Posted on 06/13/2012 12:25:56 AM PDT by JohnKinAK
Yup, the State Department has awarded a $16.5 million contract to Amazon to stock designated libraries and U.S.-friendly educational centers around the world with 2,500 Kindle e-Readers, procurement databases show, according to Nextgov.com. The contract includes 50 titles, a secure central management system and round-the-clock help desk service.
The purchase works out to a cost of $6,600 per reader. No doubt there may be extra support and software that comes with these Kindles, but $6,000 plus worth? Kindle's on Amazon's web page now sell for between $79 and $379.
Is this a procurement horror story reminiscent of years past that saw the Defense Department by claw hammers for $435, toilet seats for $640 and coffee makers for $7,600? It sure smells like it. But don't expect the State Department to own up to it.
During the Reagan Administration, when President Reagan learned of the outrageous prices for hammers, toilet seats and coffee makers along with news that the military was paying $1,118.26 for a spare plastic cap for a navigator’s stool on a B-52 bomber (worth about two cents), he demanded answers from Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger. Weinberger promised he would get to the bottom of the outrageous prices.
What happened though is that Weinberger appeared on Capitol Hill and defended the shocking prices.
Murray Rothbard made the case that all government spending is waste and should be subtracted from GDP and this is correct. As Mark Thornton writes:
...government spending does not have its value tested with consumers in the market, and much of the spending is actually bad for the economy. Government could pay people to dig ditches and other people to fill the same ditches, [Or it could pay $6,600 for kindles!-RW] and it would increase GDP, but no one argues this is the path to prosperity...
Murray Rothbard addressed the problem of measuring a big government economy with the concept of private product remaining (with producers), or PPR, which basically takes GDP and subtracts from it twice the amount of government spending. Government spending is subtracted once to obtain gross private product and it is subtracted again to account for all the resources that government has siphoned off from the private sector.
Rothbard has the theoretical point about ALL government spending right, but it is nice to come across an example of government spending that appears so totally absurd, that even Warren Buffett and Henry Blodget will have to think twice before defending the expenditure and calling for higher taxes to pay for the expenditure. It's a teaching moment.
Clearly, what really needs to go on is cutting of government expenditures and cutting and cutting. Not increasing taxes to pay for bureaucratic government spending.
Which brings up the question: why is the state department in the business of teaching English ?
Libertarian ping
SOMEBODY CALL JOE BIDEN!
You gotta fund Area 51 somehow! ;-)
We all know the gobermint is just funneling this money somewhere else. Just like Solyndra. Half a billion disappears?? No, it’s all being used somewhere,funding
some no doubt illegal and un-constitutional enterprise.
We are being controlled by absolute criminals. CRIMINALS,animals, mafia, that’s what these people are. They are examples of absolute CORRUPTION and evil personified.
Go to your friendly local Apple store and see what $6,000 will buy you, probably a super barn burner of a desk top that even Rush would drool over.
Is Amazon paid this amount?
What are the cost to intregrate the Kindle into a secure system?
I can see the costs for a Kindle reaching $1,000 or more. I recently looked into using them for one of our businesses after learning a competitor was using them in his.
Neat idea the guy has but too clunky for even me. I am probably going to go with the Samsung Galaxy tablet and expect the total costs for the tablet, software, integration and support to be around $1,400 per.
Like I’m ever right about what things cost. LOL....It will probably cost more like $2,000 but it’s cheaper and more efficient than any other solution.
Each piece of software that goes into a Kindle costs $200-$600 and if this is for something like Pimsleur Learning Each installed Module is $600(it’s how I learned to speakuhduh spanish).
Not cheap and the total for Pimsluer was about $3,000 bucks and that was for English to Spanish.
I can envision the cost for these Kindles costing that much if they only got Modules 1, II, and III for up to 4 languages per Kindle and then throw in the integration costs and custom software telling the user they so lucky to have a tool from the United States to teach them engrish and yea, the costs rise from there.
Another example of crony corruption. The base problem facing the USA isn’t politics as much as corrupt politicians taking care of their cronies at our expense.
Does anyone think the decision maker here didn’t have connections with Amazon etc.? Politicians making deals with private business is always a ticket to paybacks, kickbacks, corruption and thievery from taxpayers. We’re becoming like every third world country that has corrupt government workers and politicians on the take and getting very rich on the side.
Every local, state, federal politician and government procurement workers should face yearly mandatory audits and life imprisonment and loss of pension and bennies if they are found guilty of scamming us.
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