In the era of massive belt-tightening budget cuts, the story of two never-completed, unused Navy ships now being sent to the scrap heap after costing U.S. taxpayers $300 million is a case study in Pentagon waste.
Requisitioned by the U.S. Navy in 1985, the two oil-hauling ships, the Benjamin Isherwood and the Henry Eckford, "have never gone on a mission, were never even completed, yet they cost taxpayers at least $300 million," the Virginia-Pilot's Scott Harper reports.
Now the "ghost ships" are headed from their dock on the James River in Virginia to a Texas scrap yard to be dismantled, Harrop writes. And there's one more catch--the United States awarded a $10 million contract to dismantle four ships, including the Eckford and the Isherwood, to a UK firm, so no money from the reclamation will return to the United States.
The two vessels were part of a $567 million request for three oilers put out by the Navy, Harrop writes. But the builder, Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Co. in Philadelphia, defaulted on the contract in 1989. A Florida firm contracted to finish the ships cancelled the contract over price disputes in 1993. The ships are now being scrapped, rather than refurbished, because they do not meet modern specs. "[I]t will close one of the saddest chapters in American shipbuilding and for that matter, federal fiduciary folly," writes global maritime commentator Joseph Keefe, Harrop notes.
Harrop has the full story of the ship's long, unfinished fate over at the Virginia pilot
In my opinion the US could easily cut its defense budget by 60% by pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan and vastly reducing the huge amount of unnecessary troops we have in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, among other places. This would cause no increase in threat whatsoever to the American people.
Shit like this will continue happen as long as we develop new weapons the only problem I potentially see i s hiring the uk firms but if they were the best men the whatever.
Basically this. Should we be outraged about this story? Probably. But 300 million is a drop in the bucket compared to bailing out companies, overall defense spending, social programs and repaying interest on the debt we have as a country already.
What exactly can we discuss in this topic? How angry we are? Seems just like a bandwagon thread and everyone complaining about the same old crap.
lol government. I guess as it doesn't mess with me, then it doesn't affect me. But even so, $300 million? I could live an extremely lavish life off of the bank interest from that.
Basically this. Should we be outraged about this story? Probably. But 300 million is a drop in the bucket compared to bailing out companies, overall defense spending, social programs and repaying interest on the debt we have as a country already.
What exactly can we discuss in this topic? How angry we are? Seems just like a bandwagon thread and everyone complaining about the same old crap.
I agree. I think focus should be more spent on reworking social programs (As they are obviously fundamentally broken in the United States at this point), and defense/military spending.
On July 22 2011 10:08 Voltaire wrote: In my opinion the US could easily cut its defense budget by 60% by pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan and vastly reducing the huge amount of unnecessary troops we have in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, among other places. This would cause no increase in threat whatsoever to the American people.
Thanks for that analysis Einstein you can hand it off to the US SecDef in the morning. Oh wait.
Well seeing as how these ships are close to 30 years old and unfinished whats the point in keeping them? Even sitting in dry dock they would have built up a large amount of rust, protective coating or not.
The cost to bring these ships up to current Naval specs and then the cost of combat testing( if they are combat ships, which we really don't need but thats another issue) the government would spend at least twice the current investment to make any use of these ships.
Not to mention that the navy doesn't exacting have a surplus of sailors just lounging around on a base just waiting to crew these ships. So while this is an example of failed contracts given out by the DoD they made the best choice given the options.
But as stated above this is just a tiny drop in the bucket of wasted DoD bugdet money, there is no telling the trillions of dollars that has gone into failed and undelevopled R&D projects.
I'm sure there are much more extreme cases of waste than this but this is still dissapointing. Can't say I'm surprised, this is a problem that one day I hope to god someone with balls can fix (i.e. a president that doesn't have a war going on and has enough time/focus to get things done). I don't know why but this story kind of made me depressed, there is not many positive things that our leaders bring us these days.
what are your thoughts of 300 million dollars in department of defense waste?
I am FOR government waste!
What the fuck are we supposed to say?
Lol
Next time just give me 300mil and save yourselves the trouble! But seriously, why are they doing shit like this while tuition is going for public universities everywhere ;_;
Speaking of waste, I just threw away a sandwich because after I took my first bite I looked down and realized the bread was moldy in the spot I just bit into. Lost my appetite. Moral of the story: Every person/company/government has waste, which is why a "case study" of waste is rather useless. It would be nice to see some other data on government waste as I'd bet it would be rather bad.
Things like this are why it amuses me when people complain about welfare programs, social security, and medicare/medicaid as if getting rid of them would "fix" America's disgustingly huge debt.
Drop in the bucket, gentlemen. Drop in the bucket.
what are your thoughts of 300 million dollars in department of defense waste?
I am FOR government waste!
What the fuck are we supposed to say?
We're supposed to act outraged, I think. But seriously, this sounds like an unfortunate series of failures, mostly unpredictable. Two different contractors failed to build these ships.
Besides that, $300 million is essentially nothing in the federal budget. In this case, it was spent over 26 years. It's a rounding error.
Don't get me wrong. The budget, and especially the defense budget, is entirely too large. But the real issues have nothing to do with these ships. There is widespread fraud, multiple wars, expensive defense contractors doing the work regular soldiers should be doing, and brand new unnecessary contracts that cost billions.
That's not to mention other wasteful spending, rampant unemployment, and ridiculously low tax revenue.
Lets focus on real problems in the budget, not a failed Cold-War-era project.
On July 22 2011 10:08 Voltaire wrote: In my opinion the US could easily cut its defense budget by 60% by pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan and vastly reducing the huge amount of unnecessary troops we have in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, among other places. This would cause no increase in threat whatsoever to the American people.
Thanks for that analysis Einstein you can hand it off to the US SecDef in the morning. Oh wait.
And what Rooster said.
Implying that this isn't a commonly held opinion in academic literature surrounding troop deployments, and that just because hawkish military planners think something is beneficial to U.S. security that it actually is.
what are your thoughts of 300 million dollars in department of defense waste?
I am FOR government waste!
What the fuck are we supposed to say?
We're supposed to act outraged, I think. But seriously, this sounds like an unfortunate series of failures, mostly unpredictable. Two different contractors failed to build these ships.
