U.S. Government shuts down.

[shoju]

Since we're talking spending, and what not, I'm going to put this out there.

You want to fix federal spending? I have a way that you can trim a lot of fat.

Now, some of you know what I do. Some of you don't. I work for a large Surplus Buyer. We buy Government Surplus, Corporate Surplus, Buyouts, Closeouts, you name it. We buy lots of it. For reference, We just closed a deal last month to purchase 7,000+ Mower / Go Kart / small type tires. That's just... Business around here.

Back to the more important point in that. We buy Government, and Military Surplus. Generators, Trucks, Uniforms, Gear, Equipment, Engines, Parts, etc... If the government is auctioning it off, we are normally there, gauging our interest in buying it.

Now, how does this affect government spending? Many times, we buy things, large amounts of things, that are Brand New, Never Used, Never Opened, Never touched, with the original Purchasing INformation attached to it.

Case in point.


This thing is Brand New. It shipped in the ORIGINAL FACTORY CRATE. It's a Starter, that you would find on anything from a military Hummer, to a Military 5 Ton Personnel carrier. It also, is used on a fair number of Civilian applications.

Now, I wont tell you what the government paid for it originally, except to say that the price we have on it in our store ($225.00) is far less than HALF What the Government paid for it.

I can't tell you how much we paid for it, except to tell you that on items like this we operate with a bare minimum markup of 75% for Military Surplus.

So, let's use round numbers.

Let's say that they bought it, Brand new, for just double what I'm selling it at $450.00 (It was more than that, but we'll use these numbers for simplicity's sake).

Let's say that we have $150.00 cost in this (we have less than that)

That means the government, LOST $300.00 on this item when they sold it.

Now, keep in mind the 7000 tires I told you we bought. Do you think that we just have 1, or 2 of these? Good. I didn't think you were that Naive. Let's keep using round numbers. Let's say that I have 50 of them. That's $15,000.00 dollars in loss, that they just incurred, on just the starters my company purchased. Keep in mind. We aren't the only ones who do this, and we certainly aren't even the biggest company who goes to these sales.

Now. Do you know who my largest client for purchasing these things are?
No. It's not the Federal Government. That would be... WAY TOO EASY
It's a procurement company, that has a contract with the federal government. They go, and find items that the government needs... RIGHT NOW. They buy it from me for $225.00.

You know what they do?
Yes.
They sell it back to the government. Now, I'm not sure what they sell it back to the government at, but I'm confident that it's not $225.00. I'm also sure that it's going to be less than the original price. So, Let's say that they sell it back for $350.00. That's reasonable. A standard markup, they sell it back.

Now, let's say of the 50, that I purchased, I sell 30 back to a procurement company, who then sells it back for $350.00
$10,500.00 to purchase them back.
+ 15,000.00 Loss on the sale of those original 50.
= 25,500.00 Lost, all because of they way that they do business.

Plus the Shipping charges. We'll leave those out right now.

This isn't an isolated incident. This isn't the only thing they do this with, and Like I said, we aren't even a "big" surplus buyer in the grand scheme of things.

How is this good business?
They had them. They sold them. And later on, they needed them back. They do this type of thing with ALL KINDS OF MATERIAL GOODS.

You want to get a handle on spending? Start with Defense Spending. Don't give me the BS line of "It will hurt the country if we cut it". No. It wont. You could EASILY shave BILLIONS out of spending by restructuring the way that you sell things that you need, because you bought too many in the first place, have no reasonable way to track what it is that you purchased, or what your standing inventory is, Sell off too many in "Surplus", only to find out that you have to BUY THEM BACK

When you probably still had some sitting in a warehouse across the country. It's mind boggling. It hurts my brain.