On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 22:11:28 +0000, Richard Lamb wrote:

Greg Copeland wrote:

On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 05:04:14 -0700, Tom Sixkiller wrote:

Ever buy something custom made?

Yes, but it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. As it related to
the items I mentioned, none were custom items. In fact, IIRC, according
to the press, Congresional hearings, and military people which were
interviewed, nothing was custom about them. In fact, it was mentioned
many times that any hardware store could of provided the items at a proper
price.


If I really need a specific tub liner, and your's is all I have, it
might be worth $900.

Not when you can go to the store and get one for 1/10 the price.


Do you know WHY the military had to pay $600 for hammers and why they
could not get them at Ace Hardware.

According to everything I ever read about the subject, there never was a
single reason to support those prices, aside from simply attempting to
steal from Peter to pay Paul. Feel free to correct as needed

Evidently, terminology is foreign to you.

Doubtful.


What does the term "price" mean to you (other than what TV advertising
says).

Oh shesh. I shutter anytime I hear this. As if it actually answers
anything. You said, "Maybe the fact that price is usually a measure of
'suitability for a purpose'." The problem is, it isn't. Price is a
measure of what the market is willing to bare for an item and often has
nothing to do with suitability or quality. Such statements also blindly
ignore the human condition, which is blindly open to manipulation by
marketing and sheer stupidity or ignorance.

The reason I poked fun is because you seem to give the impression that the
more you pay for something, with no exception, will always be better than
anything for which you can pay less. In otherwords, if I take two
identical planes, and raise the price 10% on one, you gave me the
impression that you think the higher priced of the two is
automatically better.

Cheers,

Greg


The True Value hardware would work fine - IF it met the required specs.

Therein lies the rub.

According to the people, that *I* read and saw on TV, any hammer would of
met the specs. Likewise, the tub liner there was nothing special. And
you're right, therein lies the rub of why Congress was so ****ed off. As
I recall, it was a scam because they under bid a contract (or something
like that) and this was used to steal from peter to pay paul. AFAIR,
specs had nothing to do with it. It was a simple scam put forth to get
extra money. IIRC, toilet seats were also a line item which we were being
scammed on. Yes, that's right, normal, regular toilet seats. Plastic
seats at that.

Yet, according to Tom, we got the best value for our dollar from that
scam. Never mind that after the scandel broke, prices went back to what
they were before the scam started, which were all inline with what you
would find at any hardware store. Yet, Tom got his best value.

Seriously, you don't have to look that hard to see that Tom gets screwed
in just about every deal he makes.