Pentagon Prices: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

The now-legendary tendency of the American military -- usually personified as [[The Pentagon]] -- to pay outrageously inflated prices for things that would be inexpensive for the average consumer, on the grounds that they were being provided by "the lowest bidder" and thus [[Blatant Lies|no cheaper price was available.]] As Christopher Cerf and Henry Beard put it in the subtitle for their book ''The Pentagon Catalog'', they are "ordinary products at extraordinary prices".

 

== [[Advertising]] ==

* Just before the first IKEA stores opened in the U.S., IKEA staged a teaser advertising blitz on roadside billboards. One billboard sported the tagline "More economical than this" above a picture of a wrench on which were stamped the words, "PROPERTY OF THE PENTAGON".

 

== [[Literature]] ==

''To the Bing Bang to the Pentagon

''Yes you sell them nails and they'll make you a millionaire}}

== [[Real Life]] ==

* This is a trope born from real life. Here are a couple news stories from the mid-1980s when this first came to the attention of the general public: