Boy The Government Sure Knows How To Make Good Deals!

[Dave]

The State Department has purchased 2500 Kindle Fire tablets at a cost of $16.5 Million dollars. At first you might think that that might be a good deal, but then you do the math which brings the average cost per unit to $6600.00... when you consider that a Kindle Fire usually only cost $198, you can see that we the tax payer are again, getting hosed. I'm glad that the State Department wants to help more people to read but jeez, they couldn't get a better deal?

And people wonder why we question a lot of the decisions that are government makes!

The State Department has awarded Amazon a sole-source contract to provide the department with Kindle devices, NextGov reports.

The Kindles will support the department’s English Access Microscholarship Program, which is intended to help those who are studying the English language and want to learn about the U.S.

According to Dawn Lim’s report, the department chose the Kindle e-Reader because of its built-in dictionary, foreign language support, text-to-speech translation, battery life and global Wi-Fi connectivity.

The $16.5 million contract gives the department control over the dissemination of content in the Kindles and selected libraries and educational centers worldwide will receive the 2,500 Kindles.

The department also considered Barnes and Noble’s Nook, Sony Reader Daily, Kobe e-Reader and Apple’s iPad for purchase.

http://www.executivegov.com/2012/06/state-dept-makes-kindle-buy/

[XLFD]

Ridiculously expensive, like the toilet seats and hammers the Federal government would buy for nearly a thousand dollars, back when you could get a good one for $5.  With thousands of great novels available for free on Kindles, this is clearly a stupid waste of public cash.  I'll gladly 'donate' my regular book-loaded Kindle I brought for $64 new to the cause for the low price of $3300.

[Willy]

When items like these are extremely over priced it's a sign that the money is being used for secret or covert operations. Its the way the military and CIA fund many projects so they don't have to actually say where the money is really going.

[XLFD]

Could not that also apply to other public agencies that spend over $1.2 million over ten years in painting two water towers one time, er, I mean one water tower so far, over 30 months into the contract?