Besides that, $300 million is essentially nothing in the federal budget. In this case, it was spent over 26 years. It's a rounding error.
Don't get me wrong. The budget, and especially the defense budget, is entirely too large. But the real issues have nothing to do with these ships. There is widespread fraud, multiple wars, expensive defense contractors doing the work regular soldiers should be doing, and brand new unnecessary contracts that cost billions.
That's not to mention other wasteful spending, rampant unemployment, and ridiculously low tax revenue.
Lets focus on real problems in the budget, not a failed Cold-War-era project.
Hey, guess what happens when you have 1000 different military projects that cost "just 300 million".
The US spends right around 40% of all the worlds military spending on worthless toys that are only useful in some kind of WWII-esque ground war that will never happen in a post-nuclear world.
The U.S. spends a perfectly fine amount of money on their defense. It came out to about 5% of their GDP, which is huge value only because the U.S. has a ridiculously high GDP. Most nations have maybe 2%, the more developed nations around 0.5% to 1%, and army nations at 6% at least, up to 20%.
The U.S. has a GDP twice that of China, the next leading nation. It is almost on par in GDP with the entire European Union. Any percentage of that large GDP is going to look ridiculous.
Given the amount of presence the U.S. army has around the world, 5% is perfectly fine. The spending is increasing? Well, the GDP is also increasing. Everything is increasing.
Stop this mindless bleating that the government just loves the military, and doesn't care about public healthcare or even doesn't care about its people. These sensationalist articles try only to burn images of government corruption in your mind. Life isn't a movie.
As for the ships, they aren't up to modern specs. Is that so difficult to realize?
Today's wars are not fought by ship or plane. All I have to do is press a button and send fifty Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles at you. A ship, any ship, is much too slow to avoid any attack. The Chinese government did the same thing a while back, making a cruiser for testing purposes only, because they know ships are outdated.
Why didn't Bush just blow up Afghanistan then? Civilians. And he had to prove the WMDs or bin Laden's death. Hard to prove if you've buried everything under ten feet of rubble and dirt.
Cruisers exist for deployment only, but in a world where some planes can make intercontinental trips without refuelling, they're becoming obsolete. Do you suggest we continue a commitment for a product that's no longer of any use? You say we're wasting money not using them, well, refurnishing them would waste even more.
And continuing this long post, military R&D is a huge part of society. I did my research a while ago, and my memory is hazy, but military R&D goes into almost every facet of society. I had a professor once say he built a device intended for use at CERN, but it ended up being used in hospitals. Or something like that.
Please stop accusing the government of thoughtless action before giving it some thought yourself. Thanks.
On July 22 2011 10:37 .Aar wrote: Things like this are why it amuses me when people complain about welfare programs, social security, and medicare/medicaid as if getting rid of them would "fix" America's disgustingly huge debt.
Drop in the bucket, gentlemen. Drop in the bucket.
What? The $300 million this thread is about is the amount that is spent every hour of every day on social secutiy/medicare/medicaid. Getting rid of them would obviously fix America's debt but that's simply not practical.
fun fact: 16 trillion is more than the total GDP of the United States.
There is always more debt than there is the principle amount ( as there is always usury tacked on ), so there's more debt than there will ever be real money.
what are your thoughts of 300 million dollars in department of defense waste?
I am FOR government waste!
What the fuck are we supposed to say?
We're supposed to act outraged, I think. But seriously, this sounds like an unfortunate series of failures, mostly unpredictable. Two different contractors failed to build these ships.
Besides that, $300 million is essentially nothing in the federal budget. In this case, it was spent over 26 years. It's a rounding error.
Don't get me wrong. The budget, and especially the defense budget, is entirely too large. But the real issues have nothing to do with these ships. There is widespread fraud, multiple wars, expensive defense contractors doing the work regular soldiers should be doing, and brand new unnecessary contracts that cost billions.
That's not to mention other wasteful spending, rampant unemployment, and ridiculously low tax revenue.
Lets focus on real problems in the budget, not a failed Cold-War-era project.
Hey, guess what happens when you have 1000 different military projects that cost "just 300 million".
The US spends right around 40% of all the worlds military spending on worthless toys that are only useful in some kind of WWII-esque ground war that will never happen in a post-nuclear world.
It's been way over 40% at least a couple years this past decade, but most of it goes to other things than projects like this. Every time there's a major waste like this, it makes news (like the second engine for the F-35). Obviously waste should be eliminated, but it wont fix the defense budget.
This project is a particularly bad example of a way to trim the defense budget, since it's 26 years old. It's older than most people posting here. That's right. It was ordered with the Cold War in mind. It says almost nothing about the current defense budget, and even less about the overall federal budget.
On July 22 2011 10:49 Blisse wrote: Stop this mindless bleating that the government just loves the military, and doesn't care about public healthcare or even doesn't care about its people.
You should cross the border and check it out sometime. One of our two parties will be campaigning on repealing the only significant healthcare bill we've seen in generations. Do you know what they want to replace it with? Nothing. They've also voted to replace our healthcare system for seniors with a voucher program, leaving the elderly to pay for a significant portion of their healthcare costs on the open market.
Also, military spending as a portion of GDP isn't a particularly good measure. If the US spends twice it's nearest competitor, it's too much. There's no rational justification for spending that much.
I agree that this particular issue is being taken out of proportion, but your overall analysis is incorrect.
$300 million in military research that doesn't pan out concerns me far less than billions going to bail out companies and unions or trillions in entitlement programs run amok.
I'm not saying all defense spending is untouchable, but I would cut elsewhere first.
Let's just invest into nuclear weaponry that we can use to eliminate all our immediate military threats and then dump the entire DoD funding into my bank account. Problem(s) solved.
The U.S. spends a perfectly fine amount of money on their defense. It came out to about 5% of their GDP, which is huge value only because the U.S. has a ridiculously high GDP. Most nations have maybe 2%, the more developed nations around 0.5% to 1%, and army nations at 6% at least, up to 20%.
