Jump to content

REA'n Maker

Members
  • Posts

    348
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by REA'n Maker

  1. The prior version was so vague as to be practically unenforceable. The new version is a bit clearer and is only marginally enforceable. Progress!
  2. Don't you think immediately characterizing the arrangement as 'kickbacks' might be a little overreach? What was the decision in the Pratt case you provided? You provided a good summary but it's not clear what decisions came out of it.
  3. Short answer: primes usually levy a 1% fee on subcontracts to cover all associated management and proposal costs. Prime contractors don't subcontract because they are altruistic saints who are there to pull up the little guy, they subcontract because they lack a required in-house capability*. Their compensation is winning a contract under which they would have otherwise been deemed unqualified. Not sure what your prime is doing but it sounds shady. *or it will otherwise benefit them
  4. Not sure I do either. But it's a conceivable argument. Edit: My argument was based on the premise that the incentive is to comply with the mandate which values vaccinations and exemptions equally.
  5. The religious accommodation provisions of Title VII might be an opening because the 'award' would also be in an HR file thereby possibly influencing future job responsibilities and promotions. Admittedly compensation doesn't fall under this part of Title VII, but paying the $500 to everyone who meets the terms of the mandate seems like a wise business decision. The EEO case related to a medical exemption seems a bit more straightforward under the ADA, which does specifically apply to compensation.
  6. The basis for this policy is probably that a vaccination or an exemption both meet the mandate in equal measure, therefore treating them differently for compensation purposes would run afoul of EEO laws* (particularly religious exemptions). Both sound allowable to me. (*or, at least give be close enough to an EEO violation to compel a firm to just pay the $500)
  7. I'm not following your point about manufacturer vs. a dealer. If you see a pair of these vacuum tubes that cost less than $128 to produce selling for $7000, buy them quick because you can flip them and make some serious bucks. Or would that be corrupt? NOS Western Electric 300B, Black Plate, 1964 & 1966, Matched Pair | TubeDepot.com
  8. Nor does a clumsy attempt at calculating cost & profit necessarily produce a fair and reasonable price. COs and CSs are not auditors. I negotiated a 'reverse' deal whereby the Navy was selling GFM/GFP from the losing contractor to Hughes after a down-select. Hughes' offer was based on their total costs to buy and rehab the GFM/GFP, not the price the Navy paid when they bought the GFM/GFP. Hughes was willing to walk away at the cost for them to buy new material. The biggest hurdle I faced was getting my leadership to understand that C&P data was irrelevant and market conditions were the primary driver of the negotiated price.
  9. From the Transdigm response: When you see a report with "findings" that look more like statistical outliers you have to question the entire methodology - and this report was used as the basis for proposed legislation. Gosh; it's almost as if the people we sent to Washington will use anything to justify using the power of government to punish their enemies and gain the support of the most fanatical and febrile zealots among us.
  10. Ah yes, but in a commercial environment it's easy for the vendor to walk away because of their seller power regardless of how the item is classified. For the government to try and fix that with C&P data is like going to the Toyota dealer and expecting them to give you the price you determined to be fair by pricing up all the components they used to build the car in December 2020. In fact, when I took my truck in for service last week the dealer was charging $12K over invoice for a new 4-Runner. At first I thought "wow; they are gouging the crap out of people." Then I noticed all the employees sitting around and the grand total of 5 cars on their lot, and wondered how they were getting paid. So is that "gouging" or "covering your fixed costs as properly allocated to a very low volume of sales"?
  11. Another possible explanation is a flawed methodology used to derive the excess profit. The fact that the IG findings were producing margins of several thousand percent raises many red flags to me. I've dealt with too many IG auditors to take for granted that they have the slightest clue of what they are doing. More regulation? Double-Secret Probation for all who fail to comply I assume?
  12. The issue which precipitated this bill is not the lack of C&P data, it seems to be more about whether C&P data should take priority over market conditions. Just the fact that the IG report keeps using the term 'profit' instead of 'margin' makes me skeptical of the whole thing. I seriously doubt the IG review was sufficient to determine actual profit (margin is typically a percentage; profit is a number) Trandigm's response is worth noting: If Congress had appropriated sufficient funds back in the 90's to buy the most economic quantity of sea-launched cruise missiles we would have been paying around $500K per copy. As it was we were paying closer to $1M. I suspect if this same IG looked at it they would 'find' we overpaid by $500K each.
  13. The past performance of the prospective prime as it relates to managing a sub who has critical experience seems more relevant. Good work can be undone by poor management. (Edit: I have first-hand experience with this scenario. A SB prime operating way outside their wheelhouse brought us in as a sub/SME and then proceeded to delay & butcher everything that went to the government because they believed their ISO 9000 certification and CEO's background in jewelry design qualified them to do so. These guys were so clueless their PM 'reported' me for failing to attend their internal career development training despite the fact I didn't even work for them 🙄)
  14. Are you saying that you want to evaluate the past performance of a proposed subcontractor based on their past performance as a prime contractor?
  15. Applying a law ex post facto is unconstitutional, therefore, I am under no obligation to abide by your arbitrary and capricious Topic Termination. 😐
  16. What I'm saying is the COVID mod authority is not based on a law passed by the Legislative branch. I'm not saying that POTUS didn't have the authority to do it. I can admit that there probably is not a meaningful difference between an EO and a law for purposes of the current discussion.
  17. Upon re-reading your post, yes; you did mention the equitable adjustment inherent in any mod executed under the changes clause- my mistake. Something about that last sentence being set apart made me think you were on a separate point from the previous paragraph. (FWIW, I didn't "twist your words", I quoted you verbatim. What I did do was make a dumb assertion because I misread your post. My bad.)
  18. So you're saying you could change the required clearance level after award from Secret to TS/SCI as a unilateral action and assume no cost or schedule impacts? The issue with the COVID mod which makes it different is that it's not based in law, but rather an EO issued on a legally questionable basis. I think the EO would be the mod authority. That's the sole reason the COVID mod exists and why we're even having this conversation. It's certainly one of the weirdest clauses ever: the language basically says "go to this website".
  19. Confusion. Contradiction. Bad Faith. Unfair Dealing*. Constitutional Overreach. Professional Embarrassment. Who could have guessed? 🙄 (* We were told that if the contractor won't sign a bilateral mod, the CO must add it unilaterally.)
  20. That's disingenuous. Even the largest employers will only carry a client-facing employee for at most 60 days without a billable objective. If you're a small business employee, no contract no paycheck. Immediately. As I said in my original post, contracts are not an abstraction. They represent real people with real lives. What you choose to believe to make yourself feel better about jeopardizing the paycheck of a law abiding citizen is up to you.
  21. It will be interesting to see what all the inevitable wrongful termination lawsuits uncover.
  22. Based on labor market shortages and the obvious strong feelings some people have on the subject of vaccines, I am worried about workforce retention.
  23. You'll have to forgive me if I continue to have worries about my A&E contractor in Idaho.
  24. I will do my job as directed because that is what I signed up to do. Lest we forget, these 'contract' things we blithely bandy about on a daily basis represent the lives and livelihoods of thousands and thousands of people, and we have a positive duty to demonstrate good faith and fair dealing accordingly (How many WifCon threads have discussed that subject BTW?). Being a good CO is not all about peeling apart the vagaries of the Limitations on Subcontracting clause. Must be Friday because I'm feeling philosophical.
×
×
  • Create New...