6 ms·

It's almost unfathomable how much good such an amount could accomplish, if it weren't being spend on building underperforming and unnecessary weapons systems.

Tostino 10y ago
Very true. While the advancement in the specific technology related to aviation this brings is significant, research in this area does not get disseminated to other areas in the same way that money going to funding other types of research would.
- dude01 10y ago
  Like cryptography research -- almost every public advance in that area is the second time, the first time while "classified" by the NSA.
UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
Indeed. I want the federal government to declare "war" on Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati and other poverty stricken areas. Maybe then these impoverished areas might get some infrastructure improvements which will generate jobs in the short term and help attract businesses in the medium-long term. Why did it take almost a whole year to get $170m (or just one F-35) to the people of Flint? Why is a military toy built to fight a fictional war against nobody more important than actual people who are suffering? The US will happily declare war on Iraq and spend $1.7 trillion, but just the thought of spending a dime within the country turns everyone's stomachs! We need to declare war on poverty, we need to declare war on collapsing infrastructure, we need to declare war on lack of public transport, and we need to declare war on shitty internet stifling the country's competitiveness. This is all GDP generating. Every dollar we spend on infrastructure provides almost twice that in GDP. What is the F-35's rate of return?
- phd514 10y ago
  Flint's not a great example of alternate ways for how F-35 monies could be spent. Political and administrative ineptitude led to unsafe water conditions in Flint and now federal taxpayers are bailing them out to the tune of $170M. That's wasteful all around as the situation was entirely avoidable.
  - khuey 10y ago
    Unfortunately indicting the people responsible doesn't seem to be on anyone's radar.
    - Spooky23 10y ago
      http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/12/20/schuette-flint-water-charges/95644964/ http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-c...
      - khuey 10y ago
        Ah, nice. That definitely didn't get anywhere near as much play nationally as the disaster did.
- fredgrott 10y ago
  your GDP math is off..Military spending and infrastructure spending has the same GDP effects..just different political sleeping partners
  - mikeyouse 10y ago
    This ignores multipliers.. building a military plane employs people, and they go on to spend their incomes but that's essentially the end of it. Building a bridge employs people who spend the money, but then the bridge makes an entire region more productive for decades, leading to much more (and longer lasting) growth -- as long as it's not a bridge to nowhere...
    - angry_octet 10y ago
      What is the GDP impact of an effective military though? Maybe the spending on the A10 etc deterred Soviet ambitions in Europe. We are certainly seeing a loss of US influence in Europe and Asia due to Trump devaluing NATO.
      - mikeyouse 10y ago
        Right but surely we're well past the point of diminishing returns.. what's the incremental value of the 750th A-10 or the 400th C130, or the 1,000th F16 to pick on the air force a bit?
        angry_octet 10y ago
        It's a classic OA or logistics problem: how many units of X do you need to meet need Y? C-130s to supply the force, F-16s to provide air cover or strike, pilots and aircrew to fly and maintain them, training required to maintain strength and readiness. Everyone does that assessment on the opposing force, to get an estimate of how credible they are. For the US that goal is two wars at the same time, anywhere. Right now they USAF has the problem of being 'hollow': not being able to meet their readiness requirements due to lack of people, operating airframes, or building technical debt through over-using equipment and people. So they have the 750th A-10 because they did the math. It's not about heroes, it's about being organised. The force is more than the individuals or the gadgets.
- mschuster91 10y ago
  > What is the F-35's rate of return? Reelection of politicians in areas with military industry, of course. That's also the reason why the Airbus plane parts are built, shipped around all over Europe before final assembly - in order to provide funding to EADS/Airbus, European politicians wanted to secure jobs for their specific countries, even if this adds significant logistic and cost challenges. Even science suffers from this "localism"... just look at ITER. Summarized: No one will dare to cancel or significantly reduce any major weapons/science/collaborative project, because any politician who votes for "shut down a program that employs people in my voter area" will face the consequence of not being reelected.
