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	Name:	MrHodja -
	Subject:	Actually....
	Date:	8/14/2009 4:45:34 PM

Your experience and mine are vastly different with regard to FMS cases. My experience is with one, and frankly I don't care about the others. You are the one who seems to be hung up on the FMS part of it.

I tried to make you understand that the fact that my work is paid for three or four layers up the chain by the Italian Government is inconsequential to what I do and its worth to my customer, my customer's customer, and my customer's customer's customer (the Italians). I also mentioned that we work on a CPFF basis, and thus are only paid if we work and for the amount that we work. You have no way of knowing how specific my Statements of Work are written and how specific my cost estimates are, or the task and financial reporting I am responsible to my customer for every other week. I can assure you that I and my company (which, by the way is among the top five biggest defense contractors) believe that the way we continue to thrive is by delighting our customers, and that means giving them maximum value for the taxpayer dollars they spend with us. (Of course Obama wants to do away with cost plus contracts - one of the few ways that, properly managed, neither the Government nor the contractor gets gored and the job gets done).

In the case of my customer's organization, their take-home paycheck for a person of comparable knowledge, skills, and experience is roughly equivalent to a contractor's paycheck. But the way we stay in business and continue to win contracts is by keeping our overhead, fringe, and G&A rates very low. That is where we beat the sox off our Govvies price-wise. Between their bloated overhead (yes, bloated, it went up 15% this year alone, while ours stayed roughly the same) and all their lost time for mandatory basketweaving training and other time away from the job of that ilk, our cost is less, making our price less (fixed fee), and thus we are indeed cheaper.

You said something about my being defensive. Hound, if you'll go back and look at your posts over the long run you'll find that YOU are the one who has been continually defensive about the Government and Government workers. There is nothing wrong with being proud of your service, and indeed I have every reason to believe that you were among some of the start performers. But for every one of those like you - and I have known many - I have seen three or four dolts whose productivity and progress is best measured in angstroms per eon. You need to be realistic and admit they are there. Difference in the contracting world is that if you don't produce you don't have a job.

OK, I need to finish up my work day. Looks like I'll be staying a little later than usual - wouldn't want anyone to think I was playing on the computer during work time.