You mean the defense industry, among those most famously associated with corruption, under the ‘leadership’ of the most corrupt people in the history of corruption are going to finally end corruption?
Ooooooookay?
I’m guessing someone is mad they’re not getting a cut.
Its not so much of a con, but the failures of a state captured by capitalism, where the very ideology and war-fighting philosophy of the state are outsourced.
This is a doctrine issue, and its not one that is inherently wrong, per se. Its just that its ended up being wrong in the world that evolved after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“hey old frat buddy, wanna buy my thing?”
“Sure” (golf swing)
The art of the con!
It isn’t a con at all. It’s the result of the unbelievably arcane and complex defense acquisition rules. It’s nearly impossible to move fast and save money with smaller companies due to all the hoops they have to jump through to get on contract, so only large corporations can handle all the paperwork making anything at all cost way too much money to pay for all the overhead.
The con, if there is one, is large defense contractors convincing non-technical officers that highly technical things will be super duper hard and needs to be on a cost-plus contract to take into account any unforeseen issues. I sat in a meeting where one of those mega-corps said with a straight face that they needed a cost-plus contract to cover any losses from the additional inflation… on a one year contract.
Depending on when it was inflation could drive their costs up 3-5% over a year. When your margins are basically fixed by the govt at 12%, it makes sense to cover as much cost as they can.
The whole incentive structure is messed up because the govt “runs” defense companies like they are state owned without actually just making them state owned, or just letting them actually be private.
