NASA Says Metals Fraud Caused $700 Million Satellite Failure (bloomberg.com) 351
A metals manufacturer faked test results and provided faulty materials to NASA, causing more than $700 million in losses and two failed satellite launch missions, according to an investigation by the U.S. space agency. From a report: The fraud involved an Oregon company called Sapa Profiles, which falsified thousands of certifications for aluminum parts over 19 years for hundreds of customers, including NASA. The bad parts were used in the making of Taurus XL, a rocket that was supposed to deliver satellites studying the Earth's climate during missions carried out in 2009 and 2011. The launch vehicle's fairing, a clamshell structure that carries the satellite as it travels through the atmosphere, didn't fully open, causing the unsuccessful launch, according to a statement from NASA.
Uh, incoming inspection, anyone? (Score:2)
We all know "self regulating" doesn't work.
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When a competitor is cheating, it doesnâ(TM)t work.
It does work over time, which is the point of markets. many companies will not buy from this supplier again...
Cheating is always revealed eventually, one way or another.
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Re: This happened under your silly "government" id (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: What do you mean by "corruption"? Government. (Score:2)
Re: So much wrong in your comment. (Score:2)
Re: So much wrong in your comment. (Score:2)
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Who enforces the contract? Why that would be a governmental body enforcing contract law. Gee, even you need government to make your system to work.
Re: The dude literally answered your question alre (Score:2)
The idea is that it would be perfectly acceptable for there to be multiple enforcement agencies, provided by "private" firms.
Congrats, you just reinvented feudalism.
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The only way to keep bad people at bay is competition,
Competing at being evil is much easier than competing at quality services at good prices. The ideal free market does not give you ideal products in any way, whatsoever.
Re: Choice: 1 evil overlord, or 2 wannabes fighti (Score:2)
One of the great tragedies of the century was the United States gaining global dominance after the fall of the Soviet Union. The other great tragedy, was post WW2 when there were only two states with global dominance.
And yet these two "great tragedies" coincide with one of the most peaceful periods in human history.
The problem with having hudrends of roughly equal groups is that you end up with exactly the situation which now exists in the middle east, or which existed for hundreds of years in Europe: many factions all constantly fighting each other for control. As long as the balance remains it's true that no one faction can dominate or oppress the rest, but it also means that they all have a huge incentive to try an
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Unless you're OK with a few thousand dead every year from e. coli in ground beef.
It sounds like you would be surprised if this were true. You must be new here.
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Who's going to be the angel that crushes your skull with a sledgehammer? It's clear there's no brain to damage.
Re: Who are these angels? WHO? (Score:3)
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Reminds me of the China Syndrome plot (Score:5, Informative)
After investigating, nuclear reactor supervisor Jack Godell (played by Jack Lemmon) found a problem with one of the pumps which caused it to vibrate. Looking for the cause, he discovered that, instead of x-raying all of the welds, the contractor had used the same x-ray and just changed the reference numbers. This meant that there were welds that had never been properly checked during construction. A bad weld was causing excess vibration and the reactor to scram (stop and restart) and could have lead to a catastrophic failure of the cooling system, causing a complete meltdown.
You always hope that's the stuff of movie fiction, but inevitably you find out there are unscrupulous government contractors who undermine the quality control process.
At least this was just a loss of time and money (hopefully) and not life
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Exactly that happened in the Greifswald Reactor in east germany. Not "exactly" ... they had oversized pumps, after the motto: "better save than sorry". But the oversized pumps caused so much vibrations that pipes broke or where close to broke. The reactor got shut down very shortly after the east - west german reunion.
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Vibration seems to be a major vulnerability with nuclear plants. Fukushima was damaged by the earthquake which later prevented emergency pumping from working. Even the designs that are supposed to have passive safety rely on gravity inserting control rods and plumbing still working, both of which wouldn't have worked in that situation.
metal fatigue worry-warts (Score:3)
For molten salt reactors, the passive safety system diagrammed for John Q. Public is a solid salt plug that blocks flow to a drain tank. It's kept solid by a fan which only operates when power is available. Lose power, lose fan, lose solid plug.
