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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPete Hegseth's Pentagon spending splurge, 93 billion, in september alone
https://www.rawstory.com/hegseth-pentagon-money/According to government watchdog Open The Books, the Department of Defense's spending in September reached levels not seen since at least 2008 a total of $93 billion. The extravagant purchases have taken on new importance now that the Pentagon may be on the verge of depleting its munitions stockpile as Trump's war on Iran escalates.
The waste was staggering. The Pentagon spent over $225 million on furniture alone the highest amount since 2014. This included $12,000 on fruit basket stands and more than $60,000 on premium Herman Miller chairs.
Dining also received generous funding. The Pentagon purchased $2 million worth of Alaskan king crab in September a feat the department has accomplished five times during Trump's tenure.
Musical instruments joined the shopping list. A $98,329 Steinway & Sons grand piano, a $26,000 violin, and a $21,750 handmade Japanese flute were among $1.8 million spent on instruments.
SunSeeker
(58,181 posts)applegrove
(131,764 posts)and replacing all those missiles and making drones. Almost like they didn't plan eh?
Bread and Circuses
(1,921 posts)On strike and telling Congress to impeach the entire cabinet now,
Were ready.
ChicagoTeamster
(811 posts)jfz9580m
(16,903 posts)That too when this is the state of things:
At the Community Food Share near Boulder, Colorado, there is a traffic jam of shopping carts. Thirty-three-year-old Shannon Patrick waited patiently. She knows the routine. She's a reluctant regular here.
With the way her 12-year-old is growing, she says her cart of goods may last a week.
Patrick is a single mother of three, working full time as a behavioral technician, helping kids with autism. But despite her profession and her education, she barely gets by on her $2,000 a month salary. Tack on rent, student loans, and clothes for the kids, and there's very little left for food.
"I thought that if I got my bachelor's degree, if I got my master's degree, that that would open up so many doors," she said. "I wouldn't have to rely on the government. But it just seems like it's not like that."
Life in America is hard in a different way than it is over here in the global south. One reason I am pushing back that style of development that I saw encroach here with a criminal lawsuit is, if we have both our organic shittiness and the imported kind, sold as growth, that is not viable.
And over there exploitation results in civil lawsuits. This one will be a criminal lawsuit targeting the ceo and managerial class..greed sends you to prison not celluloid must be the message.
Times change..new kinds of people like me start entering the fray formally and lets see..
https://www.salon.com/2025/05/07/blows-off-its-poorest-shoppers/
One reason I am aborting a 14 year nightmare that will destroy the Indian middleclass while forcing on all the sort of worthless trash the tech industry forced for years but in this case in its most ott form, is that the world is so complex now,
This was largely entirely malicious and cultish or unpardonably stupid and lacking in self awareness or honesty among the average people who enthusiastically signed up. A few overworked truly elite people like my onc aside, there is no excuse for these other people as mediocre as I am who are Indian, female etc lacking at least the common sense I have and then bullying their way ahead, while lying their asses off. I have forgiven a handful. The rest can suck it.
But more importantly once more of these greedy, climbing, innately sleazy and undemocratic types pile on and mire badly off people, it will again be this fraudulent bullying dynamic where these asshole criminals having tricked many low income or desperate people into this race to the bottom (and one without one fucking real product, service or science that is not a pseudoscience and extortionately) will try to break me again into formally accepting it.
Fuck that criminal lawsuit and no turning back.
C_U_L8R
(49,295 posts)Trump sure knows how to bankrupt things. Its like the scene in Goodfellas where they gut the restaurant business and when theres nothing left to steal, they torch it.
llmart
(17,547 posts)Also, what the everloving fuck is a fruit basket stand?
Ray Bruns
(6,249 posts)llmart
(17,547 posts)Guess us plebs don't know about "fancy" things that the hoi polloi use.
GenThePerservering
(3,245 posts)I think we're the serfs. 😒
OGBuzz
(225 posts)with fruit baskets, violins, and Alaska king crab.
Ol Janx Spirit
(990 posts)...our $100,000 Steinway while they eat all that King Crab....
GenThePerservering
(3,245 posts)right now his pants are so tight that he walks like he took a skateboard right into his dingdong.
niyad
(131,749 posts)his nuts? I watch it several times a day.
twodogsbarking
(18,414 posts)Initech
(108,504 posts)crud
(1,247 posts)they spent all the 93 billion on musical instruments. Give them to the world so man kind can make music instead of war. Silly me...what am I thinking.
Initech
(108,504 posts)nitpicked
(1,709 posts)This indicated that roughly $70 billion or so (if DoD spent somewhat the same month to month)) would have been expected to have been spent for "normal" items.
Then there is the federal habit (not confined to DoD) of "use it or lose it" ((in following budgets)) near/at fiscal year-end.
This DOES indicate a probable year-end spike in "spending" beyond "spiked normal" in September 2025.
Exp
(901 posts)progressoid
(53,079 posts)I won't post the link because...
LetMyPeopleVote
(178,665 posts)


flor-de-jasmim
(2,272 posts)AI-oversigt
"In 1998, a Pentagon audit revealed the Department of Defense paid roughly $76 each for small aircraft set screws that cost about 57 cents, due to poor procurement practices, specialized handling, and outdated, single-supplier listing. These highly inflated prices stemmed from inefficient bureaucracy, rather than actual material value."
SeattleVet
(5,883 posts)When I was in the Air Force, September was the time to order pretty much anything we wanted - or thought you might want - before the end of the fiscal year when funds ran out. The attitude was (and obviously, still is), that if you didn't spend every penny in your budget for this year, you didn't need that much and the following year you might see a budget cut, so you spent like there was no tomorrow.
Very wasteful then, and even more now, but it's been going on for as long as I can remember.