"the more developed nations around 0.5 to 1%" would imply that America, as a developed nation, spends 5-10 time the average, with its 5% spending bordering on being a "army nation"
The U.S. has a GDP twice that of China, the next leading nation. It is almost on par in GDP with the entire European Union. Any percentage of that large GDP is going to look ridiculous.
Given the amount of presence the U.S. army has around the world, 5% is perfectly fine. The spending is increasing? Well, the GDP is also increasing. Everything is increasing.
Why does the nation have so much army presence around the world, while RGDP hasn't changed in the last 10 years, military and defense spending has doubled
Stop this mindless bleating that the government just loves the military, and doesn't care about public healthcare or even doesn't care about its people. These sensationalist articles try only to burn images of government corruption in your mind. Life isn't a movie.
When two small conflicts are costing several times the price of WWII, with Billions of dollars going completely missing and unaccounted for, when anybody even getting close to defense spending is deemed "unpatriotic" while cutting healthcare is perfectly fine. Its extremely difficult to make an argument for anything besides "a government that just loves the military and doesn't care about public healthcare or even doesn't care about its people"
As for the ships, they aren't up to modern specs. Is that so difficult to realize?
Part of the problem is that somehow, defense contracts are working out in such a way that having built a pair of ships, the nation is PAYING MONEY to get them scrapped. That is an extremely difficult concept to realize when even half finished ships during the collapse of the soviet unit were able to be sold for millions of dollars
Today's wars are not fought by ship or plane. All I have to do is press a button and send fifty Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles at you. A ship, any ship, is much too slow to avoid any attack. The Chinese government did the same thing a while back, making a cruiser for testing purposes only, because they know ships are outdated.
Today's wars are almost completely fought by ship and plane, the very fact that much of America's international military presence is based upon its aircraft carrier battlegroups. Any war fought with ICBMs is the very last wars humanity will ever see
Why didn't Bush just blow up Afghanistan then? Civilians. And he had to prove the WMDs or bin Laden's death. Hard to prove if you've buried everything under ten feet of rubble and dirt.
He did neither and alienated most of the world
Cruisers exist for deployment only, but in a world where some planes can make intercontinental trips without refuelling, they're becoming obsolete. Do you suggest we continue a commitment for a product that's no longer of any use? You say we're wasting money not using them, well, refurnishing them would waste even more.
Its somewhat difficult to fight a war when a single trip of a plane (around the world), amounts of hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel, and even then unable to be flown in sufficient numbers to inflict serious damage or to deal with even a rudimentary air force
And continuing this long post, military R&D is a huge part of society. I did my research a while ago, and my memory is hazy, but military R&D goes into almost every facet of society. I had a professor once say he built a device intended for use at CERN, but it ended up being used in hospitals. Or something like that.
CERN is a civilian and scientific research product that has nothing to do with the military, In fact, the united states scraped a similar project due to its cost and lack of practical applications
Please stop accusing the government of thoughtless action before giving it some thought yourself. Thanks.
please inform of yourself of some facts before ridiculing others, thanks
I am surprised. The U.S. government is usually so thrifty and wise with its spending habits. This must be a one time mistake and will probably never happen again.
I honestly can not fathom how the US dollar will maintain its strength in the next 10 years...thats depending on how sustainable a relationship "chimerica" is
Look at what $300 million is compared to the annual defense budget. It's nothing. It seems like an outrageous number because individuals think of the cost on a scale relative to their own income, not a nation-wide budget.
I believe that the USA have bigger issues then this right now so getting rid of these was a good choice. It's a shame nothing was done earlier though..
I am not saying that spending cash on the ghost ships is a good idea, but I think we need to explore every possible reason why that is the case. It is probably a bad idea in the end in my opinion, but it would be interesting to see what possible causes it has. We need more information on this.
Defense budget of the U.S is the largest in the world, but if you compare countries with military spending % of nation GDP the difference is not that great even though it is more than most democratic countries.
Also new equipment and discoveries cost money, you "bet" on what looks most promising, but there can never be 100% success rate. This is actually true for most funding to science and development.
On July 22 2011 10:17 GigaFlop wrote: lol government. I guess as it doesn't mess with me, then it doesn't affect me. But even so, $300 million? I could live an extremely lavish life off of the bank interest from that.
If you pay taxes, which you should do, or will do one day. Then it should affect you.
This kind of waste is natural in big budgets but in a big place like the US military I'm willing to bet that the % is higher than that of private corporations.
Also, to the OP, although this highlights an issue, it is pretty sensationalist. If the constructor of a multi-year project goes bankrupt, what exactly are you meant to do? This will inevitably cause delays and monetary loss to the military. Could the military have handled it better? No doubt. Would the "losses" have added up to many millions anyway? Yup.
On July 22 2011 10:08 Voltaire wrote: In my opinion the US could easily cut its defense budget by 60% by pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan and vastly reducing the huge amount of unnecessary troops we have in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, among other places. This would cause no increase in threat whatsoever to the American people.
See that red part of the bar graph that is all the cost of Iraq and afghanistan(and libya). No where NEAR 60% and It will would cost a LOT to pull out fast becasue we would have to leave behind equipment that we would have to replace. Addtionally basing troops in oversea bases that we built 50 years ago is not at all signicantly more expensive then them sitting in domestic bases.
On to the OPs content this 300 million is completly due the the fact that the Tankers mentione were built as SINGLE HULL TANKERS. ie the type of ships that cause massive ecological damage if they hit something. Once this was demonstrated by exxon valdez near the end of their contruction. All worked was stoped and then they were mothballed mostly complete with the naval reserve. To guard against the possiblity that we got into a major war and suffered major losses to our underway replenishment fleet and then the fact we are at war would override the ecological considerations of having a single hull tanker.
If you want DoD spending to go down we need to kill off programs upgrading the equipment of our forces which is allready way ahead of most of the world. Stoping congresses stupidity with the second source engine for the F 35 or ending the orders of c 17s (which is allready greater than what he Airforce says we need) slowing down the rate at which we build carriers and other ships etc.
simply saying end the wars and retreating our foward deployed troops is simple to say but would not have the effect you think it would.
On July 22 2011 16:47 dogabutila wrote: Oh noes, 12M / year. Guess what? In each DAY medicare is defrauded 17 times more then was 'omg' wasted on this project in a year.
And the stupid liberals won't let anybody touch the programs to restructure them.....
Source? You're talking about 74 BILLION dollars annually here, I have a REALLY hard time believing that...
And wasn't it the liberal idea to completely restructure medicare/healthcare in the US? That seems like a very silly, partisan, unfounded comment to me all together.
On July 22 2011 16:47 dogabutila wrote: Oh noes, 12M / year. Guess what? In each DAY medicare is defrauded 17 times more then was 'omg' wasted on this project in a year.
And the stupid liberals won't let anybody touch the programs to restructure them.....
Source? You're talking about 74 BILLION dollars annually here, I have a REALLY hard time believing that...
And wasn't it the liberal idea to completely restructure medicare/healthcare in the US? That seems like a very silly, partisan, unfounded comment to me all together.
The government says 60B. Some experts say it could be double that.
No. They passed a healthcare bill requiring everybody to be on health insurance (among other things) it doesn't restructure medicare or medicaid at all. If you pay attention to the debt-ceiling negotiations this is one of the sticking points. Libs say they are open to restructuring medicare / medicaid but won't let any fixes go through.
FYI, I'm a libertarian, and I'm not even registered to vote. Partisan? Yea right. Silly? Not when it's true. Unfounded? Just because you don't believe allegations to be true doesn't make them false.
On July 22 2011 16:47 dogabutila wrote: Oh noes, 12M / year. Guess what? In each DAY medicare is defrauded 17 times more then was 'omg' wasted on this project in a year.
And the stupid liberals won't let anybody touch the programs to restructure them.....
Source? You're talking about 74 BILLION dollars annually here, I have a REALLY hard time believing that...
And wasn't it the liberal idea to completely restructure medicare/healthcare in the US? That seems like a very silly, partisan, unfounded comment to me all together.
The government says 60B. Some experts say it could be double that.
No. They passed a healthcare bill requiring everybody to be on health insurance (among other things) it doesn't restructure medicare or medicaid at all. If you pay attention to the debt-ceiling negotiations this is one of the sticking points. Libs say they are open to restructuring medicare / medicaid but won't let any fixes go through.
FYI, I'm a libertarian, and I'm not even registered to vote. Partisan? Yea right. Silly? Not when it's true. Unfounded? Just because you don't believe allegations to be true doesn't make them false.
Those numbers are still staggering, I'm appalled... Thanks for providing a source!
, wasn't the initial bill both reformatory as well as designed to provide universal healthcare? As far as I recall a lot of what was in the initially proposed bill had to be removed to attain a consensus and get the (very much trimmed down) bill finally passed? I must admit most of my information on this topic comes from hearing speeches about it and watching C-Span, which obviously is riddled with talking points and politics.
It however still makes me a bit averse towards proposed trimming/changes to the US healthcare system by the Republican party, considering they originally opposed universal healthcare(and still do, as it's a form of the evil known as socialism?), which is/was ludicrous. All western European countries have a universal healthcare system, that is per capita, cheaper than the old/current US system, obviously that needs to be addressed, the thought that a genuine attempt to remedy that would be blocked makes me sad...
Also when I say unfounded I don't mean to say what you say is false, I'm just saying I have no way of knowing whether it IS true or false, I'm just being skeptical! Sorry if I misunderstood your intentions anyhow, the internet is just filled with people sitting on bandwagons, be it left -or right-leaning, repeating what they hear, not thinking for themselves+ Show Spoiler +
Healthcare in the US is undeniably fucked up. What they can't agree on is how to fix it. For starters, I'd say medical malpractice reform as well as fraud prevention can go a long way. Once we isolate the actual problem and not where we are bleeding money unnecessarily can we then target the real issues with the system.
For example, medicaid was originally designed such that very few people could get on it. Really, back when it was first designed, the age limit to get in was small. Now, people regularly live to ages that make them eligible for it. For the budget in general, social security wasnt meant for people to live off of as people seem to think now. It was more like an additional stipend, not meant to replace private planning but to help it.
The bill as far as I know didn't touch current medicare or medicaid but changed a bunch of stuff in regards to how insurance works and how things can be charged, what can be charged... a lot of regulatory stuff. Then there is a lot of stuff that is still being discovered. It was so long that people couldn't read what the bill actually really did before passing it. Government at its best huh?
I think, the difference between america and europe is that in america we tend to place a lot more value on individual liberty and people resent being told what to do by the government. Atleast, I am / do. Something just strikes me as wrong when people are being forced to buy into something simply because they merely exist as people.
On July 22 2011 10:15 Crisium wrote: Ron Paul would never allow this.
I disagree. The military, police, legislative branch and judicial branch have to be public and Ron Paul believes this as well. Waste and inefficiency is the nature of any public organization and while everyone wants to reduce waste and inefficiency it's just not possible to completely abolish it and things like this are bound to happen. However, what Ron Paul, if given the power, would not allow is the trillions in bailouts, the theft for social programs and socialization of things that should not be handled by the private sector.
It isn't important for me to be a citizen of the most powerful country in the world. I just want a country that is capable of defending itself. Needles to say, I support less military spending.
Could have built SC2 stadiums, at least that'd be something a few of THE PEOPLE actually wanted.
But in seriousness, seeing this, this money not going to social services or into schools and education ( or something to help the unbelievable amount of people suffering; here at home ) is outright disgusting, and the lack of outrage at reports like this ( daily occurences lately ) is the only thing more pathetic.
On July 23 2011 15:27 jmack wrote: Could have built SC2 stadiums, at least that'd be something a few of THE PEOPLE actually wanted.
But in seriousness, seeing this, this money not going to social services or into schools and education ( or something to help the unbelievable amount of people suffering; here at home ) is outright disgusting, and the lack of outrage at reports like this ( daily occurences lately ) is the only thing more pathetic.
To be fair, it was thought that the money spent on the ships would actually go into something. Sure, it didn't pan out, but let's think of the whole situation (Be warned, the dollar amounts are made up, i have no idea how much it would have cost to complete the ships):
Government spends 300 mil on these ships, but then decides at this current point in time, to scrap them. The taxpayers will receive no benefit, they went on zero missions, basically they paid a bunch of workers to half work on a project, and then told them all to go home.