What they don't tell JQP is that they would never actually design this system, because if
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Indeed.
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That sounds more like what happened at Three Mile Island where a loss-of-coolant incident wasn't recognized due to bad indicators.
Same problem in industry (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Same problem in industry (Score:5, Informative)
When a company starts to fall behind competitively, the chance of winning new bids gets lower and lower. Companies may feel that if they cheat a little bit now and guarantee that cash flow, they can catch up and go back to proper behaviors. What actually happens is it either becomes ingrained in the corporate culture or someone blows the whistle. Either way the truth normally comes out, just hope that no one is hurt/killed (ex: Takata airbags).
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NASA does the same thing, this company simply faked the paper trail certifications. There is nothing you can do about it other than note that your manufacturer consistently comes under their competitors because their competitors were doing the paperwork (and that costs money too).
It's a problem up and down the chain at NASA to always accept the lowest bid even though the quotes are impossibly low.
Re:Same problem in industry (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a relative who works for one of the major car companies. For a while, he had the job of tracking down the cause of metallurgic failures.
He told me the company would fly him out to a jobber's facility so that he could see for himself what was going on. He recounted once that he was inspecting the line at a supplier (first world country) and that the offices were nice and clean but the shop floor was.... dirt. And all the activity of manufacturing parts caused a lot of the dirt to become airborne, which would cause it to mix with the batches of metals that were being melted, then cast.
Apparently, it does not take a lot of dirt added to your alloy to cause a measurable drop in strength. (They no longer use that jobber)
Many companies want to compete in a wider arena (from what they historically have), but don't realize or choose to ignore that you have to up your game if you are going to sell to entities that require high standards to avoid failures (or even deaths).
Re:Same problem in industry (Score:5, Funny)
The pervasiveness of fakery (Score:3, Interesting)
One of my hobbies involves vacuum tubes, which are also apparently a ripe ground for fakery. The following article details fakery not only in the field of vacuum tubes, but also in airline engines, chicken food, and baby milk.
https://jacmusic.com/nos/images/Fakes/
It's sad to say, but because there will always be a profit to be made by selling cheap fakes, this problem will always be with us.
Perhaps digital signatures, blockchain, or other technological measures might help curb such problems by making falsified certifications easier to detect.
Owned by? (Score:2)
Brooklyn Bridge (Score:2)
Same kind of thing happened to the Brooklyn Bridge [wikipedia.org] where the contractor for the wire metal substituted it for inferior quality metal.
Thankfully, the bridge was engineered such that it didn't have a critical failure because of this, and still stands today (with perhaps the same wire - though I don't know for sure).
Bunch of morons (Score:3)
Those who rely on the seller to certify their own stuff.
My experience as a whistleblower. (Score:5, Interesting)
There were layers upon layers of fraudulent data reporting, especially ICP-MS trace metal data. I discovered traces and hints of fraud while I worked as a quality control chemist, but was fully aware that management condoned and largely orchestrated these events, through a system of intimidation, threats and repercussions. I continued working for the company, and after a few years, was promoted to be one of the most senior research chemists in the company. Eventually I was responsible for developing and validating all methods used to measure trace metals in Chemical Mechanical Polish (CMP) globally, with approximately 50 people under my direction.
At this point, I openly investigated and attempted to address the fraudulent data reporting.
The report I embed below describes my experience. It was written for my lawyer and I have not modified it for slashdot, besides adding a few breaks here and there. High Level Summary
In early June 2017, I reported a very senior employee (a man, referred after as BT) at the Mesa site of Fujifilm Electronic Materials for wrongdoing.
BT wields a supportive and captured apparatus, installed through replacement of key positions within the company with people of low competency and personalities agreeable to influence. This structure has been and is currently used to suppress reporting and honest investigation of wrongdoing.
Multiple internal-whistle blowing attempts have occurred locally within the less than five years of my employment. In each case, the issue has been whitewashed and the reporter admonished, intimidated and otherwise forced to withdraw employment at the company. My experience following the June reporting mirrors. I have received intimidation, retaliation, and discrimination of multiple forms. I was prevented from escalating to Corporate - first by local actors and later by Corporate itself. The apparatus mirrors that in place in other Fujifilm Holdings owned subsidiaries. The article below speaks to the issue.
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/nat... [odt.co.nz]
Initial Details: In mid June 2017, following but unrelated to my request, Fujifilm Holdings released an emergency alert regarding the initial details of the scandal described above. I had, within the two weeks prior, made the same connections regarding the local site, and these objections were the basis of my initial report. As such, I notified the HR representative at my site that the issue must be escalated, as it contains global pertinence and I linked to the article described. I was told that my request lacked merit, and Fujifilm Holdings wouldn't be interested or capable of investigating this issue. Further, it was heavily indicated that my position was at stake, and no help is possible. I began to go along with what BT desired, and made other overtures to indicate pacification. In the months that followed, to preserve my position, I became an even more vital employee. I ensured that my duties were performed with perfection. I entrenched myself in work, waiting for a time to act. Waiting for help. During a mandatory meeting in October, the CEO of FujiFilm Holdings made what appeared to be a heartfelt call for honesty and integrity in all matters, globally. On 11/15/17, I called the newly released Compliance Hotline number, thinking I was reaching out to Corporate. That's what the CEO had promised in the meeting. Instead, I reached only FujiFilm Holdings America Corporation. After re-reading the Committee Report and discovering that FujiFilm Holdings only found out about the XEROX scandal months after it had been released in local news, when a journalist called Investor Relations to comment on the report. I submitted some details regarding my report and my contact number to the 'Investor Relatio
Re:My experience as a whistleblower. (Score:5, Interesting)
"You may ask -- isn't there an auditor responsible for evaluating compliance and issuing certifications? Why not reach out to them?" Well, the auditor gets paid to issue certifications that companies are following a standard, such as ISO. If a particular auditor is 'too hard' on a company, well...there are other auditors that certify for the same ISO standard! So...auditors walk a line, and some a curvy one.
SGS is the auditor responsible for certifying the capabilities of the Mesa plant. https://www.sgs.com/en/audit [sgs.com]
I submitted the following to their compliance team. SGS later declined the request for investigation, stating that it wasn't their role.
Summary: I am a research chemist at Fujifilm Electronic Materials. In early 2017, I became increasingly aware of ongoing activities that were prohibited by our ISO certifications and internal procedures. These activities were directed by the most senior local Fujifilm Manager, bypassing our quality assurance systems and organizational hierarchy. Moreover, these activities were and are likely causing harm to our customer, Intel.
Fujifilm Electronic Materials Mesa is lying about our ability to test our products for non-conformance. These products are used in critical manufacturing stages and deviations in product performance will generate significant financial harm.
I believe this has already occurred and that violations of the Code are a likely source of some of Intel's recent manufacturing difficulties in the advanced nodes. Initial Reporting – June 2017
I reported these instances to the Human Resources department and requested an external investigation in mid-June 2017. The request for an external investigation was denied – instead the parties would investigate themselves.
I requested elevation to Fujifilm Holdings. I was told that Fujifilm Holdings was 'just a holding company, for accounting,' and they would not be interested or capable of discussing these issues.
I called the Employee Assistance Program and was told the same. I asked the EAP for advice – I suspected fraud, I had reported so and no one was listening to me. They offered no solution.
I asked HR for assistance while the internal investigation was conducted by but was denied. On June 29th 2017, I was told by the senior HR representative at Mesa to stop reporting issues, as 'they had enough information to work with,' and it was implied that my job was becoming increasingly at risk.
Job at risk – October 2017
I faced increasing levels of intimidation, discrimination and retaliation over the coming months. I was subject to special consideration and attention by the party I had reported. My projects were subject to requirements that were not applied elsewhere, prior or since. These requirements were widely recognized to be odd, and several meetings with EHS and Engineering leadership followed, where the oddness of the requests was mulled.
In October, as a response to the ongoing fraudulent activities at XEROX and other subsidiaries, Fujifilm Holdings released a Compliance Helpline the CEO asked all employees to use it to report any potential wrongdoing to Fujifilm Holdings.
Helpline Contact – November 2017 Emboldened, on November 15th 2017, I reported the above issues to the helpline. I did not receive a response until 12/07/2017. Rather than detailing the entire situation, I will provide a summary of the time since my reporting to Fujifilm Holdings.
I was not allowed to communicate with Fujifilm Holdings. I could only engage with Fujifilm - US, the regional holding company. This was problematic as the issue at Fujifilm Electronic Materials, Mesa was a symptom of FujiFilm Holdi
Thanks (Score:2)
This was interesting. Thanks for posting.
SpaceX suffered too (Score:5, Interesting)
SpaceX lost a Falcon 9 upper stage during launch to bad struts with fraudulent certifications. Now they do their own in-house testing of even such basic things as struts, because apparently metals manufacturers are fucking liars. Wonder if it was the same company...
Car analogy (Score:2)
No, seriously.
The legal and financial repercussions ought to match those levied on VW after "dieselgate." Some of their execs are going to jail, albeit not in the USA. Every owner of a diesel VW got some kind of compensation upon turning in the vehicle.
TFA doesn't mention it (Score:5, Informative)
But the person responsible for falsifying the tests has been sentenced to prison.
More infor here: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr... [justice.gov] And here: https://www.justice.gov/crimin... [justice.gov]
"Dennis Balius, the SPI testing lab supervisor, led a scheme to alter tests within SPI’s computerized systems and provide false certifications with the altered results to customers. Balius pleaded guilty in July 2017 and has been sentenced for his role in the scheme."
Re:free market capitalism at work (Score:4, Insightful)
Never mind, of course, that supplying materials to the government is extremely highly regulated, and is not only covered by lots of inspections and paperwork, but is punishable by massive fines if you get caught.
That fact they they managed to pull it off for almost two decades says more about the LACK of competition, and probably shows that they were not the lowest bidder in fair competitions, but non-competitive contracts as a regular supplier.
Re:free market capitalism at work (Score:5, Informative)
but is punishable by massive fines if you get caught..
Except in this case it wasn't. Caused loss of $700M rocket, paid $46M fine. The taxpayers are the ones who got punished with a massive fine.
Re: free market capitalism at work (Score:2, Interesting)
Free-market capitalism is economic bullshit made up by Uncle Milton Friedmam. The phony fiat currency trickles down, from fractional reserve bankster to entitled corporate entity. There's nothing free (as in beer) about it. The corporate entities with the best access to capital always win. You can even see it in the technology sector. NVidia robbed 3DFx and got away with it simply because 3DFx didn't gave the capital to keep fighting in court. So doesn't matter if you're brighter and your technology is bett
Re: free market capitalism at work (Score:5, Insightful)
Free-market capitalism is economic bullshit made up by Uncle Milton Friedmam.
Fail. Free market theory assumes equal access to information. Intentional fraud is the exact opposite of a free market mechanism. Sorry to rain on your self righteous rant.
Re: free market capitalism at work (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually you kind of prove his point. Free market theory assumes a bunch of implausible things which is what makes it bullshit as a model of reality.
Vs self-interest doesn't exist, politicians are wo (Score:5, Insightful)
Any economic *theory*, or model, is based on simplifying assumptions which aren't perfectly applicable in the real world. Just like other sciences - doctors, physicists, chemists, and many others use the ideal gas law all the time - there is no such thing as an ideal gas. The simplifying assumptions allow one to reason about a system in macro scale. Without them, one couldn't reason about the economy at all because you'd be too bogged down in trying to figure out every thought in each individual purchaser's mind. It's called an economic MODEL for the same reason a tiny car would be called a MODEL car - it's a simplified representation of the real thing.
Capitalist *theory* reasons about the economy as a whole by making the simplifying assumption that in general, people try to get things they want - it assumes the self-interest generally exists. Thus, if you set up the system with the rule "the way to get cool things is by working", people will tend to work; because they want to get things. Capitalist theory assumes that generally people tend to want lots of money. The system is system is therefore set up so that the way to get lots of money is by creating something that a lot of people want - creating something valuable that people will buy. The capitalist model
Socialism puts control in the hands of politicians rather than individuals. This will work, socialism says, based on the assumption that politicians are honest, only want what is best for their constituents, and are super smart, so smart that they know what you want better than you so.
Each model makes certain assumptions. The capitalist model assumes you can comparison shop, such as on the internet, to find a product that fits your needs. The socialist model assumes that a politician will choose a product that fits your needs better than you can choose. Both have assumptions. The question is which assumption best matches the real world?
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The difference is in what you do about it when reality and your favorite model part ways. Here is the U.S. the 'solution' when the unregulated market and the invisible hand don't produce magic is more of the same faster. Even when it becomes apparent that the less we regulate and enforce, the further the model diverges from reality.
A more honest approach is to modify the model until it at least reasonably reflects reality as a first step. The next step is for the model to actually demonstrate predictive pow
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The law of supply and demand is just a guideline.
Did you never wonder why in high season flights to your preferred destination are cheap, the food is cheap but the hotels are expensive? And in low season the flights are _super expensive_ the food seems normal and the hotels are cheap?
The factor in flights between low and high season os a factor of 10, and the price is over a factor of two cheaper in high season. But people stay only 4 weeks, so the hotels stay a scarce resource ...
Supply and demand is not a
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Many things e.g. in Germany are "mandatory", but not run by the government, e.g. Health Insurance ...
So I don't get your point :P
totalitarianism rofl. Perhaps you want to look up in a dictionary what the word means: https://www.dictionary.com/bro... [dictionary.com]
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Explain any capitalist failed state, maybe then you start understanding that mismanagement is orthogonal to the economic system.
I can't even name one, never mind explain one. But there are an awful lot of failed Marxist states.
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Then you are pretty much uneducated.
Ukraine, Madagascar, Haiti, Yemen.
Shall I go on?
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To be fair, there isn't a capitalist state either. There are fascist states because fascism isn't a puristic ideology, but neither capitalist nor Marxist states are possible. There *MIGHT* be a Marxist village somewhere (dubious), and there *MIGHT* be a capitalist village somewhere (also dubious). Both demand the kind of unswerving commitment that religions only aspire to.
P.S.: Mussolini did not really make the trains run on time. That was a PR job.
FWIW, the world is complex, and any simple "Do everyth
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I would imagine, pretty much any failed Marxist state was first a failed capitalist state.
Correct.
Marx pointed out the problems of privateers and robber baron capitalism.
Bismarck took the wind out if his sales by making grand reforms:
* mandatory school for kids (so they could be abused in factories as "slave workers") - paid by the state
* health insurance
* unemployment insurance
* restriction of work hours
* pension funds
I spare me Russia, while the had traders and merchants and industry as upcoming upper cl
Re:free market capitalism at work (Score:5, Insightful)
Except in this case it wasn't. Caused loss of $700M rocket, paid $46M fine. The taxpayers are the ones who got punished with a massive fine.
The $46M fine is a reasonable criminal penalty --- they should also be ordered to pay restitution, or else, the government should sue them in civil court for the $700M to pay for a replacement rocket.
Re:free market capitalism at work (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, what should happen:
1. Criminal investigation for fraud
2. Massive fine
3. Prison time
4. Most importantly, a big fat lawsuit against the supplier that gave them the bad metal.
If this was a private company instead of NASA being ripped off I guarantee that they would be suing the living daylights out of the supplier.
700M for direct damages, and since it was fraudulent and therefore presumably intentional I'm sure there's a healthy potential for punitive damages on top of it.
Re: free market capitalism at work (Score:4, Informative)
They could have fraud charges, the snag is how can this be proven. Fraud cases require proving "intent" (I was a jurist on a fraud case once). I would be very easy for companies to claim that they didn't know the certifications were bogus or to pass the blame on an an employee. Given how hard it is to prosecute, getting a civil and criminal settlement may have been seen as the best option.
Re: free market capitalism at work (Score:4, Insightful)
They can still sue for regular negligence. There's at least 700M in damages they can probably recover and they don't even have to prove intent. The fact that the supplier screwed up by giving them bad metal is grounds enough. It happened on their watch so let them chase down whoever screwed up the test, or eat it if they were asleep at post.
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I at first thought this was a small company, but it seems this company is quite profitable and had $2 billion in revenue for 2005. It's a private company so it's hard to find up to date info, but it does seem like $45 million was small potatoes to them.
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One difference between a private company and a big corporation is that for the private company, $1m extra profit is $1m extra income for the owner, who is also the decision maker. At a corporation, if they make an extra $1m it just goes into the company account. The executives don't simply take it home themselves. But they're the decision makers. So maybe they get a bonus or something.
There is no such thing as "small potatoes" denominated in millions when it is a private business. How many vacation homes is
Re: free market capitalism at work (Score:4, Informative)
If you're required to know, and you didn't know, and then you sign the paper that promises that the answers are true; that's fraud.
You have to prove intent, but "intent" of what? It doesn't mean what people presume it means from regular English; the legal meaning is within the range of the English meaning, but it is narrower. It means that the illegal act was an intentional act; it doesn't mean that they have to prove you did it for the purpose of breaking the law. When you sign a piece of paper that certifies that something is true, and it isn't, they're only looking at if you intended to sign the paper, and if you intended that people rely on it for its stated purpose, and that you knew that you didn't actually have information that the test had been carried out.
There are some types of fraud where intent is hard to prove, but fraudulent technical work like materials testing, that's not likely to be a hard sort of case at all! At some point, somebody who does not have those test results open on their desk is signing a piece of paper promising that the documentation about the testing is true. Promising that they reviewed it. If that testing never happened, then it is easy to prove intent to mislead when you sign that you reviewed the results.
Re:free market capitalism at work (Score:5, Interesting)
but is punishable by massive fines if you get caught.
Criminal penalties are the only thing that will stop this sort of thing. And there are many circumstances where defrauding the taxpayer will land you in federal prison. This needs to be one of them.
Something similar happened during the construction of the South Texas Nuclear Plant. Over a $billion in losses when it was discovered that the supplier was falsifying x-ray checks of bolts used in construction. The good news was they were caught before the plant was operational. The bad news was no one was executed for it. The death penalty seems appropriate for deliberately trying to cause a nuclear accident to save something like 50 cents a bolt.
Punishment isn't sufficient deterrent (Score:3)
Criminal penalties are the only thing that will stop this sort of thing.
Right because massive criminal penalties have totally wiped out murder, rape, fraud, drug dealing, and countless other crimes.... Oh that's right, here in the real world it doesn't actually work like that. Preventing crimes by simply ratcheting up the punishments to absurd levels demonstrably does not prevent crimes. The US has the largest percentage of it's population behind bars of any major industrialized country on the planet and yet we also are no where near to top of the league tables for low crime
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Singapore is one of the safest countries in the world, and has correspondingly harsh penalties. When the only penalty for murder, drug dealing, illegal firearms, etc is mandatory execution, prison populations stay low and recidivism is impossible.
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Criminal penalties do wonders to deter financial crimes. This is well studied. From bouncing a check to cheating on your taxes, if it's just a financial gamble, people will often take it. Heck, often that's even rational, as the chances of getting caught are low. But jail time changes the calculation entirely.
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Clearly the regulations didn't work, so let's get rid of them all.
Re:free market capitalism at work (Score:5, Insightful)
Extra competition wouldn't have helped. They pulled it off for two decades because their parts performed well enough, nearly all the time. They didn't want to spend the extra $ on testing, so they just made up numbers. Hooray for a bit more profit! Testing costs money. But they eventually screwed up making a part, their fictional materials testing failed to catch the problem, and the part made it into a rocket. Extra competition wouldn't have prevented that chain of events. Again, free market's don't fix every problem.
Supplying materials to the government is SUPPOSED to be highly regulated and regularly inspected. However, the current crop of US politicians are doing their best to defund any effort to regulate, monitor or test pretty much anything. Regulation and compliance monitoring is effectively non-existent when the budget for it is zero, even if it exists on paper. "Self-regulation" is the same as no regulation and we wind up with stuff like this (and the 737 fiasco).
NASA understands this. When things are REALLY important, they don't trust company data. They test the materials themselves and verify what they have, or they conduct surprise inspections at the companies on their own dime. However, this adds a crazy amount of cost to a project. Nowadays, they probably only do this for man-rated missions. If it's just a satellite, they aren't going to bother.
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Regulations don't prevent FRAUD, which is what this is. You can make all kinds of reporting requirements etc. If someone is willing to lie on one document they will lie on 10. About the only thing that would work here is if you created some metallurgy equivalent of the FDA and did inspections. Which I hope sounds to you as insane as it does to most people.
No this is the sort of things the COURTS exist to solve. NASA and all their other customers should sue them into oblivion for misrepresenting the natu
Re:free market capitalism at work (Score:5, Informative)
About the only thing that would work here is if you created some metallurgy equivalent of the FDA and did inspections. Which I hope sounds to you as insane as it does to most people.
It's not insane. The military has programs like this, for certifying parts and equipment for certain things that require extreme reliability. A certain amount of destructive and non-destructive testing has to take place, up and down the supply chain.
It's expensive, but not insane.
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The barriers to entry would potentially be prohibitive if you did that. As an engineer I would suggest the fault is partly NASA's, as they should have had in-house testing for critical components. They could even source this. I never trust mill test reports, personally.
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They still rely on the reports from the testing facilities or manufacturers. Doesn't matter if your test plan covers every conceivable failure mode, if you just fake the results rather than perform the test. Witnessed testing is also a thing, but is not comprehensive (usually only witness a small subset).
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You already have standards bodies, both federal and industry level, that determine these things. There is a great deal of certification involved and presumably chain of custody. This is all made to ensure that stuff is made right and supplied right. Its not really meant to prevent fraud, just incompetence. Fraud seems like more of a law enforcement thing. You can have all the certification in the world to ensure people are making the products to standard but if they willfully try to deceive you then its for
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You've never met my procurement department. Good luck awarding any contract to a vendor that is not the low bidder...
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This is a myth. Zero based budgeting is an actual thing.
And of course it never ever happened in corporations, ever.
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Re: free market capitalism at work (Score:2)
Isn't lowest bid a regulation though?
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I don't see the relevance.
If your car cost $40,000 and was burned because of a fault with a $100 battery, which amount would you expect to see on the check?
Re: free market capitalism at work (Score:3)
The $700 million loss was down to that company's criminal actions. A joke fine like that doesn't discourage further misbehaviour.
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Only causing damages of $700 million for NASA, not counting all the other damages it may have caused to the other customers. What a bargain!
The a free marketer would say:
In a free market the customers are justified in recovering the entire damage from the assets of the perpetrators - or as much as the perpetrator's assets will cover.
Does it happen here? That's what you get from using an inferior government monopoly legal system.
