Dissecting a $231 Million High-Tech Boondoggle 139
The L.A. Times takes to task the U.S. Congress, the Obama administration, and various military agencies for their combined role in supporting the expenditure of vast amount of money on a system called the Precision Tracking Space System. All told, according to the paper, the PTSS program -- which was to have provided early warning of missile launches, and precision tracking of the missiles themselves -- ended up blowing through more than $230 million before being cancelled. After talking to defense experts and reviewing hundreds of documents, the Times comes to what probably sounds like an easy conclusion for any big-budget military program that never reaches operation: it shouldn't have even left the drawing board.
as usual (Score:2)
who got paid? this passed congress in 09 so who voted for it? eventually the cronyism will show itself
good. (Score:3)
it's good that they cancelled the project. the only thing left is for everyone involved to pay back the money they took... with interest. to be fair, they can have the rest of their lives to pay it back.
Re:good. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Turn in your SJW badge if you're going to blame the Dem-o-crats.
Re:good. (Score:5, Insightful)
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if a politician is bought, blame the sellout, not the buyer
Re:good. (Score:5, Informative)
politicians write the rules, dont blame others for playing by the rules signed off on by politicians.
These days the politicians don't write the rules. The Wall Street lobbyists do. I'm not giving neither Wall Street nor the politicians a free pass.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/spending-bill-992-derivatives-citigroup-lobbyists [motherjones.com]
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Re:good. (Score:4, Interesting)
I blame Bill Clinton for repealing the Glass-Seagall Act, which turned boring old banks into high octane casinos. But Wall Street is ultimately responsible for pushing the repeal and gaming the system.
Yeah, that wasn't one of Slick Willy's brightest moves. Prob is, he signed off on it to get other shit done and didn't think about the repercussions.
Re:good. (Score:4, Insightful)
Prob is, he signed off on it to get other shit done and didn't think about the repercussions.
Not quite. Citigroup was in technical violation of the Glass-Seagall Act when it bought Travelers Insurance. Not surprisingly, the Citigroup CEO was a campaign contributor to Bill Clinton. As well all know too well, money speaks loudly to the Clintons.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/12/investing/citigroup-john-reed-glass-steagall/ [cnn.com]
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Re: good. (Score:3)
Don't be a jackass. Big money speaks to nearly all politicians. In fact, it's the rare bird indeed that doesn't sing for its dinner.
Re:good. (Score:5, Insightful)
The recession was inevitable, and we still haven't dealt with all of the fallout. Sub prime housing loans were the straw that broke the camels back, but even that is only a symptom of a much larger underlying problem.
Economists don't understand the economy. They are experts at trying to explain why banks, debt and money don't matter. When in the real world, they matter a great deal.
Until economists study and understand the actual role of bank debt, and act to constrain lending to constructive activities, we will continue to make the same mistakes.
Re:good. (Score:5, Insightful)
wondering why housing loans are cheaper than school loans, which anyone can tell you a home has value, an associates in womens studies has none
Student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy court. Another perk that the Wall Street lobbyists wrote for themselves. Private student loans have higher interest rates than federal student loans because the banks want to milk their borrowers for every dime that they can legally get. Student loans should be cheaper than housing loans since an education is an investment in the future.
Prior to the Great Recession, Wall Street analysts considered it impossible for homes to lose value as most price drops were limited to regional markets. That assumption got turned upside when the entire housing market in the United State went kaput. A neighborhood of empty houses are quite worthless to the banks.
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Private student loans have higher interest rates than federal student loans because the banks want to milk their borrowers for every dime that they can legally get.
No, it's because the federal government has the business sense of a lump of clay.
Student loans should be cheaper than housing loans since an education is an investment in the future.
Investments are intended to have a positive return. Allowing someone to borrow money so they can party for a few years isn't an investment in the future.
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Investments are intended to have a positive return. Allowing someone to borrow money so they can party for a few years isn't an investment in the future.
