This is a cable which consists of two 9 pin sub-d connectors (roughly about $2 a piece at an electronics store) and 9 strands of wire between the two....
If you guess (even after markup) $5? $10? -- You would be WAY off base.
The cost to the federal government is currently going for $1,500 dollars.
I bought an null modem cable at Radio Shack for about $10-$12 a couple months ago. Why the heck would the government pay $1,500???? OH I know....because they don't give a crap about spending our money wisely.
So what's the deal?
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Hunting the Piney Woods of Deep East Texas.
The answer to your quetion is that the military buys through DOD contracts with their suppliers as you already know . After the contractor wades through the vast jungle of specifications called for in said contract , even though a stock item may already meet or exceed every one of them , the contractor charges what they can get from their buddy in the DOD .
In a not too distant example the Pentagon discovered that they had a mouse problem . Solution ? Approach Victor , the leading mousetrap supplier , with a proposal for just such a contract . By the time Victor signed up the specifications totalled over 1,200 pages . Included were such items as how many knots per square inch would be tolerated from the wood used , and the tensile strength of the steel used to fabricate the bar and spring . It didn't seem to matter to the DOD that every single Victor mousetrap that has ever been produced already met or exceeded the spurious specifications , they purchased them anyway at a cost to the taxpayer of $50 each .
That's right folks , mousetraps that could have been purchased for $.50 cents with a simple Purchase Order at any nearby hardware store . $25,000 for 500 mousetraps that should have cost $250 at most .
Your tax dollars at work ... [:@]
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Kevin Haendiges
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http://hunting-indiana.com
Kevin you hit the nail on the head so to speak. Although I don't do military work, I do government work every now and then and normally have to almost double my price just from the standpoint that I have to wade through a river of paperwork and jump through so many hoops that you don't have to do for any other customer.
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Caution - Some posts may contain sarcasim
Kevin, are you kidding? Is that a real story? Wow! Although I'm not really suprised that is an excellent example of the crap out government does to blow our money. That is just another reason I can't stand it when the Dems say we need to pay more taxes; do something wise with the money I give, then we'll talk about giving you more![:@]
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Hunting the Piney Woods of Deep East Texas.
How much would U pay for a null modem cable?
