Goodbye Iraq...Hello Islamist Caliphate

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

You're the Mayflower Movers of American Foreign Adventure...moving office furniture, ping-pong tables, walk-in freezers, back and forth at the tax-payer's expense.
To which your boss probably has a "No-Bid" contract...bilking your paint chip eating fellow citizens of every dime you can shake out of them.


Of course, smackaholic and the rest of the hockey helmet crowd thinks you're a fucking Navy SEAL, so I'm not going to win this one.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

...warfighting...

Oh. Is that what you're doing?

Oh. Okay...

I'm sure mvscal is quivering underneath his quilted duvet, shoveling down his Ben & Jerry's, fretting over the global pandemic that is these guys:




May your courageous and plucky nation one day rise up and defeat this gargantuan menace in bedsheets and flip-flops.

[Screw_Michigan]

To which your boss probably has a "No-Bid" contract...bilking your paint chip eating fellow citizens of every dime you can shake out of them.

Not only no-bid but cost-plus at that.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Seriously. The guy's "leisure wear" on the right? That was on my picnic table last Canada Day.




I'm not even joking.

[Rooster]

Me? I'm no Navy Seal-- not even close --not in skill, training, conditioning, audacity, courage, or bravery. While I have worked with some of them in the course of their duties over the past five years, it would dishonor them for me to even jokingly be mentioned in the same sentence. Seriously. Beyond their world class athlete skills and conditioning they, as a rule, have instilled in them an integrity that goes far past any professional pride or camaraderie and E. Prince is indicative of that-- despite whatever you may believe or have heard about him. However, I don't expect this to change yours or anybody else's opinion about him or what he accomplished this past 20 years-- but this much is true: The guy is nails and that he singlehandedly re-wrote what merc work in the service of government can be and do speaks volumes.

[mvscal]

I'm sure mvscal is quivering underneath his quilted duvet, shoveling down his Ben & Jerry's, fretting over the global pandemic that is these guys:

Who is quivering?

Nothing is hitting the fan.

Nothing should be hitting the fan anyway. The Iraqi army ought to be capable of handling a couple thousand rampaging dome loppers without coming apart at the seams.

This whole incursion has been a puppet show from the beginning. 30,000 Iraqi troops simply "melt away" without firing a shot while 1,500 lightly armed, goat raping dome loppers loot Mosul of cash and heavy weapons and start moving it to Syria and head fake towards Baghdad.

Not a bad play. Just one which isn't executed without the complicity of the Iraqi and American governments. This is how Bath House Barry will supply the Syrian rebels. Any American tech found will have been "looted" from Mosul.

[Left Seater]

Not only no-bid but cost-plus at that.

Uhhh, hate to break it to you but cost plus is usually best for us as tax payers. In a cost plus contract it is rare to end up with a $500 hammer.

Case in point. I flew for a few years for General Dynamics back in the day. The wing of the company I flew most often was purchased from a major telecom in the 90s. This group was updating the military's communication infrastructure, voice video and data. Some of the bases were on a 7+ year upgrade cycle because of the need for on going communication during the upgrade.

Our finance guys wanted cost plus contracts. The plus part was to be 12%. The cost part would be estimated in full, but actuals would be submitted for payment. This meant the costs could rise or fall depending on market forces and the economy 7 years from bid date. Congress (spearheaded by Tom Daschel, who I actually flew a few times to and from contract negotiations) wanted firm prices on every contract. They wanted to know their costs each and every year. So in the end, Congress got what they wanted, but we the citizens paid far more than we needed to. Labor costs for example were double by the end of the contract from where they started.

(Note: both R's and D's were in favor of fixed cost bids on this project.)

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

Seriously. The guy's "leisure wear" on the right? That was on my picnic table last Canada Day.

Rack that dude's cameo in the original Halloween.

[Moving Sale]

turning the IRS into a political arm of the DNC.

You just don't care about facts do you?

[Screw_Michigan]

Not only no-bid but cost-plus at that.

Uhhh, hate to break it to you but cost plus is usually best for us as tax payers. In a cost plus contract it is rare to end up with a $500 hammer.

