$3B accounting error by The Pentagon

https://time.com/6281063/pentagon-accounting-error-ukraine-arms-funding/

by Eumenes • 3 years ago

46 17 3 years ago

fn-mote• 3 years ago

tl;dr - Accounting used "new" value of weapons sent, but was supposed to use "depreciated" value.

MichaelZuo4• 3 years ago

I wonder if that's inflation adjusted or not, because I can easily imagine that after factoring in inflation the depreciated value of a 30 year old weapon system is about the same as the new price 30 years ago.

0xcde4c3db• 3 years ago

I'm not an accountant, and I don't know how the Pentagon approaches depreciation schedules, but most examples I've seen in general descriptions have annualized rates much higher than inflation. Also, some methods have a final period over which the the depreciation is 100% of the remaining value, which can't be offset by any amount of inflation.

blitzar• 3 years ago

I thought this was the idea all along... the announcements were all using as new sticker prices +r&d for the first manufacturing run on 20 year old hardware, it was a feature not a bug.

Cynically this "accounting error" is either an excuse to send more hardware to achive the same absolute $$ cost, or a method of communicating that the "cost" to the taxpayer was much (much much) lower than it really was.

lookboil• 3 years ago

I'm old enough to remember the $2 trillion Pentagon accounting error announced by Rumsfeld the day before 9/11. Didn't hear much about that in the intervening years

ed• 3 years ago

For context https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunked-rumsfeld-says-2-3-...

snapcaster• 3 years ago

Not very satisfying debunking, $2.3 trillion being untrackable implies many billions being stolen. Don't really think it had much to do with 9/11, just a huge fucking grift on the taxpayers

belter• 3 years ago

"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money"

dsq• 3 years ago

"You didn't think they actually spent ten thousand dollars for a hammer and thirty thousand for a toilet seat, did you?"

Hopefully this is the explanation.

$3B accounting error by The Pentagon

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