Other possibility: Government spends 600 mil completing the ships. They then realize that the ships are largely worthless, as they don't meet requirements / demand / for whatever reason, they can't really use the ships. The ships are stripped and sold for scrap.
3rd possibility: Government spends 600 mil completing the ships, and although using the ships would be a losing endeavor, the government sends them out on a few dozen missions, netting losses of approx 1 million a piece.
To be honest, i'm shocked and thrilled that they figured out that this would be a waste of money, and pulled the plug on it so early. I feel like getting a government to stop something, even though it might be financially inefficient, is an extremely difficult thing to do.
Hmm, while $300 million over 25 years is certainly a waste, you must all consider this fact in light of the ANNUAL defense expenditure figures since then. I mean, yeah, it's a big number compared to what most of us earn, etc, but to military defense spending....yeah it's sort of like scraping a flake off an egg shell.
I think a good way to decrease defense expenditure would be to go with Obama's plan of weaning off the global military presence. Technology should absolutely be pursued to the fullest extent, but having troops stationed everywhere is what's really expensive. 1 single man deployed for 1 single year costs over a million dollars. Think about THAT number. Then do math. Suddenly this little ship project doesn't seem so impacting.
On July 22 2011 16:47 dogabutila wrote: Oh noes, 12M / year. Guess what? In each DAY medicare is defrauded 17 times more then was 'omg' wasted on this project in a year.
And the stupid liberals won't let anybody touch the programs to restructure them.....
Source? You're talking about 74 BILLION dollars annually here, I have a REALLY hard time believing that...
And wasn't it the liberal idea to completely restructure medicare/healthcare in the US? That seems like a very silly, partisan, unfounded comment to me all together.
The government says 60B. Some experts say it could be double that.
No. They passed a healthcare bill requiring everybody to be on health insurance (among other things) it doesn't restructure medicare or medicaid at all. If you pay attention to the debt-ceiling negotiations this is one of the sticking points. Libs say they are open to restructuring medicare / medicaid but won't let any fixes go through.
FYI, I'm a libertarian, and I'm not even registered to vote. Partisan? Yea right. Silly? Not when it's true. Unfounded? Just because you don't believe allegations to be true doesn't make them false.
Despite a source being quoted, i cant believe those figures. Thats $250 defrauded for every man, woman and child in the USA. If it is true I'm moving to the States to start up a business!
On July 22 2011 16:47 dogabutila wrote: Oh noes, 12M / year. Guess what? In each DAY medicare is defrauded 17 times more then was 'omg' wasted on this project in a year.
And the stupid liberals won't let anybody touch the programs to restructure them.....
Source? You're talking about 74 BILLION dollars annually here, I have a REALLY hard time believing that...
And wasn't it the liberal idea to completely restructure medicare/healthcare in the US? That seems like a very silly, partisan, unfounded comment to me all together.
The government says 60B. Some experts say it could be double that.
No. They passed a healthcare bill requiring everybody to be on health insurance (among other things) it doesn't restructure medicare or medicaid at all. If you pay attention to the debt-ceiling negotiations this is one of the sticking points. Libs say they are open to restructuring medicare / medicaid but won't let any fixes go through.
FYI, I'm a libertarian, and I'm not even registered to vote. Partisan? Yea right. Silly? Not when it's true. Unfounded? Just because you don't believe allegations to be true doesn't make them false.
Despite a source being quoted, i cant believe those figures. Thats $250 defrauded for every man, woman and child in the USA. If it is true I'm moving to the States to start up a business!
Believe it bro, not only does the government admit that much, but a few investigative news reports examine the issue and estimate around that ballpark.
They say that this is becoming the next big thing. Like this is what the people who used to B&E do now. This is what drug dealers do now.
Rarely do people get caught (they only find it was fraud after the fact most of the time), and you can get more. Far more reward for far less risk.
I like the comment about the money not returning to the us
you guys are so greedy. Economy is give and take.
How much did the Us spend on bombs? how much damage did they do to other economies? when you add up both sides i dont think 300 million really matters to tell the truth.
If you want to get irate about something ... there are much better things imo.
On July 22 2011 10:37 jinorazi wrote: i can only hope one day wish all those military funding could be used for better medical, educational, scientific infrastructure. (for all nations)
Only if Tyler Durden is real and one day takes down all the contemporary banks and insurance companies. With an addition of the companies in the arms industry.
Yeah, we damn Americans literally break into your houses and steal your money.
As for the United State's economy, I don't think it's anyone's business but the AMERICAN TAXPAYERS.
We got greater minds than yours and mine working on the economy. If we have a little faith in them, and stop making stupid little threads like this, maybe we'll at least save a little out of our wallets by not having to buy Tylenol?
In the era of massive belt-tightening budget cuts, the story of two never-completed, unused Navy ships now being sent to the scrap heap after costing U.S. taxpayers $300 million is a case study in Pentagon waste.
Requisitioned by the U.S. Navy in 1985, the two oil-hauling ships, the Benjamin Isherwood and the Henry Eckford, "have never gone on a mission, were never even completed, yet they cost taxpayers at least $300 million," the Virginia-Pilot's Scott Harper reports.
Now the "ghost ships" are headed from their dock on the James River in Virginia to a Texas scrap yard to be dismantled, Harrop writes. And there's one more catch--the United States awarded a $10 million contract to dismantle four ships, including the Eckford and the Isherwood, to a UK firm, so no money from the reclamation will return to the United States.
The two vessels were part of a $567 million request for three oilers put out by the Navy, Harrop writes. But the builder, Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Co. in Philadelphia, defaulted on the contract in 1989. A Florida firm contracted to finish the ships cancelled the contract over price disputes in 1993. The ships are now being scrapped, rather than refurbished, because they do not meet modern specs. "[I]t will close one of the saddest chapters in American shipbuilding and for that matter, federal fiduciary folly," writes global maritime commentator Joseph Keefe, Harrop notes.
