Back in the early 1980s, I was working the flight line on F-4Es. We had
a nice little supply room, with all of the little hardware you'd
normally need. One of the pieces was a small rivet. Little bitty
aluminum rivets, less than 1/4" wide and maybe 3/8" long. I needed a
few one day, and got the chance to open a new bag (they were about 1000
per bag).

Those little rivets were about a buck each, according to the price
listed on the inventory sheet on the bag. Just under $1000 per bag of
1000 rivets, delivered to the base through the USAF supply chain.

That seemed like, well, a *lot*, so I checked up on it. In town, in a
hardware store, you could buy the same rivets (same manufacturer, same
serial number on the bag, same everything) for about $10 per bag of 1000.

I called the manufacturer. The difference, I was told, was because the
company had several full time employees who did nothing at all but
monitor their military sales (they were a sole-source supplier for that
bit, and didn't sell much else to the government). They were very
unhappy about it, too, since they would rather have just sold the things
for a decent price.

Some months later, I noticed the price on the bags in the bin had gone
down to only $50 or so per bag... I wonder who got the bonus for "cost
cutting" on that one?


Look at it as a form of a full employment program. Jobs = happy people = votes
= happy politicians. Pay for a hokey job for someone or pay for their welfare
checks.

Actually, consider that fact the the "system"still supports a fleet of planes
worldwide and has done so for years relatively effectively, so it can't be all
bad.

Usually it is the exceptions and special orders that seem to get screwed up the
most.