[blackdog]

My mom worked for a maker of "stuff" for the US Navy. What they solicited from her she supplied, and they demanded it be marked with a shelf life expiration date. She told them it had none. It lasts forever. They refused her bids unless she put one on the "stuff".

A few years forward she noticed the "stuff" being sold at surplus auctions, so she bought it all. Every year. She would then re-test, re-package, and re-sell the exact same "stuff" with each new bid solicitation. Over 40 years she sold them their same "stuff" five or six times. She was quite up-front about it with the contracts officer. They didn't care as long as each new (old)batch had a new set of test data with new expiration date!

She discovered this is very common practice.

[xp38]

I’m sure there are many many other ridiculous bureaucratic practices but Elon and Vivek could start with tackling that one government wide.