Harrop has the full story of the ship's long, unfinished fate over at the Virginia pilot
In the era of massive belt-tightening budget cuts, the story of two never-completed, unused Navy ships now being sent to the scrap heap after costing U.S. taxpayers $300 million is a case study in Pentagon waste.
Requisitioned by the U.S. Navy in 1985, the two oil-hauling ships, the Benjamin Isherwood and the Henry Eckford, "have never gone on a mission, were never even completed, yet they cost taxpayers at least $300 million," the Virginia-Pilot's Scott Harper reports.
Now the "ghost ships" are headed from their dock on the James River in Virginia to a Texas scrap yard to be dismantled, Harrop writes. And there's one more catch--the United States awarded a $10 million contract to dismantle four ships, including the Eckford and the Isherwood, to a UK firm, so no money from the reclamation will return to the United States.
The two vessels were part of a $567 million request for three oilers put out by the Navy, Harrop writes. But the builder, Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Co. in Philadelphia, defaulted on the contract in 1989. A Florida firm contracted to finish the ships cancelled the contract over price disputes in 1993. The ships are now being scrapped, rather than refurbished, because they do not meet modern specs. "[I]t will close one of the saddest chapters in American shipbuilding and for that matter, federal fiduciary folly," writes global maritime commentator Joseph Keefe, Harrop notes.
Harrop has the full story of the ship's long, unfinished fate over at the Virginia pilot
From when I first heard this story, I thought it had to do with the lining of the "oil tankers" being only single layer, vs. double layer. After Exxon Valdex, the single layer was no longer considered safe. I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned in the OP.
Not directly related, but some what on topic about the tolls of budget cuts. Long story short, not enough new equipments to replace the aging ones, and soldiers aren't getting the training they needed.
Across all the services, long-standing readiness problems are worsening; breakdowns are happening more frequently.
Several years ago, an Air Force F-15C literally broke in half during flight. Since then, two F-18s have caught fire aboard ships. Today, every single cruiser hull has cracks; A-10C Warthogs have fuselage cracks, and the UH-1N Twin Huey helicopter fleet is regularly grounded. Over half the Navy's deployed aircraft are not ready for combat
On July 22 2011 10:08 Voltaire wrote: In my opinion the US could easily cut its defense budget by 60% by pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan and vastly reducing the huge amount of unnecessary troops we have in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, among other places. This would cause no increase in threat whatsoever to the American people.
Apart from political motivations. US presence in Japan and SK can be thought of as an underlying presence in Asia around China. Troops there can be quickly mobilised for attack/defence against Chinese (or I suppose NK, although I don't think the US actually finds NK important in itself) and China knows this. So, I guess it's just a small Sword of Damocles in case China does something "anti-American" enough.
I would like America to pull out of every other country in the world and mind their own business too though. It must be attractive to fight all wars off home soil though.
In the era of massive belt-tightening budget cuts, the story of two never-completed, unused Navy ships now being sent to the scrap heap after costing U.S. taxpayers $300 million is a case study in Pentagon waste.
Requisitioned by the U.S. Navy in 1985, the two oil-hauling ships, the Benjamin Isherwood and the Henry Eckford, "have never gone on a mission, were never even completed, yet they cost taxpayers at least $300 million," the Virginia-Pilot's Scott Harper reports.
Now the "ghost ships" are headed from their dock on the James River in Virginia to a Texas scrap yard to be dismantled, Harrop writes. And there's one more catch--the United States awarded a $10 million contract to dismantle four ships, including the Eckford and the Isherwood, to a UK firm, so no money from the reclamation will return to the United States.
The two vessels were part of a $567 million request for three oilers put out by the Navy, Harrop writes. But the builder, Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Co. in Philadelphia, defaulted on the contract in 1989. A Florida firm contracted to finish the ships cancelled the contract over price disputes in 1993. The ships are now being scrapped, rather than refurbished, because they do not meet modern specs. "[I]t will close one of the saddest chapters in American shipbuilding and for that matter, federal fiduciary folly," writes global maritime commentator Joseph Keefe, Harrop notes.
Harrop has the full story of the ship's long, unfinished fate over at the Virginia pilot
These are ships that were commisioned before the end of the Cold War and which turned out not to be needed. Britain is doing the exact same thing with 2 ships and the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales will be built at the cost of £6 billion but not equipped with any weapons and used for training purposes only with the French. $300 million for 2 ships is not very much money.
You are looking at it wrong. The investment was allready made and instead of investing more they canceled the project. Or would you rather they finished the project and have those finished ships sit there, doing nothing?
On July 26 2011 06:59 kHaza wrote: These are ships that were commisioned before the end of the Cold War and which turned out not to be needed.
that's all that needs to be said. SSC was a (much) bigger waste of resources during the cold war, but it was necessary to prove american superiority in science.
dismantling went a british firm. Its probably we said we do it for the least amount. Its how the world is. not because they were the very best at dismantling ships.
Every company has R&D and every R&D department is going to "waste" money on their projects. In the long run, 300 million is such a small percentage, I don't think it really matters.
On the other hand, I guarantee you there are some other really silly things the government spends money on that would blow your mind. For example, didn't a couple years back the government spend millions (billions?) of dollars to build a bridge to some island in Alaska that only like 10 people lived on?
to be honest if a huge war had broken out the extra ships would have come in handy. im all for being prepared. now loaning money to corporations that leveraged themselves and gave out loans to people who really shouldn't have gotten loans...they need a slap.
Well mb im kinda missing the point but what is 300 million dollars on the insane military spendings of the united states? They probably thought that maintaining these ships would cost more than stopping the project all together so they too kthe way wich causes the least loss in capital. If you want to save alot of money on DoD cut down on the nuclear arsenal wich costs insanes amout of money to protect, maintain and keep battle ready.
Thats so funny, because at least they started it but failed, in Russia someone would've just steal those money and didn't do anything, and this happens in everywhere. It's considered good if 60% of money were spend actually what they were for and 40% is in goverment employes pockets. Usually its 50:50 It's just sad(
Comparing government spending numbers year to year without adjusting for inflation and GDP growth is a misleading activity. As a percentage of GDP, in inflation adjusted figures, the defense budget is actually being drastically slashed, and a number of programs have been cut.