Case in point. I flew for a few years for General Dynamics back in the day. The wing of the company I flew most often was purchased from a major telecom in the 90s. This group was updating the military's communication infrastructure, voice video and data. Some of the bases were on a 7+ year upgrade cycle because of the need for on going communication during the upgrade.

Our finance guys wanted cost plus contracts. The plus part was to be 12%. The cost part would be estimated in full, but actuals would be submitted for payment. This meant the costs could rise or fall depending on market forces and the economy 7 years from bid date. Congress (spearheaded by Tom Daschel, who I actually flew a few times to and from contract negotiations) wanted firm prices on every contract. They wanted to know their costs each and every year. So in the end, Congress got what they wanted, but we the citizens paid far more than we needed to. Labor costs for example were double by the end of the contract from where they started.

(Note: both R's and D's were in favor of fixed cost bids on this project.)

I don't follow. In a fixed price contract, the contractor is liable for all cost overruns. In cost-plus contracts, the government is liable for all cost overruns, which is how programs balloon out of control.

[mvscal]

turning the IRS into a political arm of the DNC.

You just don't care about facts do you?

Sure he does. You just don't have any.

[Moving Sale]

Not a bad play. Just one which isn't executed without the complicity of the Iraqi and American governments.

Ah yes now the US government is in bed with ISIS. Is there any stupid right wing bit of crap you WON'T pimp you stupid racist whore?

[Moving Sale]

turning the IRS into a political arm of the DNC.

You just don't care about facts do you?

Sure he does. You just don't have any.

I posted the actual text from the law. Doesn't get much factier than that you stupid racist fuck.

[mvscal]

Ah yes now the US government is in bed with ISIS.

Why not? Oshitskin has been trying to get arms to them for quite some time.

[mvscal]

I posted the actual text from the law. Doesn't get much factier than that you stupid racist fuck.

The "actual text of the law" isn't the issue. The issue is the selective enforcement of the law. The evidence of which is utterly overwhelming and only the most feeble of ball sucking hacks are attempting to defend it.

[Moving Sale]

The "actual text of the law" isn't the issue. The issue is the selective enforcement of the law. The evidence of which is utterly overwhelming and only the most feeble of ball sucking hacks are attempting to defend it.

Cause the law doesn't matter yea right wing shitstain? As for the enforcement post facts or shut your cockhole.

[Moving Sale]

Why not?

So you are just throwing shit against the wall. Nice play for a retard or a mental patient. Why are you do it?

[Left Seater]

I don't follow. In a fixed price contract, the contractor is liable for all cost overruns. In cost-plus contracts, the government is liable for all cost overruns, which is how programs balloon out of control.

You are generally correct for shorter term contracts or for producing a set number of items, ie planes or tanks. However, when a contract spans multiple years, and has multiple moving parts, cost plus is often the way to go.

Let's look at the ViViD contract I have knowledge of. The work at the Hawaii bases wasn't even scheduled to start until the 6th year of the contract. The guys submitting the bid for GD had no idea what fuel would cost at that point, they had no idea what labor costs would be for most of the workforce (see Sea-Tac $15 minimum wage and union actions to force pay raises), cost of lumber, cost of concrete, cost of cat5 cable, cost of copper, etc, etc, etc.

Since this work was such a long way off from even starting at the time the bid was being put together, and since you are correct that the contractor is responsible for cost overruns on a fixed price contract, the prices were sky high to protect the contractor. Fuel was assumed to cost $10 per gallon. Labor was assumed to be double the cost of that in year one, etc, etc, etc.

In this example the contractor is assuming the risk on the future cost to do business. In order to hedge against that risk, he marks up the contract to shift some of that risk back to the one granting the contract. If costs don't rise to the level the contractor put into the contract then they can walk away with a huge profit margin. Far far more than if the government assumed the risk and paid the contractor an agreed profit number.

[Screw_Michigan]

Thanks for clarifying, makes sense.

[pron]

Let's look at the ViViD contract I have knowledge of.

Let's look at the Vivid contract I have knowledge of. :grin: