Accounting error frees $3 billion for Ukraine weapons assistance

Am I missing something here? I thought Biden was giving these weapons to Ukraine not selling them? This is like your best friend living in a $million house and can't afford to pay because they fell on hard times. So you offer to help and give him a $million. Then you tell him "I haven't given you a $million I've lent it you". It hasn't help at all. just moved his problem some where else. But he's still got the problem.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: theatreboy

You don’t sell a 2015 car for 2023 prices. When the weapons that have been sent to Ukraine were bought, the costs were lower, for various reasons.

Then why did the Pentagon sell them at today's market price then decide the weapons should have been sold at a reduced price, freeing up many more millions for the war effort? Are those in charge so inept they couldn't figure it out before they affixed a price?

It looks like more sketchy accounting to me.

a reply to: nugget1

Because the Pentagon accounting system is laughable at best. They still haven’t fixed it from before 2001. So they put a system as being sold to Ukraine into the computer, the computer looks at current prices and says it is this much. Then someone comes along later to review it, sees that it’s an older system that we bought years ago, and changes the price to what was actually paid for it when it was originally bought. The computer has no way to differentiate between older and newer systems, it just has the price paid in FY24 dollars.

a reply to: crayzeed

They still have to account for the money. If Biden says, “We can afford to give them $10B in equipment”, the Pentagon has to price everything so that it falls in that $10B.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Hi Zaph,

PM for you.

Cheers

originally posted by: JAY1980

originally posted by: nugget1

Is this war like our elections, where the one who spends the most money almost always wins?

Russia is spending less money invading Ukraine than America is spending aiding Ukraine. This is an unsustainable for America and if we continue this course we will inevitably debase our currency and destroy our economy...

As of November 25, 2022 the financial analysts at Forbes estimated that Russia had spent about 82 Billion dollars on the war. That's about 9.1 Billion dollars per month. Extrapolate that burn rate forward to today and that would be about 127 Billion dollars total.

kyivindependent.com...

By contrast, the Biden Administration has committed about 31.7 Billion dollars in assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the shooting in Feb. 2022.

crsreports.congress.gov...#:~:text=the%20Biden%20Administration%20has%20committed,start%20of%20the%202022%20war.&text=(USA I%3B%20P.L.,by%20the%20situation%20in%20Ukraine.”

Sounds like you just made up some "alternative facts" to fit your confirmation bias.

a reply to: crayzeed

I don't think that anyone is wiring money to Zelensky.

It's the cost of actual weapons and stuff?

Made up alternative facts to fit a confirmation bias.

Kinda like a Forbes analysts estimation, right?

a reply to: 1947boomer

a reply to: 1947boomer

the Biden Administration has committed about 31.7 Billion dollars in assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the shooting in Feb. 2022.

You're a little low on your figures, it seems. As of February, 2023:

The US is the largest contributor to Ukraine in terms of money spent.

How much has the US given to Ukraine?
Before Mr Biden's pledge in Ukraine this week, the US had committed nearly $80bn in aid to Ukraine. That's according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks global spending on aid to Ukraine.

Some $46.6bn of the US commitment is military aid, far more money than any other country is donating. The UK comes second with $5.1bn in military aid, followed by the EU with $3.3bn.

That's just military aid, however. Other kinds of aid add to the cost.

[www.bbc.com...]

originally posted by: Oldcarpy2
a reply to: crayzeed

I don't think that anyone is wiring money to Zelensky.

It's the cost of actual weapons and stuff?

They are ... It comes as part of the Humanitarian Aide and Assistance packages not just from the US but from the EU & UK too.
Admittedly it's a smaller amount maybe in the 100's of Millions rather than the Billions of Military aide but it is happening as part of the wider money laundering exercise.

a reply to: nugget1

Even the very simplest of Google searches gives a $75Bn figure from the US alone.

US Aid to Ukrain in 6 charts

a reply to: nugget1

How very convenient ... I'd guess these are the same Gov/DOD accountants that discovered they'd lost $2.3Tn just a day before 9/11 and the records were in building #7 and the Pentagon section that was hit.

On September 10, 2001, then U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld disclosed that his department was unable to account for roughly $2.3 trillion worth of transactions. The next day, the U.S. sustained the terrorist attacks that changed the world, and this startling revelation was forgotten.

Source

a reply to: AllAnIllusion

Too bad that was announced in March of 2000, not the day before 9/11, and it wasn’t lost.

a reply to: Zaphod58

sauce please

a reply to: AllAnIllusion

Pentagon's finances in disarray

By JOHN M. DONNELLY The Associated Press 03/03/00 5:44 PM Eastern

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The military's money managers last year made almost $7 trillion in adjustments to their financial ledgers in an attempt to make them add up, the Pentagon's inspector general said in a report released Friday.

The Pentagon could not show receipts for $2.3 trillion of those changes, and half a trillion dollars of it was just corrections of mistakes made in earlier adjustments.

hv.greenspun.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

Thank you ... Fair enough, the information was out there prior to the Sept 10th address but that was the day that it was pushed (briefly) to the fore in public terms (the acknowledgement if you will).

If we have 3 billion dollars just lying around maybe we could use it for the debt ceiling everyone is arguing over.

Omg we have no money to keep the government open! Whatever shall we do? *gives 21 billion to another country* but we will have to shut the government down because we have no money! *feinstein drools on herself in corner* we need to keep the government open, only if we had the cash.

POOP HIT THE FAN TODAY over this $3 BILLION ($3,000,000,000.00!!!!) ERROR.

Biden officials melting down...

www.foxnews.com...

This is what we need from the Pentagon Accounting division. Error...Error...Must Sterilize...

We don’t have it just laying around. And it wasn’t technically an error. Every year the computers are updated with the current costs. So let’s say in FY24, which starts in October, a HiMARS costs $500M. They do their thing and tell the computer they sent 2 to Ukraine, so they’re no longer in inventory. The computer looks at the prices, and says it cost a billion dollars for those two units.

At some point a human comes along and reviews everything that was sent, looks at his list of equipment that went, that includes serial numbers, and sees that they were bought in 2015. So he goes to the FY15 budget, and sees that a HiMARS in 2015 cost $250M. So he goes into the system and adjusts it so that now two cost $500M.

The money is still gone, but now there’s more room under any limit that is set, giving them the ability to send more.

originally posted by: carewemust
POOP HIT THE FAN TODAY over this $3 BILLION ($3,000,000,000.00!!!!) ERROR.

Biden officials melting down...

www.foxnews.com...

Where's Hunter? You'd have to fall off a turnup truck and hit your head not to know quite a few people are making bank over all the money being thrown at Ukraine.