It says clearly in the graph that it is $ in billion. It is $300 BILLION dollars of waste each year lol.... Honestly though it's about 600 billion in waste. Obama when will you keep your promise to bring the troops home?
On July 26 2011 10:54 MethodSC wrote: It says clearly in the graph that it is $ in billion. It is $300 BILLION dollars of waste each year lol.... Honestly though it's about 600 billion in waste. Obama when will you keep your promise to bring the troops home?
It's like Americans just don't understand anything.
First off, what you saw was the entire budget. The "wasted" $300M was referring to this single project.
"Bring the troops home" is like saying "Make a 6supply depot and 6 rax." In words you may understand, one does not simply walk out of Mordor. Whether you like it or not, "bringing the troops home" is a complicated process, and the fact of the matter is we'll probably have troops (not necessarily an entire army) in the middle east for the next hundred years.
Let me say this, in the hopes that you'll finally understand.
You are worth less than the security of the nation. I am worth less than the security of the nation. National security has the total worth of every life of every person living inside the country -- legal Americans or otherwise -- and the total net-worth of all infrastructure and businesses in the nation. Everything that makes this country more than just rocks and trees, and then even the rocks and trees, combined.
Hundreds of billions of dollars is a lot of fucking money. But national security means a lot more. I couldn't ever hope to calculate the worth of a single life, never mind the worth of well over 310,000,000 lives.
If you disagree, try imagining the nation with a $0.00 defense budget. Lets see how long it takes the world to follow natural human instinct.
On July 26 2011 10:54 MethodSC wrote: It says clearly in the graph that it is $ in billion. It is $300 BILLION dollars of waste each year lol.... Honestly though it's about 600 billion in waste. Obama when will you keep your promise to bring the troops home?
From Afghanistan? I don't think he made a concrete promise for that and if he did the date has not past yet.
Yeah, I am of the camp that this is an absolute, total waste of massive amounts of money, but this is comparatively tiny in the grand scheme of things compared to many other things on which money is being utterly wasted.
On July 22 2011 10:08 Voltaire wrote: In my opinion the US could easily cut its defense budget by 60% by pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan and vastly reducing the huge amount of unnecessary troops we have in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, among other places. This would cause no increase in threat whatsoever to the American people.
Thanks for that analysis Einstein you can hand it off to the US SecDef in the morning. Oh wait.
And what Rooster said.
L O L
Well, what can you expect? Americans and money... They never handled it well. Even while trying to be best friends with the jews from Israel.
On a more serious note, its a shame that happened but if you really look at it, techonology doubles every 8 months... and the contractors kept defaulting, so yes it was a waste but you have to understand they weren't going in saying "lets waste 300 million"
On July 26 2011 10:54 MethodSC wrote: It says clearly in the graph that it is $ in billion. It is $300 BILLION dollars of waste each year lol.... Honestly though it's about 600 billion in waste. Obama when will you keep your promise to bring the troops home?
It's like Americans just don't understand anything.
First off, what you saw was the entire budget. The "wasted" $300M was referring to this single project.
"Bring the troops home" is like saying "Make a 6supply depot and 6 rax." In words you may understand, one does not simply walk out of Mordor. Whether you like it or not, "bringing the troops home" is a complicated process, and the fact of the matter is we'll probably have troops (not necessarily an entire army) in the middle east for the next hundred years.
Let me say this, in the hopes that you'll finally understand.
You are worth less than the security of the nation. I am worth less than the security of the nation. National security has the total worth of every life of every person living inside the country -- legal Americans or otherwise -- and the total net-worth of all infrastructure and businesses in the nation. Everything that makes this country more than just rocks and trees, and then even the rocks and trees, combined.
Hundreds of billions of dollars is a lot of fucking money. But national security means a lot more. I couldn't ever hope to calculate the worth of a single life, never mind the worth of well over 310,000,000 lives.
If you disagree, try imagining the nation with a $0.00 defense budget. Lets see how long it takes the world to follow natural human instinct.
Very well said. People need to get informed and think reasonably about what they would do if they were calling the shots, and taking on the responsibilities of caring for 300 million people. It is very easy to complain and give quick solutions when you don't walk a mile in someone else's shoes.
All i have to say is. You guys need to take economics its simple when you take a very basic economics class. When you look at the market back when it was needed it was set at a certain worth. When looking at a tech industry, worth of an item drastically changes over time due to the nature of technology always evolving and getting better. There you could draw a graft weighting the prices for the benefit of the item, in this case the tankers. After many years and many failed attempts of making this, they put down 300 dollars. For this to continue to put more money into the program except now, it is not worth the benefit, the technology is so obsolete it would be better to cut their losses, from something that was supposed to be finished 10 years ago, and scrap it making as much money as possible from it. Its a great decision just sad that it had to go that route. The reason the military gets so much shit for this is because we all pay for it, the same process goes through every single company like what was said a few posts above about R&D. You never know what will happen.
I am going to go in the military, currently in ROTC, and have seen first hand how R&D works and let me just say, never expect anything to go as planned. Program im working on currently is delayed 2 years. was supposed to be done in two months but now done many many months later and now needed much more money to be put into it to staff the laborers, parts, etc. So please as much as i love going on forums to watch 12-16 year old kids talk about what they may know, and criticize the government, military, businesses, sports figures, etc. please put your self in those shoes and think from a less one sided approach. ( i do it to sometimes, just saying that it would make the country i love a better place.)
what are your thoughts of 300 million dollars in department of defense waste?
I am FOR government waste!
What the fuck are we supposed to say?
User was warned for this post
Rofl
300 million seems to be a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions of dollars of debt we have. If you looked hard enough though, I bet you could find many more such wastes in our spending. So I guess it all adds up in the end
The 300 million doesn't even scratch the 692 billion defense budget. While it's a shame I think the bigger issue here is why are we (The US) wasting so much money on defense? The amount we spend on our military is comparable to the rest of the world put together which is absolutely ridiculous.
On July 26 2011 17:29 GameTime wrote: The 300 million doesn't even scratch the 692 billion defense budget. While it's a shame I think the bigger issue here is why are we (The US) wasting so much money on defense? The amount we spend on our military is comparable to the rest of the world put together which is absolutely ridiculous.
I'm pretty sure most of the money is spent on upkeep. Also, America has the "Best" mentality. We HAVE to have the best weapons, the best ships, the best tanks, the best technology. And we do. We also spend a retarded amount of money on it because defense contractors jack the prices up because there's literally only one or two big companies that the US can go to for technology.
Being in the defense industry is so prosperous on the contractor side, you can say "this weapon needs 5 billion in spending" when it only needs 2 million, the US cannot just say, "No fuck you" because there is no one else to go to.
On July 26 2011 17:29 GameTime wrote: The 300 million doesn't even scratch the 692 billion defense budget. While it's a shame I think the bigger issue here is why are we (The US) wasting so much money on defense? The amount we spend on our military is comparable to the rest of the world put together which is absolutely ridiculous.
More people want us dead. Not trying to brag or anything, but we're a pretty sexy target.
$300 million is nothing when it comes to wasting tax-payer money. In Germany we have the so called Black Book of Taxes which lists- in detail - all incidents of obvious taxpayer money waste. It usually sums up to 30-40 billion Euros each year. Given that the US has four times the amount of taxpayers, I think cumulative taxpayer money waste would easily hit the three digit billions in the US.
Bottom line: yeah, wasting $300 million sucks, but its only the tiniest tip of the iceberg.
On July 26 2011 17:47 Electric.Jesus wrote: $300 million is nothing when it comes to wasting tax-payer money. In Germany we have the so called Black Book of Taxes which lists- in detail - all incidents of obvious taxpayer money waste. It usually sums up to 30-40 billion Euros each year. Given that the US has four times the amount of taxpayers, I think cumulative taxpayer money waste would easily hit the three digit billions in the US.
Bottom line: yeah, wasting $300 million sucks, but its only the tiniest tip of the iceberg.
The United States has a similar thing, in reports done by the Government Accountability Office. Waste in any organization large or small is inevitable, and 300 million is indeed a drop in the bucket, especially when you look at the amount of waste that goes into typical R&D projects, as part of the nature of the game.
In the era of massive belt-tightening budget cuts, the story of two never-completed, unused Navy ships now being sent to the scrap heap after costing U.S. taxpayers $300 million is a case study in Pentagon waste.
Requisitioned by the U.S. Navy in 1985, the two oil-hauling ships, the Benjamin Isherwood and the Henry Eckford, "have never gone on a mission, were never even completed, yet they cost taxpayers at least $300 million," the Virginia-Pilot's Scott Harper reports.
Now the "ghost ships" are headed from their dock on the James River in Virginia to a Texas scrap yard to be dismantled, Harrop writes. And there's one more catch--the United States awarded a $10 million contract to dismantle four ships, including the Eckford and the Isherwood, to a UK firm, so no money from the reclamation will return to the United States.
The two vessels were part of a $567 million request for three oilers put out by the Navy, Harrop writes. But the builder, Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Co. in Philadelphia, defaulted on the contract in 1989. A Florida firm contracted to finish the ships cancelled the contract over price disputes in 1993. The ships are now being scrapped, rather than refurbished, because they do not meet modern specs. "[I]t will close one of the saddest chapters in American shipbuilding and for that matter, federal fiduciary folly," writes global maritime commentator Joseph Keefe, Harrop notes.
Harrop has the full story of the ship's long, unfinished fate over at the Virginia pilot
That's just flat out wrong.
Nah, it's just capitalism.
What? I meant that the author of the article does not understand economics.
On July 26 2011 17:29 GameTime wrote: The 300 million doesn't even scratch the 692 billion defense budget. While it's a shame I think the bigger issue here is why are we (The US) wasting so much money on defense? The amount we spend on our military is comparable to the rest of the world put together which is absolutely ridiculous.
More people want us dead. Not trying to brag or anything, but we're a pretty sexy target.
I'm pretty sure USA is the most feared country military-wise. I don't see any foreign country willing to get in any war against USA, this would be pure suicide. USA has always done pre-emptive strikes that revealed to be about securing geo-strategical and economical key spots in the occupated countries. You might still believe that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that sadam hussein was not going to trade the oil of his country via euro prices and policies.
Sexy target is not the term I'll use. Kinda repulsive target imo.
Why do other countries need less defence system ? Why would they generate less hate ?
I tried to watch your movie and got about 10 minutes in and just turned it off. There is just to much sensationalism, and conjecture for me to spend 2 hours of my life watching it. I am not fan of Obama, nor was I a fan of Bush. It makes some legit points that are already well known, I'm not sure what the point of the video is, other than to push some conspiracy theorist garbage around as true journalism.
You make comments like "USA has always done Pre-emptive strikes," if by always you mean post WWII and even then it's a very weak argument. Our wars in the Middle East have raised our prices in oil not lowered them, so that's not really a valid argument either.
I'm not debating the right or wrong of these wars just your claimed reasoning for the wars. America has it's fair share of problems but on the whole we are a pretty benevolent country. The American people do not desire Empire or conquest. We do not thirst for war, or bloodshed. Historically speaking, America is the most benevolent world super power ever.
If we had desired it to be so, we could have overrun the world after Germany collapsed. We had a weapon capable of leveling ever major city on Earth that opposed us, Europe was in shambles, Japan devastated, China divided in civil war, India, Africa, The Middle East, could have offered up no semblance of defense. Instead we instituted the marshal plan and helped rebuild Europe.
all of this is pretty far from the topic of this thread, not even sure how I managed up reading it, all in all America is pretty FUBARed in the near future.
Umm.... did anyone notice that these two ships were commissioned in the 1980s and finished in the early 1990s? I really don't think that this issue of two expensive ships that were paid for twenty years ago has any bearing on the current expansive defense budget of the past decade.
If we had desired it to be so, we could have overrun the world after Germany collapsed. We had a weapon capable of leveling ever major city on Earth that opposed us, Europe was in shambles, Japan devastated, China divided in civil war, India, Africa, The Middle East, could have offered up no semblance of defense. Instead we instituted the marshal plan and helped rebuild Europe. .
you forgot about the Soviet Union but you're pretty much on point.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/21FgH.png)