- hyperbovine 10y ago
  We had a federal war on poverty, starting with the Johnson administration and ending when Bill Clinton gutted the federal welfare program in 1996. Hell it even has a wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty). Slim chance of that ever happening again given the current political climate...
  - Aloha 10y ago
    Had we taken the money we spent on the war on poverty and just given it out to the poor, with a inexpensive financial literacy and education program to go along with it, we could have actually solved most poverty. Most poor people just need a little bit of a leg up to get them out of the hole, and then are able to crawl the rest of the way out and better themselves without much additional help, often within the same generation. Instead we formed an endless number of programs, targeted at specific regions, minorities and groups, with an seemingly endless number of bureaucrats to run them, and we end up only one or two pegs ahead of where we started. I just try to imagine how far we would be had we instituted a minimum income in 1975. The current political climate is because of perceived government overreach (real or imagined) - where the overreach comes from however depends on your political stripe (the right blames environmental and regulatory issues, the left, the national security circus/military-industrial complex) in the end the people are tired, and the attitude of the country has seemingly shifted (if even only perhaps temporarily), people want a return to normalcy, so I fear for a generation or so more, the chance may be lost.
- Banthum 10y ago
  Not defending the details for the F-35 program, but military spending in general: Every dollar you spend on weapons also increases GDP. Because GDP is not a measure of economic good, only of economic activity. In fact, wars create huge jumps in GDP. That doesn't mean they're economically good. And anyway, you can't measure military deterrents by "rate of return". The F-35's rate of return is "we don't have to fight another world war", because potential adversaries will understand they don't have a chance of winning and thus won't start a conflict.
  - udkl 10y ago
    > wars create huge jumps in GDP Huge jumps for all the wrong reasons. > The F-35's rate of return is "we don't have to fight another world war" The F-35 budget overran due to mismanagement, not because it just costs trillions to create the technology. I can see China working with Russia being able to afford their own competitive machines. There doesn't seem to be a clear "we don't have to fight another world war" end game.
    - kgwgk 10y ago
      Because there is no mismanagement in China and Russia?
      - udkl 10y ago
        Because this is gross mismanagement and because not all projects are mismanaged. Because as someone mentioned, a comparable Rafael craft cost < $100b to fund and procure.
  - pikzen 10y ago
    > The F-35's rate of return is "we don't have to fight another world war", because potential adversaries will understand they don't have a chance of winning and thus won't start a conflict. Meanwhile, the F35 barely goes toe to toe with the Rafale F3, which is cheaper to produce and maintain. But I guess you can reuse it elsewhere. Whooo.
  - valuearb 10y ago
tomjen3 10y ago
Indeed, it could've been spent on much better weapon systems, but I get a feeling it is not something most people here would approve of. Based on the replies to on your comment, most people would disapprove of this even if was the best weapon system, since they seem to disapprove of national defense.
- syshum 10y ago
  >disapprove of national defense. it these programs where actually used for DEFENSE, then I believe most people would not dissapprove of them, but the US has not been on the defensive for a number of decades now. Of course you can make the claim that programs like this are the reason, however I think would could spend the same amount of every nation on the planet complained and still provide a proper defense, unlike today where we spend 2x or 3x more than every other nation combined. Money Pits like the F35 are jobs programs not defense programs
- CalChris 10y ago
  At $100M per for a plane that doesn't work and is 7+ years behind schedule, the purpose of the F-35 is not national defense. It is to spend money on the right people. The F-35 is right wing welfare.

