[fransje26]

> the USA there is tolerance for the job not getting done, but not for stealing.

Well, at that level it's playing loosely with semantics..

The money didn't get pocketed directly, but it got misused to pay a vast amount of costs and salaries with no result. As there are no results, the costs covered can be considered fictional. Which brings us back to bribery and stealing..

[fallingknife]

This is exactly what I mean. Take the Obamacare exchange website for example. It cost $800 million, didn't work, and nobody got so much as fired for it because that money was wasted, not stolen, and the contract was given out in accordance to procedure. If the execs had pocketed any of that money, they would be in jail.

In China it would have been given to a friend of the bureaucrat in charge of giving out the contract, and they would know it would cost $40 million to build, but they can charge 80 and kickback 10 to the official. And more importantly, that friend would be damn sure to deliver a working website because he knows if he doesn't he will be investigated and punished for his stealing.

So while our system is less "corrupt" I guess, China gets a working website for $80 million when we get a broken one for 10x the cost.

[fransje26]

The F-35 program also comes to mind. Or the high speed train effort in California coming in at 10x the price per mile compared to European equivalents..

[spookie]

The F35 is going to make much more money than it ever took to go from drawing to reality. I don't know enough about that California.

Anyhow, being able to fail is a good thing, believe it or not.

[fransje26]

The F-35 is going to join the long list of fighters that will be pulled from service as quickly as possible.

It might continue to fly in the Air National Guard, and in countries that don't have the means to renew their fleet, where it will have served its purpose: being so costly that it starved any possible competition.