Over on Kiwiblog DPF highlights a story uncovered by the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance about a set of stairs built at Milford Beach that cost $263,000 – for four steps at $8,218.75 per step.

Meh. A piffling sum compared to the Big Boys of waste, of which none is bigger than the US government.

Back in late 2021 I took a look at the hopeless financial systems of the State Government of California and what this had meant for all the Covid response funds that had flowed out:

Her office issued 49 million checks in payments worth $320 billion in 2018….the Controller’s Office literally cannot answer the question of where all the money went in a $320 billion spending list. They simply do not and cannot know exactly who got the money because they just don’t bother tracking that level of detail.
…
Of the $114 billion the state has paid in unemployment claims during the coronavirus pandemic, 10 percent, or $11.4 billion, involves fraud and another 17 percent is under investigation.
…
They even got scammed by the usual suspects, criminal organisations from Russia and Nigeria, as well as 21,000 prisoners in the state who scored more than $400 million, including 100 prisoners on death row. 

Naturally enough I figured that the fraud against Federal government would be larger, since their spending was in the trillions, and I had done a post at the start of 2022 on stories that confirmed such:

So far, $100 billion of it has been straight-up stolen, “resulting in the arrest of more than 100 suspects who span the spectrum from individuals to organized groups,” according to a CNBC report.

Pretty bad but in the range I’d figured.

Now it’s been updated with the release of a Congressional Report from the Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce, and the total verified so far is $191 billion, but investigations continue and the Chairman, Pete Sessions said the theft adds up to:

Half a trillion dollars. Maybe more. Much of it lost to criminal actors and our enemies. Often using comically simple tactics.

$500 BILLION?

The US could basically buy an entire new Navy for that!

Well, at least a couple of hundred ships: say 60 of the new Constellation-class frigates ($1 billion each) instead of the planned 20, another 40 of the Arleigh Burke-destroyers ($2.2 billion) instead of stopping at a fleet of 94, several of those fancy new Ford-class carriers ($13 billion each), another few nuclear attack subs to protect them – and still have plenty left over for a 100 of the new B-21 Raider bombers ($706 million), as well as replacing the entire strategic missile force. Even then there would still be lots of moolah for the US Army and the Marines, who are always the beggars in the Pentagon.