Missing $21 Trillion / $6.5 Trillion / $2.3 Trillion adjustments

[dfnj]

A huge amount of money seems to have gone missing from the Pentagon. Immediately people will claim this is fake news or that it is some kind of BS accounting paperwork issue. But what nags me about it is it really doesn't seem like it's fake. The adjustments were made. Money went from the Treasury to the Pentagon by these adjustments. I don't understand how this is not a bigger story than it is.

"On July 26, 2016, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued a report “Army General Fund Adjustments Not Adequately Documented or Supported”. The report indicates that for fiscal year 2015 the Army failed to provide adequate support for $6.5 trillion in journal voucher adjustments. According to the GAO's Comptroller General, "Journal vouchers are summary-level accounting adjustments made when balances between systems cannot be reconciled. Often these journal vouchers are unsupported, meaning they lack supporting documentation to justify the adjustment or are not tied to specific accounting transactions…. For an auditor, journal vouchers are a red flag for transactions not being captured, reported, or summarized correctly."

(Note, after Mark Skidmore began inquiring about OIG-reported unsubstantiated adjustments, the OIG's webpage, which documented, albeit in a highly incomplete manner, these unsupported "accounting adjustments," was mysteriously taken down. Fortunately, Mark copied the July 2016 report and all other relevant OIG-reports in advance and reposted them here. Mark has repeatedly tried to contact Lorin Venable, Assistant Inspector General at the Office of the Inspector General. He has emailed, phoned, and used LinkedIn to ask Ms. Venable about OIG's disclosure of unsubstantiated adjustments, but she has not responded.)"

Given that the entire Army budget in fiscal year 2015 was $120 billion, unsupported adjustments were 54 times the level of spending authorized by Congress. "

Here's one of thousands of stories on the subject:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlik...of-our-money-without-telling-us/#49a7e3c87aef

Or just google, "21 trillion dollars missing pentagon". It's funny very how the very first google hit is a so called debunking site. It's just amazing to me how the word "debunk" will always be the very first hit on a google search for something like this.

The debunking article makes reference to the Forbes story as debunking the claim. But if you read the story it doesn't seem to be the case:

"An appendix to the July 2016 report shows $2 trillion in changes to the Army General Fund balance sheet due to unsupported adjustments. On the asset side, there is $794 billion increase in the Army's Fund Balance with the U.S. Treasury. There is also an increase of $929 billion in the Army's Accounts Payable. This information raises additional major questions. First, what is the source of the additional $794 billion in the Army's Fund Balance? This adjustment represents more than six times appropriated spending. Second, do these transfers represent a flow of funds to the Army beyond those authorized by Congress? Third, were these funds authorized and if so when and by whom? Fourth, what is the source of these funds? Finally, the $929 billion in Accounts Payable appears to represent an amount owed for items or services purchased on credit. What entities have received or will receive payment?"

It seems to me the Forbes story raises even MORE questions.

 

[Augustus]

A huge amount of money seems to have gone missing from the Pentagon.

Adjustments figures don't relate to actual missing money though, they relate to credit or debit adjustments added to make the ledger balance out to zero.

A simple example:

A $1000 payment goes missing, so I add an adjustment to the credit side to balance the book. This adjustment may appear in multiple ledgers representing different budgets, reporting systems, etc. So if it appeared in 3 different ledgers, that would now be $3000 of adjustments recorded.

Let's say later this payment is found, now I need to add an adjustment to the debit side of the ledger, which adds another $3000 in adjustments if recorded in 3 ledgers.

So I would now have $6000 in recorded adjustments, and $0 missing. That's how you get such large figures

(I'm not an accountant though, so I might be wrong on this )

Certainly it is problematic that their books are in such bad order, and some degree of money may well have been siphoned off fraudulently and much more wasted. I don't think it's quite as dramatic as it sounds though.

 

[Revoltingest]

Adjustments figures don't relate to actual missing money though, they relate to credit or debit adjustments added to make the ledger balance out to zero.

A simple example:

A $1000 payment goes missing, so I add an adjustment to the credit side to balance the book. This adjustment may appear in multiple ledgers representing different budgets, reporting systems, etc. So if it appeared in 3 different ledgers, that would now be $3000 of adjustments recorded.

Let's say later this payment is found, now I need to add an adjustment to the debit side of the ledger, which adds another $3000 in adjustments if recorded in 3 ledgers.

So I would now have $6000 in recorded adjustments, and $0 missing. That's how you get such large figures

(I'm not an accountant though, so I might be wrong on this )

Certainly it is problematic that their books are in such bad order, and some degree of money may well have been siphoned off fraudulently and much more wasted. I don't think it's quite as dramatic as it sounds though.

This sounds like an IRS audit I went thru some years back.
The auditor found a couple million dollars of unreported income
in some bank accounts. She started examining every journal
entry, & found each to be something other than income, eg,
transfer from revolving credit to a bank account. After spending
weeks (& much taxpayer money), she whittled the discrepancy
down to a couple hundred thousand dollars, & just gave up
without finding a single penny improperly handled.
But the total volume of journal entries far exceeded my gross
income. Who knows what the military are up to...aside from
obfuscating hush hush programs.

 

[columbus]

A huge amount of money seems to have gone missing from the Pentagon.

Do you realize that 6.5 trillion is roughly 10 times the entire military budget?
Larger even than the Federal budget?

Tom