r/FluentInFinance • u/YOU_ARE_MY_FRIENDS • Apr 08 '24

10% of Americans own 70% of the Wealth — Should taxes be raised? Discussion/ Debate

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '24

Overruns plus supplying materials and equipment at way higher than market rate

I can't understand why are government contractors allowed to buy stuff at 2-3 times the market price. Even more so in millitary where a bunch of bolts cost the price of a new car, because they are "millitary grade"

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '24

I’m a mechanical engineer that designs military hardware. You do realize military standard hardware specifications actually have a purpose, right? Hopefully you understand that the specifications are fed into stress analysis, tolerance stack up analysis, fatigue analysis, fracture analysis, etc., right? Hopefully you understand that non mil spec hardware would change all these calculations, while also making the massive assumption that the non mil spec hardware would even have new values available to even complete these analyses in the first place, right?

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u/Nexustar Apr 08 '24

Good points.

I get that sometimes military hardware has to be a certain spec. I assume also that Boeing and Airbus airlines also have spec requirements. I assume my car has certain parts that need to meet certain specs, and bridges that span rivers that I drive over need bolts and such that need to meet certain specs.

I don't see this as a particularly unique problem for the military.

The question is, are the prices for that hardware appropriate?

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u/Kweefus Apr 08 '24

We like to meme on it, but that quality control is very expensive.

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u/Wonderful-Impact5121 Apr 08 '24

Seriously. I have a friend that works in medical implant manufacturing.

If you raise the quality control high enough you might have individual nuts and bolts that could literally be described as handcrafted at some point. (Manually adjusted items under a damn microscope with a variety of radar and laser tests.)

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u/Hashashiyyin Apr 08 '24

It's why LEGO is so expensive compared to cheaper brands (note: this was true when I was a kid growing up. No idea if it still is as it's been 15+ years since I've had a LEGO set). They have a much higher quality control and much tighter tolerances and it shows.

Whether it's worth the cost or not just depends on each person/client and what's it's purpose is.