[Paine in the Neck]

There's an old political joke told around Boston that explains why $600,000,000.

It seems the town had decided to erect a statue to some bigwig and the job had been sent out for bids. Three bids had been submitted. Charlie Flaherty submitted one for $1000. Tom Finnerty had submitted one for $2000. And Billy Bulger submitted one for $3000.

The Town Council calls in the bidders to interview them. "Charlie, how did you arrive at your bid?" Charlie says "I've done such jobs before and I know the costs."

"Tom. And you?" Tom says "It's a complicated job and I wanted to leave room for allowances."

"And you, Billy? How did you get such a high figure?"

"Well, I figured $1000 for you, $1000 for me, and I'd have Charlie here build the statue."

Billy got the job.

$200 million for you, $200 million for me, and we'll let the low bidder build it. Not bad graft.

[Mears]

Aaaargghhh-Billy Bulger-—my day was just ruined even thinking about him. :-)

.

[discostu]

We had something almost exactly like that happen in my company. We wanted to remodel a computer lab, bid were acquired the low bid company was local to the lab (Tucson), but the person in charge insisted we use a company she had worked with before that was local to HQ (Seattle), so we paid them a bunch more and they subcontracted to the Tucson company.