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Bringing Home The Bacon

By Boquisucio on July 19, 2009 | | Comments (10)
Someone is rolling in the pork.  We (the sad saps taxpayers) just purchased 2 pounds of ham for $550,000.00 a pound.  Talk about bringing home the BACON.


Boq

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10 Comments

By fdcol63 on July 20, 2009 7:39 AM
Hey ... where's the BEEF??!!
 
By BillT on July 20, 2009 9:12 AM
When Obie was campaigning in Philly, he stopped in an upscale deli rather than the traditional cheesesteak joint. He chowed down on $100-a-pound imported ham.

It was an omen.

Pretty handy that the hotlink to report waste, fraud, and abuse to the IG appears right next to the Agency's name, huh?
 
By Neffi on July 20, 2009 11:38 AM
Hey, it was a 'full and open' competitive sealed bid process- so they *were* the low bidder...
 
By Robert on July 20, 2009 11:54 AM
.
This is a joke, right?  You have GOT to be kidding us!

Why isn't the anemic opposition screaming about this on FOX?

Is no one paying attention but the Castle?    grrrrr


 
By Eric Wilner on July 20, 2009 12:18 PM
Insty reports that it was actually 760,000 pounds of ham in 2-pound packages.  Maybe not the best deal ever on a bulk purchase, but not the lunacy the gummint's web site makes it sound like.
 
By olga on July 20, 2009 1:33 PM
That's what I thought when I saw it - a 2-lb packaging. 
Nobody could be that stupid even in the gov't... I hope...
 
By John of Argghhh! on July 20, 2009 1:45 PM
Yeah, just paying $1.50 a pound instead of a little over half that at the grocery store.
 
By Big Chief on July 20, 2009 11:41 PM
So let's see here.

You're upset because the government has a site where you can find out that they made a stupid purchase.   Huh?  That's the *POINT*.   Transparency doesn't magically eliminate government waste, it only displays them so voters *might* think before they vote.

The mere fact that people comb thru the list of contracts and find a stupid purchase is *GOOD*.  Maybe someone will try to figure out a way to improve government purchasing.   Having been involved in both sides of government procurement, the problem is not simple.  But I can only hope that people might think harder (or even think at all).

This 'pork' project is nothing more than a typo,  the contract is for almost a MILLION pounds of pork.  (ok, 800,000 or so) but still probably a good price.  (yes you probably can find sliced pork at your local store for less, but it's probably a "loss leader")

Jeez, if you want to  find pork, you're far more likely to find it in military contracting.  Military contracts have a number of advantages if you want to bilk the government.
   1:  the entire contract can be declared  top-secret   ( that'll keep those prying eyes away)
   2:  Someone can say, 'I'm the one getting shot at, and I tell you I *NEED IT*'
   3:  You're not patriotic if you don't buy this plane/boat/gun/ship/rocket/whatever
 

 
 
By BillT on July 21, 2009 7:26 AM
So let's see here. You're upset because the government has a site where you can find out that they made a stupid purchase.

Nup. We're upset to *find* such a blatant example of it.

Or, if not of the actual purchase, a typo that indicates the person(s) entering the data either entered it incorrectly or was given erroneous data to begin with.

Either instance is proof that nobody's minding the store. Speaking of which, I've seen some real beauts on the dot-gov sites, to include job announcements for contract pilots that included a paragraph mandating that the applicant be capable of withstanding a ten-foot drop onto a concrete floor without sustaining damage.

I gave that one a pass...
 
By John of Argghhh! on July 21, 2009 9:47 AM
As a guy who works on government contracts for a living, I *hate* trying to craft a proposal to meet an RFP that was built by a committee that used copy and paste as their major compositing tool, and no one ever sat down and did a "speaks with one voice and is it coherent?" check on the RFP.

That usually ends up costing the government money as the contractors have no choice to respond to what's in the RFP, which in some instances isn't really what the government actually wants.

But that's endemic to an organization (which has little choice, really) that puts that stuff together ad-hoc as an additional duty.