Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Obamacare Website Debacle? That Was Nothing!

By, Chris Rossini

$500 million for a non-functioning website is chicken feed. Reuters has a very similar story that no one will bat an eye over, but that wasted much more of our money.

Back in 2005, the U.S. Air Force had BIG plans for the creation of some new-fangled technology that would supposedly help them to run more efficiently. The "Expeditionary Combat Support System" (ECSS) would cost a mere $1.5 Billion. In other words, Obamacare contractors can eat their hearts out. There's bigger money to be made making technologies for the Air Force.

Now, whenever government announces what the cost of anything will be (in this case $1.5 billion) the first thought in your mind should be: Bullshit.

Think of every government cost projection as the base amount (at best). That $1.5 billion isn't the final cost. It's more like the floor.

Well, seven years later, and after $1.03 Billion was spent on this ECSS thing, the Air Force scrapped the idea:
ECSS had yielded “negligible” value and was “no longer a viable option,” the Air Force said. It would have taken an estimated $1.1 billion more to turn it into a system that could perform about one-quarter of its originally planned tasks, and couldn’t be fielded until 2020.
Let's do some math: They went from $1.5 Billion total projection, to a revised total projection of $2.1 Billion for just 25% completion if they were to continue.

Remember the rule. Even the new cost projection is: Bullshit.

After the Air Force nixed the project, a "commission" led by an undersecretary of defense produced a report that said:
The original promise of ECSS “was an exaggeration not founded on any true analysis”.
It's only a billion dollars. Why would anyone produce any type of analysis, let alone a "true" analysis?

And that's that.

Some people made out like bandits. They were paid $1,000,000,000 to produce nothing. Money out of my pocket, and out of your pocket was transferred into the pockets of those who "play the game" like champs. These people can then take our money and buy a handful of sweet luxury yachts to sightsee in Ft. Lauderdale.

Hold on a second!

A billion dollars?...Throw some jet skis and helicopters on those yachts. You only live once, right?

When it comes to government and its contractors, nothing succeeds like a really good failure.


Chris Rossini is on Twitter, Facebook & Google+

6 comments:

  1. Chris, you do a good job. I am impressed!

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  2. Absolutely sickening.

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  3. if yo want the big money flogg nukes to the government, Barry's lot were going to do some refits and stuff, only 200 billion over ten years but the CBO thinks its more likey to be about 355 billion so. what its will actually be is anyones guess but its going to be closer to 500. for shit that sits in ground or on a sub just to annoy the Chinese, Russians or Iranians or whoever. http://news.antiwar.com/2013/12/23/cbo-obama-nuke-plan-to-cost-355-billion/

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  4. Chris, this just scratches the surface. Probably the best read on this topic is Tom Woods' "The Neglected Costs of the Warfare State" available here at Mises.org - http://mises.org/journals/jls/22_1/22_1_7.pdf

    Also, I should know since I used to work for a company that is and has been apart of the Military Industrial Complex (although I worked on the Commercial/Non-Governmental side). When the government doesn't need to account for profit/loss and is guaranteed an income via taxes, it shouldn't come as a surprise when it acts as it does on boondoggle after boondoggle.

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  5. Blasphemy! How dare you utter these blasphemous words against the state god of the United States Military. Don't you know that if it weren't for the military you'd be speaking german or have your head chopped off by Muslim extremists? /

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  6. Chris, your articles point out absurdities every day and are always well written and to the point. Enjoy Festivus and looking forward to more of the same next year.

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