April 19, 2025· 39 min

Why the Pentagon Fails Audits Year After Year After Year

Orality
Model
89%
Highly oral (epic poetry, sermons, hip-hop)

Speaker Breakdown

HostJoe Weisenthal(1,656 words)
M:29%
HostTracy Alloway(924 words)
M:93%
GuestJulia Gledhill(3,719 words)
M:24%

Oral Indicators

Agonistic25%
obviously, basically, very
Engagement64%
you, our, your
Memory Aids100%
listen, now, right
Repetition100%
it's (52x), like (51x), think (40x)
Parallelism76%
And I'm Tracy Alloway...., And in fact, there are some ep..., So what you are about to hear ...
Sound Patterns100%
81 question(s), alliteration: "markets move", alliteration: "barclays brief"
Formulaic Phrases6%
i mean, the thing is

Literate Indicators

Hedging10%
probably, maybe, quite
Passive Voice6%
is dated, been recommended, is indeed
Abstract Nouns26%
investment, conversation, question
Subordination10%
because, though, while
Sentence Length36%
Avg: 13.9 words/sentence
Word Complexity52%
investment, analyze, anticipate
Academic Markers0%
Impersonal Style36%
460 personal pronouns found
Descriptive Style86%
obviously, mostly, lately

Description

Last year, it was announced that the US Department of Defense had failed an audit for its seventh straight year, indicating an ongoing inability to track its hundreds of billions of dollars in spending and inventories. Why does this keep happening? Why does the Pentagon get audited in the first place? And what can be done to fix it? On this episode, we speak with Julia Gledhill, a research analyst at the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center. She explains how the budgetary process works, as well as the prospects for the Pentagon ever actually passing an audit. Read more: Pentagon Still Falls Short on Jump-Starting Innovation, Audit Says Billionaire Feinberg Says Pentagon Needs an Investor’s Savvy Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.