerances people. It costs that much because the margin for error is none.

We need more men like this. Saving us American taxpayers' money to put where it's needed. Love to see it.

Let's start with a directive from SecDef overturning the official policy of the military: "SPEND EVERY ALLOTTED PENNY OR YOU WON'T GET MORE NEXT YEAR!"

A painted traffic cone..

Gonna leave this right here...

This is one of the biggest issues the military and government has. Contracting officers need to be held accountable for this problem.

"We 3D scanned it and reverse engineered" Soooo, you copied it. Most likely in violation of some patent and copyright correct? But kids will be fined and jailed for download a movie. Welcome to America.

Those are the kinda projects some of us non-essential workers are doing organically. We are developing 3D printed parts to be put on 20mm cannons for USAF. All put to a halt with the furlough.

Money Laundering

No company, industry, or government will be spared the drive for efficiency. You've been warned.

@grok who is this speaking? Where and when was this speech?

It’s terrible contract agreements that get us to these places…clean up the contracts so these absurd situations don’t happen

You don’t hate the military industrial complex enough.

The problem is they’re fighting politicians politicians make a ton of money with that markup. Sadly, I will never happen. The problem is politicians.

I dont buy this. Something made in the US should not be breaking easily. If it is breaking easily, break the contract, find a new manufacturer. Dont use an example like this to normalize, unqualified electronic repair of mission critical technology.

The USA created a pen that would work in zero gravity for astronauts and NASA. The USSR sent cosmonauts up into space with pencils……I see a correlation

Price gouging from contractors in a nutshell.

Honestly this isn't even a glimpse into the amount of money that goes into spending to fix aircraft and redesign of parts that could help for improvement in how they function. I've worked on two different airframes and I've seen quite a bit. Quite a process to the whole thing.

toy manufacturer could make those two components for about $5.50 and still make money

Everything the government touches is exactly like this…and we’re not even talking cost overruns

Don't tell us who that is.

Truth although the government shouldn’t write contracts that allow them to get caught paying many x multipliers of the cost of an item