Boeing overcharged the U.S. Air Force 8,000% above market for soap dispensers

> “The Air Force needs to establish and implement more effective internal controls to help prevent overpaying for spare parts for the remainder of this contract, which continues through 2031,” said Inspector General Robert Storch.

I wonder if these egregious examples of expenses are due to lack of controls or intentional corruption.

"I'm shocked--shocked!--that grift is occurring in this establishment!"

I have to point out here, I think the word you're looking for is "graft".

No, it’s “grift”: https://www.wordnik.com/words/grift

Both potentially apply, but it can be hard to prove which:

  graft = obtain illegally by bribery
  grift = obtain illegally by trickery

I had assumed that they were there to hide costs for things that would not bear scrutiny but that still needed to be paid for. Not just speaking expenses for ex generals, but also supplies provided for operations that many of us would be horrified to find out about.

Considering the things the US funds in the open, even when doing so directly violates US human rights law, I shudder to think what would be covered up.

No, it's not. "Grift" is a count noun. You can't say "grift is occurring here"; you can say "a grift is occuring here", or "grifts are occurring here", but not just "grift is occurring here". Meanwhile, "graft", in the sense of the abuse of an office for personal gain, is a mass noun and can be used this way. Perhaps the commenter's mistake was leaving out an article rather than using the wrong word? The latter seems more likely to me, however.

Well the thing to note here is that "grift" is a count noun. (Their definitions as verbs is not what's relevant here!) You can't say "grift is occurring here"; you can say "a grift is occuring here". Meanwhile, "graft", in the sense of the abuse of an office for personal gain, is a mass noun. Perhaps the commenter's mistake was leaving out an article rather than using the wrong word? The latter seems more likely to me, however.

No the black budget is a line item in the overall budget. Very few things go into it: even advanced weapons will be separated line items outside it.

A fourth option would be "we want to keep Boeing in business, but can't offer direct subsidies per trade agreements"

> You can't say "grift is occurring here"

Sure you can; "grift" can be used as an abstract noun, much like "crime", e.g., "Crime is occurring here" vs. "A crime is occurring here".

The term you're looking for here is "mass noun" or "uncountable noun", and... well I was going to say "no, it can't", but searching does turn up some uses, so, uh, I guess people are saying that now and I was wrong? It must be pretty new; I'm not seeing it in dictionaries.

(Note that just because "crime" can be used as both a count noun and a mass noun doesn't mean "grift" can be! Most nouns are just one or the other, not both. Like Wiktionary has "crime" as both but "grift" as count only. But it seems like this new uncountable sense of "grift" is out there now, so people will have to update the dictionaries...)

Additional note: I'd still bet that the commenter was conflating the two words, however.