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The word you are looking for in anarchy. Free markets still have a government that enforces the liability and law system that enables a fair free market. In your straw man "free market" slavery is probably included too...
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Well, you could try Adam Smith. He does a pretty good job, though not perfect. For some reason the modern promoters of the "free market" don't seem to like his analysis though.
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In a free market the law system - if there is one - is also for sale.
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But where does that [free] market exist? In the same imaginary universe where Communism works out perfectly fine as well I assume.
And true capitalism, and true mercantalism, and true Scotsmen, ...
If you want anything to exist you have to build it.
And if you want any social system to exist you have to design it with a way to deal with the approximately 1% of the population that are psychopaths (defined for this posting "color blind" with conscience substituted for color) and the fraction (currently several t
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It seems there's more than one definition of socialism. There's yours, which apparently means a monopoly, and the one everyone else uses.
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That fraud happens under a (mostly) free market system.
Take away the profit motive, and this fraud wouldn't have happened.
Re: free market capitalism at work (Score:3)
You can't take away the profit motive. There was more fraud and corruption in the "communist" USSR than in the USA. Telling the rubes that they aren't allowed to profit doesn't actually eliminate profit; it just drives everything to the black market. In this case it would have changed absolutely nothing.
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Only if you make the really odd assumption that falsifying test results would have made you money on the black market.
It's not like there would be a large black market for bulk quantities of "good" aluminum.
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The USSR exported plenty of aluminium to the west, and they certainly weren't doing that at no profit.
And how much of that aluminum was made available by falsifying test results? None. 'cause "bad" aluminum to the government didn't actually get them more aluminum to sell.
Plus, the USSR government was the one actually doing the sales....which kinda indicates it isn't a black market.
Re: free market capitalism at work (Score:4, Funny)
My wife is from eastern Europe. Grew up under communism.
Health care is free. Right?
Well, sort of. It is free to put your name on the waiting list. To actually get timely care, you're going to be paying someone under the table. The only way she got into medical school was her father knew someone at the school.
My point is that there is ALWAYS a profit motive. Spout all the propaganda you want, Bernie still kept all the money from his book sales.
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Well, sort of. It is free to put your name on the waiting list
Guess what? I'm on a waiting list for surgery I need so that I can continue to see. In the USA. That's impossible, right? The profit motive means they should have been able to schedule me right away instead of waiting for months, right?
Golly....it's almost like profit alone can't fix this.....
Bernie still kept all the money from his book sales.
You know, I keep seeing this moronic talking point from you guys. It's fascinating, because it demonstrates just how much you're living in a cocoon. To whit: democratic socialism is not the same political system
They caught one doing that already (Score:3)
I'm concerned that in a few decades, AIs may "decide" to take actions that, if a human did them, would be considered fraudulent, ...
They caught one doing that already. It was reported on Slashdot.
It was a mapping program, that figured out ways to render aerial/satellite photos into map symbols and back. It got rewarded for how much the map looked like a map with building symbols and how much the reconstruction looked like the aerial photo.
It "got so good" that it made skylights and rooftop equipment reapp
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"News of the satellite failures comes a week after Norsk Hydro ASA, the current parent company of Sapa, agreed to pay $46 million to NASA, the Department of Defense and others to resolve criminal charges and civil claims related to the fraud, which took place from 1996 to 2015."
So cause $700 million in damages to just one of the many customers they cheated, and pay just $46 million to resolve the charges _and_ claims. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal for them?
Re:Jail time? (Score:5, Informative)
Good news, according to DOJ releases the individual responsible is serving time.
Sourced here: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr... [justice.gov] And here: https://www.justice.gov/crimin... [justice.gov]
"Dennis Balius, the SPI testing lab supervisor, led a scheme to alter tests within SPI’s computerized systems and provide false certifications with the altered results to customers. Balius pleaded guilty in July 2017 and has been sentenced for his role in the scheme."