Tostino 10y ago

Very true. While the advancement in the specific technology related to aviation this brings is significant, research in this area does not get disseminated to other areas in the same way that money going to funding other types of research would.

dude01 10y ago
Like cryptography research -- almost every public advance in that area is the second time, the first time while "classified" by the NSA.

UnoriginalGuy 10y ago

Indeed. I want the federal government to declare "war" on Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati and other poverty stricken areas. Maybe then these impoverished areas might get some infrastructure improvements which will generate jobs in the short term and help attract businesses in the medium-long term. Why did it take almost a whole year to get $170m (or just one F-35) to the people of Flint? Why is a military toy built to fight a fictional war against nobody more important than actual people who are suffering? The US will happily declare war on Iraq and spend $1.7 trillion, but just the thought of spending a dime within the country turns everyone's stomachs! We need to declare war on poverty, we need to declare war on collapsing infrastructure, we need to declare war on lack of public transport, and we need to declare war on shitty internet stifling the country's competitiveness. This is all GDP generating. Every dollar we spend on infrastructure provides almost twice that in GDP. What is the F-35's rate of return?

phd514 10y ago
Flint's not a great example of alternate ways for how F-35 monies could be spent. Political and administrative ineptitude led to unsafe water conditions in Flint and now federal taxpayers are bailing them out to the tune of $170M. That's wasteful all around as the situation was entirely avoidable.
- khuey 10y ago
  Unfortunately indicting the people responsible doesn't seem to be on anyone's radar.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/12/20/schuette-flint-water-charges/95644964/ http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-c...
    - khuey 10y ago
      Ah, nice. That definitely didn't get anywhere near as much play nationally as the disaster did.
fredgrott 10y ago
your GDP math is off..Military spending and infrastructure spending has the same GDP effects..just different political sleeping partners
- mikeyouse 10y ago
  This ignores multipliers.. building a military plane employs people, and they go on to spend their incomes but that's essentially the end of it. Building a bridge employs people who spend the money, but then the bridge makes an entire region more productive for decades, leading to much more (and longer lasting) growth -- as long as it's not a bridge to nowhere...
  - angry_octet 10y ago
    What is the GDP impact of an effective military though? Maybe the spending on the A10 etc deterred Soviet ambitions in Europe. We are certainly seeing a loss of US influence in Europe and Asia due to Trump devaluing NATO.
    - mikeyouse 10y ago
      Right but surely we're well past the point of diminishing returns.. what's the incremental value of the 750th A-10 or the 400th C130, or the 1,000th F16 to pick on the air force a bit?
      - angry_octet 10y ago
        It's a classic OA or logistics problem: how many units of X do you need to meet need Y? C-130s to supply the force, F-16s to provide air cover or strike, pilots and aircrew to fly and maintain them, training required to maintain strength and readiness. Everyone does that assessment on the opposing force, to get an estimate of how credible they are. For the US that goal is two wars at the same time, anywhere. Right now they USAF has the problem of being 'hollow': not being able to meet their readiness requirements due to lack of people, operating airframes, or building technical debt through over-using equipment and people. So they have the 750th A-10 because they did the math. It's not about heroes, it's about being organised. The force is more than the individuals or the gadgets.
mschuster91 10y ago
> What is the F-35's rate of return? Reelection of politicians in areas with military industry, of course. That's also the reason why the Airbus plane parts are built, shipped around all over Europe before final assembly - in order to provide funding to EADS/Airbus, European politicians wanted to secure jobs for their specific countries, even if this adds significant logistic and cost challenges. Even science suffers from this "localism"... just look at ITER. Summarized: No one will dare to cancel or significantly reduce any major weapons/science/collaborative project, because any politician who votes for "shut down a program that employs people in my voter area" will face the consequence of not being reelected.
hyperbovine 10y ago
We had a federal war on poverty, starting with the Johnson administration and ending when Bill Clinton gutted the federal welfare program in 1996. Hell it even has a wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty). Slim chance of that ever happening again given the current political climate...
- Aloha 10y ago
  Had we taken the money we spent on the war on poverty and just given it out to the poor, with a inexpensive financial literacy and education program to go along with it, we could have actually solved most poverty. Most poor people just need a little bit of a leg up to get them out of the hole, and then are able to crawl the rest of the way out and better themselves without much additional help, often within the same generation. Instead we formed an endless number of programs, targeted at specific regions, minorities and groups, with an seemingly endless number of bureaucrats to run them, and we end up only one or two pegs ahead of where we started. I just try to imagine how far we would be had we instituted a minimum income in 1975. The current political climate is because of perceived government overreach (real or imagined) - where the overreach comes from however depends on your political stripe (the right blames environmental and regulatory issues, the left, the national security circus/military-industrial complex) in the end the people are tired, and the attitude of the country has seemingly shifted (if even only perhaps temporarily), people want a return to normalcy, so I fear for a generation or so more, the chance may be lost.
Banthum 10y ago
Not defending the details for the F-35 program, but military spending in general: Every dollar you spend on weapons also increases GDP. Because GDP is not a measure of economic good, only of economic activity. In fact, wars create huge jumps in GDP. That doesn't mean they're economically good. And anyway, you can't measure military deterrents by "rate of return". The F-35's rate of return is "we don't have to fight another world war", because potential adversaries will understand they don't have a chance of winning and thus won't start a conflict.
- udkl 10y ago
  > wars create huge jumps in GDP Huge jumps for all the wrong reasons. > The F-35's rate of return is "we don't have to fight another world war" The F-35 budget overran due to mismanagement, not because it just costs trillions to create the technology. I can see China working with Russia being able to afford their own competitive machines. There doesn't seem to be a clear "we don't have to fight another world war" end game.
  - kgwgk 10y ago
    Because there is no mismanagement in China and Russia?
    - udkl 10y ago
      Because this is gross mismanagement and because not all projects are mismanaged. Because as someone mentioned, a comparable Rafael craft cost < $100b to fund and procure.
- pikzen 10y ago
  > The F-35's rate of return is "we don't have to fight another world war", because potential adversaries will understand they don't have a chance of winning and thus won't start a conflict. Meanwhile, the F35 barely goes toe to toe with the Rafale F3, which is cheaper to produce and maintain. But I guess you can reuse it elsewhere. Whooo.
- valuearb 10y ago

tomjen3 10y ago

Indeed, it could've been spent on much better weapon systems, but I get a feeling it is not something most people here would approve of. Based on the replies to on your comment, most people would disapprove of this even if was the best weapon system, since they seem to disapprove of national defense.

syshum 10y ago
>disapprove of national defense. it these programs where actually used for DEFENSE, then I believe most people would not dissapprove of them, but the US has not been on the defensive for a number of decades now. Of course you can make the claim that programs like this are the reason, however I think would could spend the same amount of every nation on the planet complained and still provide a proper defense, unlike today where we spend 2x or 3x more than every other nation combined. Money Pits like the F35 are jobs programs not defense programs
CalChris 10y ago
At $100M per for a plane that doesn't work and is 7+ years behind schedule, the purpose of the F-35 is not national defense. It is to spend money on the right people. The F-35 is right wing welfare.