So we should shut down all frats, throw business students out onto the streets and have a party? Awesome!
Re:good. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's because the federal government has the business sense of a lump of clay.
If the government had any business sense whatsoever, it would banish the predatory banks from the student loan market and make past student loans eligible for refinancing at lower interest rates. Student loans are the next ticking time bomb in the economy. Only the government can step in to relieve the pressure before it blows a hole in the economy.
Investments are intended to have a positive return.
I wish Wall Street would apply that standard during the run up to the Great Recession. So many subprime loans and Collateralize Debt Obligations (C.D.O.s) wouldn't have been issued, as requiring positive returns is the opposite strategy of maximizing fees and damning the consequences.
Allowing someone to borrow money so they can party for a few years isn't an investment in the future.
The country doesn't need anymore lawyers. We need more plumbers, electricians and carpenters.
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If the government had any business sense whatsoever, it would banish the predatory banks from the student loan market and make past student loans eligible for refinancing at lower interest rates.
Oh, yes. Instead, the US government created that situation. It's worth noting here that the language of the poster I originally replied to, ("since an education is an investment in the future") was used to justify (mostly sincerely I think) the subsidy of student loans (and subsequent inflation of educational costs). Then the less responsible or relatively unlucky students started going through bankruptcy court and suddenly this huge program was exposed as the massive liability it was.
Elevating US stude
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Plumbers, electricians, and carpenters still get paid shit for the amount of training and skill it takes to do those jobs, ignoring the hard work involved entirely.
You need to educate yourself before making a stupid comment like that. The skilled trade shortage is real because our current work force is aging out, foreign workers have left the country, and high schools have been diverting students to colleges for years.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/emsi/2013/03/07/americas-skilled-trades-dilemma-shortages-loom-as-most-in-demand-group-of-workers-ages/ [forbes.com]
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It is better to just not create the situation in the first place.
Bankruptcy reform introduced the requirement to have applicants take "educational courses" before and after the bankruptcy proceedings that does nothing but add on to the costs and support a newly created industry.
Or the head of the TSA implements the requirement for body scanners in the airports, quits his position with the government, and becomes the CEO of the company that manufactures body scanners.
That college students are unable to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy court wasn't an accident o
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That college students are unable to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy court wasn't an accident of "poorly intended educational policy", but a deliberate request by Wall Street to Congress screw over society's future investments in young people.
No, I strongly disagree. Sure, Wall Street got what it wanted out of this, but that's because they're way better at this game than the affordable education people. Basically, some not very bright people wanted education for everyone, and we ended up with this mess.
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sorry, a degree in liberal arts has almost no value
I'm disturbed by your lack of faith.
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if i default in my student loans, what do you get out of me??? nothing
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if i default in my student loans, what do you get out of me??? nothing
Your Social Security benefits.
In 2013, the government garnished about $150 million in Social Security benefits from Americans to pay back their student loans, according to a September analysis from the Government Accountability Office. Between 2002 and 2013, the number of senior citizens losing out on a portion of their Social Security to pay back education debt soared 500% from 6,000 to 36,000.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/when-your-social-security-check-disappears-because-of-an-old-student-loan-2015-06-25 [marketwatch.com]
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Blame all you want, but how putting it where it belongs..... the *Republican* majority in both the House AND Senate that introduced the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (aka the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)).. those names, btw, in case your memory is as fuzzy as it appears to be, belong to:
o Senator Phil Gramm, Republican (Texas)
o Representative Jim Leach, Republican (Iowa)
o Representative Thomas J Bliley Jr, Republican (Virginia) - Chair
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TL;DR: it wasn't Clinton's fault, moron.
Never mind that the Clintons are still hip deep with Wall Street, the CEO of Citibank/Travelers was a campaign contributor, and the Clintons still deny to this that the repeal has anything to do with financial crisis.
Re:good. (Score:5, Informative)
The REPUBLICAN bill to repeal the Glass-Steagall, which they'd been attempting to do for 20+ years prior to Gramm-Leach-Bliley, passed without enough votes to sustain a veto, however democrats agree to go along with it after republicans yielded on privacy legislation to keep medical and financial records private (republicans didn't want them to be), and on consumer protection legislation (again, republicans at the time didn't give a flying fuck about consumers rights). After conference, Clinton was sent a version of the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act that was veto-proof. Now, you could argue that he could have veto'd it, but it would have been purely symbolic.
So.... Glass-Steagall was actually repealed by republicans (because that's where bills get repealed... the house and senate, not the presidents desk), after they held consumer protections and private citizens privacy rights hostage to do what they'd been trying to do for decades. You can certainly blame Bill Clinton... but you'd be wrong, and anyone who lived through the 1990's (and actually remembers them) should know that.
You are correct though about that being a massive negative on economic stability.
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Where are my mod points when I need them? Fucking piece-of-shit "nation of whiners" Phil Fucking Gramm is still out there working for UBS AG writing editorials for the WSJ about how we can fuck up everything even more if we just vote for republicans.
If Phil Gramm recommends it, I know to do the opposite.
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Clinton definitely bears some of the blame, but the the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act was perpetrated by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act named after the three Republicans who introduced the bill. The bill passed a Republican majority house and senate and was signed by President Clinton, obviously a Democrat. Blaming only Clinton is definitely looking at an extremely small part of the picture: this was the culmination of Republicans working
Re:good. (Score:5, Informative)
No. Clinton ordered the banks to be more willing to write mortgages on STARTER HOMES for first time buyers who couldn't afford large down payments and had less than stellar credit (but not terroble).
Instead, the banks knowingly made bad loans on McMansions and then processed them into dubious CDOs which they sold (hot potatoed) based on outright fraud by the ratings agencies as AAA investments. Absolutely nobody told them to do that except their CEOs eyeing huge bonuses. Then all the robosigning, certainly that wasn't mandated.
The fact is, a bunch of exceptionally greedy and fat pigs ripped the world off and then passed the blame. The big failing politically was not making bacon of them for the rest of us.
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Re:good. (Score:5, Insightful)
And Bush for idly watching the whole thing happen through two terms in office? And the bankers for ignoring the many warnings from their quants?
'Unsuccessfully fought" != "Idly watching" (Score:4, Informative)
Bush didn't sit idly by. From a 2008 article: [realclearmarkets.com]
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So, while the whole banking sector was going crazy and the ratings agencies were committing outright fraud, Bush focused on Fanny and Freddie? No wonder nothing changed.
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"Bush's first budget, written in 2001 — seven years ago — called runaway subprime lending by the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "a potential problem" and warned of "strong repercussions in financial markets."
At that time, the very definition of subprime was that Fannie Mae wouldn't touch it. Anyone who though that Fannie Mae was doing too much subprime lending at that point had no idea what they were talking about... like Greg Mankiw, who only argued for GSE reform b
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That's got to be some massive headache you've got there, what with hitting yourself in the head with a hammer all the time. You going to blame Clinton for not banning you from smacking yourself in the face?
That said, I'd be more sympathetic to the "regulations are bad" argument if it wasn't for the large numbers of companies that start swinging their hammers wildly whenever the regulations get removed and inevitably end
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No. Clinton ordered the banks to be more willing to write mortgages on STARTER HOMES for first time buyers who couldn't afford large down payments and had less than stellar credit (but not terroble).
In 2000 I got my first mortgage. I had to go FHA because I did not have a large enough down payment. No way would I have gotten the loan without STELLAR CREDIT. All FHA was doing was allowing zero down (which still cost about 6K in costs) but no way did they allow bad credit buyers. That didn't really get off the ground until 2004, thanks George W "A Home of Your Own" Bush. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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That's about half a bubble off. Nobody expected the banks to just give away money. They were expected to accept slightly more risky loans on starter homes. Slightly more risky, but not so much that they would lose money.
In many cases, the banks set the loans up to fail rather than simply risking failure. That is very much on them. They also made the loans on McMansions. I don't mean starter homes that now cost more due to demand, I mean ginormous houses on teeny little lots. That too is on them. It was rele
yes but why? Because it was made artificially pro (Score:2)
Yes, the banks made loans that would "fail", to use your word. Why did they suddenly start doing that? Why did banks, all of the sudden, start handing money to people who couldn't repay? Two reasons. First, because it had been arranged that bad loans, loans that would fail, would still be profitable.
The noble intent of the dems was to encourage (and force) banks to make loans to people whom they thought "should" be able to own a home, because it would be more fair if everyone could own a home. That's a
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Why did banks, all of the sudden, start handing money to people who couldn't repay?
Once upon a time in America, banks kept their mortgage loans on the books indefinitely. The good, the bag and the ugly. This meant that quality of the borrower was supremely important for the health of the bank. This was before the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which made banks very conservative and very boring. And then Wall Street got the bright idea of buying mortgage loans, packaging them up, and selling them as Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO's). The mortgage loans came off the books to become
until Fannie Mae in 1938? (Score:2)
Once upon a time banks didn't sell their loans, that's true, but not really relevant because that was prior to Fannie Mae - in 1938. By the 1970s, most mortgages were probably sold at least once, not kept on the issuers books. Mortgage-backed securities aren't a new thing. Assigning top credit ratings to low tranche ones was new.
It's also disingenuous to suggest that Glass-Steagall, which FORCED commercial banks to sell off their mortgages if they wanted the diversification of MBS, had prevented it. Quit
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Once upon a time banks didn't sell their loans, that's true, but not really relevant because that was prior to Fannie Mae - in 1938.
Those mortgages required 20% down and be less than $250,000 to be eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae. Everything else was kept on the books. While Glass-Steagall was in effect, banks were BORING AS HELL for 50 years of economic stability. What happened after Wall Street got the rules changed: the savings and loans scandals in the 1980's, Enron in the 1990's, Dot Com Bust and the Great Recession in 2000's, and corporate political money in 2010's. See a pattern developing here? Wall Street made money, Main S
hate to point this out, but you did prove it (Score:2)
> while Glass-Steagall was in effect, banks were BORING AS HELL for 50 years of economic stability. What happened after Wall Street got the rules changed: the savings and loans scandals in the 1980's, Enron in the 1990's
I hate to be the one to point this out, but Glass-Steagall was repealed at the end of 1999, allowing banks to begin expanding into investments in the mid 2000s. The problems you pointed out were while Glass-Steagall was in full effect.
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It was already on life support by then, it had been effectively eviscerated. They just turned off life support in '99.
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blame sub prime housing loans, enacted under president Clinton for the majority of what happened there
No. Blame everybody who was involved. Big awful financial crises don't usually happen because of a few bad actors, they happen because enough different people participated them in different ways to make them Big and Awful.
Blame the Clinton administration and the then-Republican Congress for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act that did the equivalent of letting casinos play against their own guests, using house money.
Blame the Fed under the Bush administration for keeping US interest rates very low to make
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So, have you stopped living beyond your means?
Most people who file for bankruptcy often do so under forced circumstances and not reckless spending. In my case, I've worked help desk for the previous five years and most recruiters/managers wouldn't consider me for anything else but help desk jobs. Needless to say, help desk jobs were non-existent in Silicon Valley in 2009 and 2010. On the day my bankruptcy got finalized and my bank accounts reached zero dollars, I got a new help desk job that started my long climb to financial solvency.
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Most people who file for bankruptcy often do so under forced circumstances and not reckless spending.
Depends on how you count the people living paycheck to paycheck, I guess. I know a few people who were never genuinely living beyond their means, and they weren't exactly poor and it wasn't frivolous luxury either but any disposable cash they had was burning in their pocket. They could have scraped together a nest egg but didn't, live today and worry about tomorrow when it comes. But how often do you really go through life without any unexpected loss of income or major expense? It sounds like you got shafte
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But how often do you really go through life without any unexpected loss of income or major expense?
One statistic I read was that the average person will experience two recessions and a depression during their lifetime. My late father who was born during the Great Depression regarded the Great Recession as another Great Depression. So do I to a certain extent. I weathered past recessions without being unemployed. But the Great Recession was something else.
Re:good. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not everyone has enough for a nest egg of safety.
When 75% of your income goes to rent the cheapest place you can find you aren't going to have a lot left overto live on.
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The guy who blames Republicans for his problems is an incompetent idiot who can't hold a job or keep his finances in line by himself.
As a moderate conservative, I do blame the Republicans for the messes that this country got into under George W. with the economy. If I'm such an incompetent idiot, how is it that I've been employed for the last four years and my net worth has a positive balance?
Re: good. (Score:2)
$231 Million? (Score:5, Insightful)
For government projects, isn't $231M "never leaving the drawing board"?
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That was my thought as well. $231 million? THAT'S what you're bitching about?
Wake we up when it hits the billions. I mean, for the cost of the F-35 program (current projected costs: $1.5 Trillion with a T over its lifetime) you could have failed to build the PTSS nearly 6,500 times. A single F-35 costs more than that program does, although I suppose an F-35 can at least fly. In clear skies, with no rain or clouds, and as long as it doesn't ever have to worry about lightning strikes because that can cause th
Re:$231 Million? (Score:5, Insightful)
A single F-35 costs more than that program does, although I suppose an F-35 can at least fly.
The F-35 program is an insidious example. With contractor offices located in 44 states, it's very hard for Congress to cancel the program and explain to the folks back home why they voted for local layoffs.
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death by 1000 cuts
Re:$231 Million? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, this seems like a win for the system. They ONLY spent a quarter billion dollars before the checks and balances brought the system to a halt. Had they not been able to stop it, the program would have chewed up something between 30 and 40 billion dollars throughout the life of the project. And still done very little. The really scary part is the sidebar to The Fine Article where the LA Times talks about all of the OTHER screwed up projects of the Defense Missile Agency that have already chewed up tens of billions of dollars.
Seems like the Pentagon and Congress hasn't figured out that Star Wars is a fantasy.
Re:$231 Million? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hell, the general US public just spent that much money in four days to go watch a movie.
While there may be some argument that perhaps that money could have been spent elsewhere, complaining over this one small amount of cash is a bit silly. Now, if we talk about a systemic problem - for instance, what percentage of projects like this get cancelled? - that is going to be much more productive.
$230M is something like, what, the salary of 1500 well-paid engineers and managers? Split across 5 years, that's only 300 people, which is a mid-size engineering company. Even if you figure that 10% of that went to line someone's pockets, the rest to actual employees of companies, I'd tend to agree with this - $230M is chump change, and probably actually kept some people employed. And it's not even like it was a lot of people (you might be able to change the number by a factor of 2 or 3 if you are paying median or low-end salaries). So it's not like there is much direct money spent on "political influence" here.
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what you say is true.
however i'm sure there are projects in flight, whether to kill people or to educate people
or to channel storm drainage that would have shown a substantially greater benefit
if they had 230M
worse, it rewards the system and the people who have evolved solely to suck on the
govt teat. maybe some of those people are useless, but maybe some of them could
be doing something useful if you weren't paying them to fuck off
and writing this off as a high risk high reward situation is nonsense, since i
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what you say is true.
however i'm sure there are projects in flight, whether to kill people or to educate people
or to channel storm drainage that would have shown a substantially greater benefit
if they had 230M
That's absolutely clear in hindsight. The question is whether it should have been absolutely obvious beforehand. That's not clear given the reason cited for program cancellation, which was not technical failure -- the program seems not to have got far enough along for that. It was the sequestration, which means to predict this particular failure you'd have to be able to predict that the President and Congress would be willing to take across the board spending cuts, even to defense, rather than reach a bu
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Yup. The strange thing is the people here who are exceedingly bad at math. 230e6 is not, in fact, as much money as one might expect.
In fact, we just had an article yesterday that I felt it was my duty to look into, for a change. It was about a tunnel in WA and it's not even a big tunnel. It's expected to be well over the 1.2e8 that it was originally budgeted for. Just the consulting group (rough estimate time - number pulled from my ass but probably pretty close) is going to model the traffic and give recom
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They also have links in the story for the actual biggest failures in recent history (F35 not among them).
The one I was disappointed about was one I had read about in ~2003 on /. -- the floating radar installation that went to Alaska, but is now decommissioned and rusting away in Perl Harbor. It is amazing how many of these projects are impossible based on simple math/geometry, but it takes millions/billions anyway.
And if you want to get political, most of the problems are related to an unrealistic timeline
$231 million? (Score:1)
$231 million? Shit, that wouldn't even pay for a single Marine Corps F-35B.
(Which is still a fucking bargain compared to the Navy version (the F-35C) that weighs in at ~$337 million.)
But hey, it's only money, no sense on wasting it on schools or medical research or feeding hungry people, right?
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Feature creep is a serious problem for the military. They're still trying to build a replacement for the B-52 bomber. Each complex design creates its own set of problems. The B-1 radar jammer jams its own radar, the B-2 stealth technology can't fly in the rain, and the next design isn't expected to arrive until 2040. Meanwhile, the B-52 with upgrades will continue to fly. If the navigation computer reboots in mid-flight, the pilots can always break out the slide rulers and maps.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/ [nytimes.com]
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The B-2 can fly in the rain, because material isn't an strong as aluminum it sustains damage that must be remeditated, but that is just a cost of doing business with the technology. You want a stealth bomber you are going to have to spend extra money maintain the radar absorbent material.
BTW the $600 hammer was actually $435 and was part of a spare parts kits, and when the contractor parceled out the R&D in their acc
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There was a special ultra expensive wrench that was often trotted out as an example of Pentagon excess, perhaps you were thinking of that. But that wrench was a special non-spraking wrench designed for working on bombs, which often gets ignored. IIRC it was made out of beryllium cooper.
As fa
Re:$231 million? (Score:4, Interesting)
Also let me illustrate government contracting, yes all the RFQs are posted online. But it isn't like you can bid on it, they typically require so much paperwork that companies that don't normally deal with government contracts either balk at it, or screw something up and their bid is not considered.
More often than not government contracting goes through a handful of distributors who not only know all the paperwork, but are often owned by people that can check off the right boxes on the minority statements.
So even though the government gets a quantity discount, often with all the overhead and additional testing the government requires (like getting a certification from an independent lab or doing NDI on every item delivered) even with a quantity discount it might still be more expensive then buying it at retail.
A good example of this is GE engines, they make the F108 that is used on the KC-135, other than a different name plate it is almost identical to the CFM56s they deliver to civilian customers. The F108s typically cost almost 10% more than the CFM56, and doesn't include the warranty that they give to civilian customers. That is because the USAF slows the line down for inspections and testing, and paperwork lots and lots of paperwork. Thus it costs the USAF 10% more than if they just bought them COTS.
Another good example of the paperwork is that the Lockheed is required to keep all the paperwork from the F-16 program, there is so much paperwork from that program that it has it's own warehouse. Some of that paperwork is almost 50 years old, and Lockheed will probably have to keep it safely stored until the very last F-16 is retired.
Government in it's attempt to control fraud, and waste has ironically caused wasteful increases in costs to prevent the waste and fraud.
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Similar thing happens with the construction in some public universities. Because of the complexity of bidding on projects, the documentation required before, during, and after project completion, heavy oversight from the Campus's own construction department (and a hefty overhead percentage charged to pay for said oversight), and inevitable change orders throughout the project because of committees wanting new things after already accepting a design and/or construction bid, I have heard that construction co
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That won't even cover the Hookers 'n Blow for a serious federal procurement contract.
Lots of juvenile comments (Score:1)
We are in scores of trillions of dollars in debt, and this is just one example of the reason. No accountability and no expenditure limits. Layer upon layer of bureaucracy and we keep throwing money towards the problem.
Taking risks guarantees failure (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to all the other comments about $231 million being chump-change, recognize something else about advanced technological research: sometimes it doesn't pan out.
That doesn't mean that we should never try to research new things though. Not everything can be discovered the way the Japanese like to do it, through hundreds of small polishes to an existing working design. Sometimes you need to think big to make a real breakthrough.
I would also put this story and some of the kneejerk responses to it in the category of "why the US isn't as successful as it once was". If the 60s were like today, with anti-science teabaggers controlling half of congress, would we have made a manned mission to the moon? Especially given that every one of those missions could easily have ended in disaster?
No people. Even the vaunted Solyndra failure came out of a program that overall had a better success rate than most private funding, and in the end, not only advanced technology, it made a considerable profit for the taxpayer. The willingness to scream and cry and throw tantrums by the anti-technology/pro-fundamentalist haters, every time some risk doesn't come out out 100% perfectly, is a cancer on the body politic. And we're sinking due to the over caution that results.
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No people. Even the vaunted Solyndra failure came out of a program that overall had a better success rate than most private funding, and in the end, not only advanced technology, it made a considerable profit for the taxpayer.
It's interesting you mention Solyndra because, just like Star Wars, it was obvious to many that it was a pork project before it began. The relative success of the overall program doesn't speak to the validity of the inclusion of Solyndra any more than the relative success of military research speaks to the validity of this project.
Vast Amount of Money? (Score:1)
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As far as not beating MIGs, it was never designed to do that. The JSF de
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It can't fight, it can't run, and it's afraid to get wet. The F-35 is a piece of shit that's going to cost us over 1.5 trillion dollars.
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Repeat after me, the F-35 wasn't designed to have air to air combat as a primary requirement. If it was, it would look a lot like the F-22, large wings, small internal weapons bays, and a large engine. Instead it was designed with a large internal weapons bay which eats up the available wing area, and a more moderate engine. No one complained that the F-117 couldn't beat a fly in ACM. Honestly I think if the DOD decided to name it the B-35 or the A-35 it w
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Page 1:
The F-35 was conceived as a relatively affordable fifth-generation strike fighter..... .....Strike fighters are dual-role tactical aircraft that are capable of both air-to-ground (strike) and air-to-air (fighter) combat
operations.
Repeat after me... you're full of shit if you're trying to tell people a strike fighter, specifically designed to have TWO roles...air-to-ground and air-to-air combat capabilities are not designed for air-to-air combat. As for not being able to replace the F-15 or F-16.... planes that it was SPECIFICALLY suppose to replace.... you're right, it can't, and i think that pretty much defines it as a worthless piece of shit.
And you can get your panties in a wad and s
Re: (Score:2)
I never said that it couldn't do air to air. Simply that when the contract was drawn up that stealth strike was their primary concern, as they already had a contract program that concentrated on air to air. As far as the test pilot report, the test pilot knew that the F-35 didn't stand a chance against the F-16 (as the YF-16 was designed to be the best dog fighter in the sky and the F-16 still retains much of that capability), he was just surpri
is failure allowed? (Score:2)
Not that bad (Score:2)
According to the document the manufacturing contract was awarded between the establishment of the office to oversee a non-existing program and a requirements review. It also took two years to set up the administration of the program and these administrators are now merged with another office.
SeaKing Helicopters (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
I'm not positive (mi espanole es muy mierda) but I think it's also 'corrupcion' with a little squiggly thing on the 'c.' (I can speak a bit of Spanish, borderline fluent, but I sure as hell have no idea how it is spelled. Also, it's more like Mexican that I speak. The Spaniards speak their language a little differently but I can communicate well enough if they slow down a little.
No money-back guarantees? (Score:2)
As a tax payer, I'd like my money back, but I suspect that there are no consumer protections built into that lucrative racket, are there?
Don't feel bad Canda can do way worse (Score:2)
I want you to think about that. There are 33 million Canadians. So assuming every Canadian has 10 guns we are talking 330 million gun records distributed among 33 million owner records and then assuming that we are all police with varying levels of access let's assume 33 million admin records. So assuming 5K per gun record and so
It's not a boondoggle (Score:2)
Political Motivations Here (Score:1)
My answer: YES !!
Is this because I am a tea party republican?
I suggest to you it is not. In that event I could see Debbie Wasserman-Schultz wishing very dearly we had better missile tracking capabilities.
So why does the media resent military R&D all the time?
Political assumptions that have nothing to do with the wishes of ordinary voters.
Re:Government fails at everything (Score:5, Insightful)
large uncontrolled budget, with unlimited spending increases, and zero common fiscal sense.
In terms of military budgets, $230M is nothing. We have other boondoggles that have burned through a thousand times that. In fact, this program is such a trivial amount, I suspect it is being emphasized to distract people from the real waste. The F35 program burns through $230M every three days.
A typical republican budget plan.
This program was proposed by the Obama administration, and passed by congress with plenty of votes from both parties.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
large uncontrolled budget, with unlimited spending increases, and zero common fiscal sense.
In terms of military budgets, $230M is nothing. We have other boondoggles that have burned through a thousand times that. In fact, this program is such a trivial amount, I suspect it is being emphasized to distract people from the real waste. The F35 program burns through $230M every three days.
A typical republican budget plan.
This program was proposed by the Obama administration, and passed by congress with plenty of votes from both parties.
And then defunded by the Republican House in 2011 & 2012. Had it been proposed by a Republican, it would have been funded til the 2nd Coming of Elvis. 230 mil over 5 years, all in? Hell, that's coffee and donut money for the Pentagon.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
is there anything, anything at all that is obamas fault to folks like you??
Re:Government fails at everything (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes they were voting against absolutely everything back then because...obama - please try to keep up.
Spite is a very childish way to run an opposition and shows utter contempt for the country but it can be effective at times.
Re: (Score:1)
I often make a point that the US is very deranged about justifying military vs civilian expenditures. If anything civilian expenditures are subject to excessive cost benefit analysis, nimbism, and reflexive rejection. Plus pie an the sky libertarian thinking (AKA private enterprise always spends the tax payers money more wisely then the government). When it comes to military spending all that goes right out the window.
Re: (Score:1)
Libertarianism is not an economic model but a political ideology. I am a Libertarian. While I'm not overly fond of the term, I don't have time to give you an eduction this morning. So, suffice to say, I'm often referred to as a "Socialist Libertarian." See the first four or five paragraphs on Wikipedia, it's actually authored fairly well.
Re: (Score:2)
> The F35 program burns through $230M every three days.
Indeed, $230 million will buy you maybe two F-35s -- with money left over for a nice dinner. Of course that's if you believe the current cost projections for the USAF version(why would anyone do that?). The Navy and Marine corps models come with more cup holders, wi-fi and simulated leopard seat covers. They cost a bit more.
And all the models are priced without engines.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Government fails at everything (Score:1)
Bam, no more anything.
created by Dem Congress, fought by Republicans (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually the program was created in 2008/2009, while the Democrats controlled everything- the House, Senate, and White House. Additional funding was added later by the Democrat-controlled Senate while Republicans argued against it.
http://graphics.latimes.com/mi... [latimes.com]