Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site mhuxt.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!harpo!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) Newsgroups: net.misc Subject: Re: $1288 ashtrays Message-ID: <1052@mhuxt.UUCP> Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 16:14:48 EDT Article-I.D.: mhuxt.1052 Posted: Mon Aug 12 16:14:48 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 17-Aug-85 06:29:41 EDT References: <6400034@hp-pcd.UUCP> <717@vortex.UUCP> <2608@amdcad.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 26 > 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. > ...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. > Phil Ngai (408) 749-5720 Of course, Delta has to serve coffee to a few hundred passengers out of their coffee pots. I guess the military has some transport jets which can carry similar numbers of passengers but seriously doubt if the $7200 number is referring to such a coffee pot. (if it was, don't you think some defense dept. spokesman would have explained?) -- Jeff Sonntag ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j "My SO is red hot. Your SO aint doodely squat."