The Pentagon's $399 Billion Plane to Nowhere
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The Pentagon's $399 Billion Plane to Nowhere
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Re: The Pentagon's $399 Billion Plane to Nowhere
#2> "An upfront question with any program now is: How many congressional districts is it in?" said Thomas Christie, a former senior Pentagon acquisitions official.
The military-industrial complex runs deep...and it goes to show how little we can rely on politicians to confront it. If you were a Representative from the few regions that still has an industrial base, it would be easy to justify just another "Yes" vote, for something that brings 50-500 well-paying jobs and is ostensibly there to "help America"...and hard to justify why you were one of the few to say "No" when ultimately, your share of the pork is small. But spread that attitude across dozens of representatives...and then you have a pork train that's too hard to stop, even if it is subpar in meeting its objectives. Maybe most projects are like this, it's just that this one kept going for a few hundred billion too far.
Re: The Pentagon's $399 Billion Plane to Nowhere
#3> "An upfront question with any program now is: How many congressional districts is it in?" said Thomas Christie, a former senior Pentagon acquisitions official. The military-industrial complex runs deep...and it goes to show how little we can rely on politicians to confront it. If you were a Representative from the few regions that still has an industrial base, it would be easy to justify just another "Yes" vote, fo…
Most military projects, at least. Witness the nightmare of the armed forces' camo wars [0].
[0]: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21600700-expense...
Re: The Pentagon's $399 Billion Plane to Nowhere
#4> "An upfront question with any program now is: How many congressional districts is it in?" said Thomas Christie, a former senior Pentagon acquisitions official. The military-industrial complex runs deep...and it goes to show how little we can rely on politicians to confront it. If you were a Representative from the few regions that still has an industrial base, it would be easy to justify just another "Yes" vote, fo…
The problem with this type of spending, whether or not it does create jobs, is that it is inherently wasteful. If it were a good plane, and not a political show pony, I'd let it off the hook. But billions are being poured into this fancy paperweight, when that money could more readily benefit programs like NASA (I am a fan of private space enterprise, but if we are going to go nuts with the political budget, might as well be on things that are useful). This type of spending creates a false economy that is not a meritocracy but (for lack of better words) a porkocracy.
Re: The Pentagon's $399 Billion Plane to Nowhere
#5Seems like I remember (back in 2005-6) taht the JSF/F-35 was well within budget and on time BEFORE the F-22 was cancelled because of the explosion in costs that now confronts the F-35. Can anyone corroborate that or am I totally off? It really seems that once the F-22 was cancelled the F-35 became the new 'cash cow' so to speak.
Re: The Pentagon's $399 Billion Plane to Nowhere
#6After reading the Wikipedia page on this plane, you'd have to be crazy to buy it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_...
Note: it's a long article
Re: The Pentagon's $399 Billion Plane to Nowhere
#7It would appear this nation's military is a fat, bloated welfare recipient, feeling entitled and too powerful for anyone to do anything about it, impoverishing the nation.
We all know it has many brilliant and capable individuals and teams in it who can do great work, but the system is anything but.
The money ultimately goes to people, meaning we are paying people to do unproductive work, though I'm sure plenty of it goes to executives extracting rents without working productively. Weapons are not the only way to make a nation secure. Collaborative relations with other countries and less disparity of wealth help too. Imagine the security that money could create if used to help others instead of threaten them, or invested into entrepreneurship or helping keep the government accountable.
History shows what happens to cultures where the people can't rein in its powerful who look for more power. I hope we figure out how to.
Re: The Pentagon's $399 Billion Plane to Nowhere
#8It would appear this nation's military is a fat, bloated welfare recipient, feeling entitled and too powerful for anyone to do anything about it, impoverishing the nation. We all know it has many brilliant and capable individuals and teams in it who can do great work, but the system is anything but. The money ultimately goes to people, meaning we are paying people to do unproductive work, though I'm sure plenty of it…
All the money we spend on the fighting the wars, yet we can't over spend on treating the veterans. It's really pathetic.
Re: The Pentagon's $399 Billion Plane to Nowhere
#9Pierre Sprey (F-16's designer) on the F-35 "The F-35 was born of an exceptionally dumb piece of airforce PR spin" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw
Re: The Pentagon's $399 Billion Plane to Nowhere
#10Eh. You get what you vote for.