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posted by n1 on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the pentagon-llc dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

The Pentagon has generated almost $6 billion over the past seven years by charging the armed forces excessive prices for fuel and has used the money — called the “bishop’s fund” by some critics — to bolster mismanaged or underfunded military programs, documents show.

Since 2015, the Defense Department has tapped surpluses from its fuel accounts for $80 million to train Syrian rebels, $450 million to shore up a prescription-drug program riddled with fraud and $1.4 billion to cover unanticipated expenses from the war in Afghanistan, according to military accounting records.

The Pentagon has amassed the extra cash by billing the armed forces for fuel at rates often much higher — sometimes $1 per gallon or more — than what commercial airlines paid for jet fuel on the open market.

[...] The Defense Department is the largest single consumer of fuel in the world. Each year, it buys about 100 million barrels, or 4.2 billion gallons, of refined petroleum for its aircraft, warships, tanks and other machines.

[...] In a statement, the Pentagon acknowledged that it accumulated $5.6 billion in “enterprise gains” from fuel purchases between 2010 and 2016, but said the surplus was the result of falling oil prices in an inherently volatile market.

As a veteran myself, this utterly fails to surprise.

Source: The Washington Post


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:38AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:38AM (#514022)

    My employer also delivers "enterprise gains" when I swipe the printer paper. S'all good bro, just enterprise gains.

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:42AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:42AM (#514025)

    My boss is so stingy with paper! It's like...we're trying to get a job done here, man! So MAYBE I made a few thousand copies for personal use. They're COMPANY property! And I work for a COMPANY. And were they copies of my testicles? Yes, BUT I always wipe down afterward! That's a RULE for me. And maybe I DID send those pictures to his teenage daughter. She has the Internet! She was gonna see my balls eventually.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:39PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:39PM (#514226) Journal

      If you boss were really stingy, he wouldn't let you make copies of PDF files. After all, electronic paper is still paper and costs money.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.