Boeing charged U.S. military 7943% markup on soap dispensers

You're not paying defense contractor Boeing a 7943 percent margin on spare parts. You're paying Boeing for its lifetime of experience charging 7943 percent margin on spare parts! The latest moneyspinner: soap dispensers.

"The Air Force did not always pay reasonable prices… in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation," the DoD Office of Inspector General claimed in its report on Tuesday. In particular, the audit cites an unknown number of lavatory components received at a "7,943 percent markup or more than 80 times the commercially available cost."

Boeing itself is all but stripped for parts after decades with cost-cutters at the controls. You're paying for that, too, though Americans have at least been mostly fortunate enough not to have paid with their lives. Boeing, though, in a rare example of legislators doing procurement right, is on the hook for excess costs caused by the rickety new spaceship it made for NASA.

It's funny to watch the below clip from Independence Day (1996) and realize that in real life they get the secret bases and the nice toilets.