One Thousand Dollar Hammers

framingthedialogue.com ^ | June 19, 2010 | ghblog

[Ghblog]

So why do government hammers cost $1000.00? I recently came across a document prepared by a federal agency for a small construction job. This is not for any building of significance, in fact there is a provision that the main work is to be completed within two weeks. I took a brief look at this document (it’s an inch thick) and was amazed, though not surprised at what I found.

[Fast Moving Angel]

Good analysis. I’d like to see a similar analysis for the health care industry and why things cost so much. True story: the hospital billed my insurance $47 for a “grabber” tool that I can get on line for $9.99-$11.99. Outrageous.

[gracie1]

C’mon, it’s so they can finance a secret lab to experiment on the alien that crashed in the desert!

[JoeFromSidney]

Many years ago I was responsible for writing a specification for testing inertial navigation gyroscopes. After I submitted the technical material, it went to a "spec writing" shop that put in the boilerplate, which bulked up the spec to several times what I'd written. The head of the spec writing shop explained it to me: "Its a record of every mistake we ever made." So, having recorded those mistakes, they were prohibited in the boilerplate.

[MozarkDawg]

Good grief, how many times are we going to hear about gubmint regulations, procurement, the $1000 toilet seats, these hammers, the whole she-bang?? It was *corrected* in 1986. It was *stopped* with Al Gore “Reinventing Government”. 0bama will fix it this time. Yeah, sure — the song is getting old, put another record on, please.