In ULA deal with Russians, big profit for 5-man Florida firm

How to become a multi-millionaire with virtually no effort:

https://news.yahoo.com/special-report-pentagon-deal-russians-big-profit-tiny-202014571.html

Excerpt:

That five-person company, RD Amross, is a joint venture of Russian engine maker NPO Energomash and a U.S. partner, aerospace giant United Technologies. According to internal company documents that lay out the contract, Amross stands to collect $93 million in cost mark-ups under its current multi-year deal to supply the RD-180 rocket engine.

Those charges are being added to the program despite a 2011 Pentagon audit that contested a similar, earlier contract with Amross. That deal would have allowed Amross to receive about $80 million in “profit” mark-ups and overhead expenses on RD-180 engines, government documents show.

The confidential report of the 2011 audit described the mark-ups and additional charges as improper under U.S. contracting law. Amross, the auditors concluded, was a middleman that did “no or negligible” work. The audit characterized the $80 million in added costs as “unallowable excessive pass-through charges.”

A spokesman for RD Amross told Reuters that the company resolved the dispute by reducing its charges under the first contract. Neither Amross nor the Pentagon would disclose the dollar amount of the price cut.

But the documents indicate that Amross later managed to make up for the concessions. In the current deal, Amross is charging the same average total price per engine - $23.4 million – that was proposed in the initial contract rejected by the Pentagon auditors.

Hush hush. We don't need to add insult to injury. The Ruskies have better designs at a lower cost than we do. We lost because we said closed cycle could never be done and kept our inefficient and expensive Western ways. They sold them to us cheap and cornered the market because we wanted short term profits, outsource it baby and the balance sheet will look real good. Too much money has been made on both sides. Putin is a good Capitalist and has a Monopoly. Time for US taxpayer to pay the Piper! Just a cost of doing business in Russia and we have no choice. Go ahead Mr. Putin, take Eastern Ukraine, we need the engines, natural gas and for you to repay your debt and to protect our investments. At least it is not all the U.S. Rocket Scientist's fault, most of the blame has to go to top businessmen in Europe.