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Path: utzoo!linus!gatech!amdcad!phil
From: phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: $1288 ashtrays
Message-ID: <2608@amdcad.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 13:03:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: amdcad.2608
Posted: Mon Aug 12 13:03:11 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Aug-85 00:16:58 EDT
References: <6400034@hp-pcd.UUCP> <717@vortex.UUCP>
Reply-To: phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai)
Organization: AMD, Sunnyvale, California
Lines: 27

In article <717@vortex.UUCP> lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) writes:
>I saw what that ashtray looks like.  Any high school metalshop student
>could throw one together for about $30 in parts, tops.  

Recently there was a lot of noise in the popular press about how the
Air Force was paying $7200 for coffee pots on airplanes. These responsible
journalists somehow failed to uncover or report the fact that Delta
Airlines, buying from a commercial vendor like Lockheed, pays around $4000
for an item with similar functionality. Having seen a small part of the
mountains of paperwork the government needs to buy anything, I think
the markup from $4000 to $7200 is easily explained, if not surprisingly
low.

We all know what coffee pots cost at K-mart and probably Lauren's
metalshop could put one together for $50. But I must conclude that
coffee pots on airplanes are much more complicated than the kind that
K-mart sells and that's why they cost so much more. We don't need to invoke
bottomless greed to explain it. Even if we think our government is
blind to ripoffs, Delta Airlines can not survive without keeping tight
controls on costs. Yet they too pay outrageous prices for coffee pots.

-- 
 Yuck! This coke tastes different!

 Phil Ngai (408) 749-5720
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