Military contract price gouging: Defense contractors overcharge Pentagon | 60 Minutes

As a former employee at a large Defense contractor, I can firmly say these companies are leeches on the national security of our country. So many of my coworkers added zero value to our contracts, other than keeping seats warm.

This is real journalism, something sorely missed in the modern age.

give this guy a bronze star medal.. by simply being uncorrupt able is amazing nowadays. He isn't afraid of intimidation, death threats and etc

As someone who oversees military contracts......I live and breath this nightmare daily

I worked as a defense contractor for roughly seven years. The amount of waste is incredible. The sad part is that most of these contractors are former military gouging their own. So much for patriotism and supporting our troops.

They should run this story every month.

You know how many times they said about the price gouging, for decades this has been going on and nothing gets done about it.

As a shareholder, I'm okay with this. Thanks for your contribution

I worked in the defense industry for about 6 or 7 years and I had to get out of it, the whole thing seemed geared towards racking up billable hours to the government, nobody was there to protect the country, and the involvement of the top Military brass was atrocious. Top military officials recieved all kinds of kickbacks, mostly in the form of high level jobs with the military contractors they were supposedly there to oversee. The whole defense industry is a mess.

My father was both a USAF officer and electrical engineer for defense contractors for decades... this stuff drove him nuts. A project he worked on needed a tape recorder with certain requirements. They were going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on designing a custom unit and, because the would need relatively few, the manufacturing was going to be thousands for each. He simply found a quality off-the-shelf unit and proved it met all the required specs. Saved hundreds of thousands on design and hundreds of thousands on manufacturing.

"BUT THE NATIONAL DEBT!!! We need to cut spending on the poor!" The fact that none of this ever enters the public debate over spending priorities is outrageous. The moment anyone says anything about cost controls, they get construed as "not supporting the troops".

Good reporting! Let’s see what comes of it

As an Air Force veteran that delt with supply and logistics in areas of my 20 year career, these contractors gouge TF out of their parts and supplies. We, the taxpayers, are being sold down the road to improve a defense contractors' bottom line.

The Government needs as a national priority to open up a investigation for price gouging.

In 2001 "The Pentagram cannot account for a missing $ Two Trillion Dollars 😂"

0:15 “Produced by Sam Hornblower” name checks out 😂

Price gouging should be considered an act of treason.

This has been going on for years!! Politicians own stock in these companies! Pathetic!

A recent video on the 60 Minutes channel (Military contract price gouging: Defense contractors overcharge Pentagon) drew attention to the rising and exorbitant costs of weapons and other items acquired by the Pentagon; - In 1991 a stinger missile cost $25,000. Now in Ukraine war costs 400,000; - Between the years of 2005 and 2020 the Pentagon consumed 14 trillion dollars and added 5 ships to the fleet. In the same period, China spent 3 trillion and added 117 vessels; - Another problem is the decrease in the number of inspectors at the Department of Defense, a fact that has left companies freer to exploit the taxpayer; - But these are not the only problems. Recently auditors discovered that more than 1 million parts of the F-35 jet have disappeared in the last 5 years; - US officials seem to turn a blind eye to these irregularities, as plane costs continue to rise and the Pentagon continues to overpay for them; - And there is one more additional cost to be remembered: in recent decades the United States has been involved in long, expensive and useless wars such as Iraq and Afghanistan, which also greatly worsened the country's image in the face of the so-called Global South: - As a result, the United States is lagging behind in the technology race, as the Russians and Chinese already have advanced hypersonic missile systems that America lacks, and Iran's growing drone and missile force threatens the American presence in the Middle East. youtube.com/live/mFS7IvYvv2o

A much older problem in the Pentagon is the inability to cancel projects that are failing. Programs like the F35 and the earlier Osprey, are managed by officers who are evaluated for promotion based on the successful completion of their project. 50 years ago, when I was in the USAF, I learned the saying " nobody ever got promoted for killing a Pentagon project." I heard it again later when working in the electronics industry in Silicon Valley. On top of that, these officers are motivated to go soft on the contractors because the relationships developed there lead to jobs with those same contractors after retiring from the military.