8 ms·

The only difference between the F-35 program and the Fed's quantitative easing programs is that the F-35 program provided significant benefit to main street bus

by rrggrr 8y ago

The only difference between the F-35 program and the Fed's quantitative easing programs is that the F-35 program provided significant benefit to main street businesses and households. In all other respects both policies were designed to protect companies deemed too big to fail. Boeing had the better solution for the next generation fighter, but LM had the greater need and its interests prevailed.

gnu8 8y ago
The F-35 project is (so far) the ultimate expression of our permanent war economy which has propped up the United States since the end of world war 2. As such it is no less misguided than QE since the object of this type of military spending is to consume excess production. “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in a final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”
- gazsp 8y ago
  Who's the quote from?
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    Dwight D. Eisenhower
    - twunde 8y ago
      I believe it's from Eisenhower's "Chance for Peace" speech, one of his two major speeches against military spending. The other major speech was his farewell address, where he discussed the military industrial complex. If anyone's interested, I'd highly suggest watching Why We Fight, a documentary from 2005
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- ryanackley 8y ago
  This is exactly what I think of when I hear senators and congressman talk about cutting so-called entitlements. The narrative needs to be switched around to highlight defense spending as "entitlements" to defense contractors and numerous local economies that depend on them.
- iancmceachern 8y ago
  This.
- outside1234 8y ago
  You forgot about Russia and China in the statement above. You can't make an absolute statement that every gun comes at the expense of the poor, because if we hadn't had guns, I can assure you we all (including the poor) would have been worse off under a Nazi or Russian Communist regime.
  - astrodust 8y ago
    In every major historical engagement the US has fought it went in woefully under-equipped, under-manned, and out-gunned. It prevailed because it can tool up quickly and out-produce. You can't tell me that if the entire US fleet was sunk, every tank blown up, that the US couldn't rebuild in a year or two if the public was all-in on support. Instead the US has this enormous force that, by virtue of merely existing, it feels compelled to use now and then.
    - octopoc 8y ago
      > In every major historical engagement the US has fought it went in woefully under-equipped, under-manned, and out-gunned. It prevailed because it can tool up quickly and out-produce. It doesn't seem wise to rely on that always being true. The U.S. has not been involved in wars for very long (considering the history of war) and war has changed so much recently that assuming things won't change in the future seems like a bad plan.
      - mdpopescu 8y ago
        Er what? The US has been at war for 222 years -- https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473 https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473
        digi_owl 8y ago
        Since WW2, the "wars" have been mismatched to the extreme (never mind that in both world wars USA came in late, and never had its industrial capacity threatened). The closest to a symmetrical war was in Korea, after China sent troops. And that war has never really been resolved.
- notfromhere 8y ago
  Military spending is such a negligible percentage of GDP that calling the US a 'war economy' is nonsensical.
bilbo0s 8y ago
>the F-35 program provided significant benefit to main street businesses and households Not sure I agree with you there. It's no secret that the Air Force is already developing solutions for unmanned aerial superiority platforms. Being as kind as possible to programs like the F-35, I'd have to say that they will be, at best, "transitional". No way they will have the service life of, say, the F-16 or even 18. You have to wonder, if you know you have to go unmanned anyway, why not just upgrade the F-18 and your existing stealth platforms to get you through? The answer to that question was likely given to us a long time ago by General Butler and Ike.
- _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
  Because money.
- nradov 8y ago
  All of the existing stealth platforms (F-117, B-2, F-22) are out of production. There's no practical way to build more, and they can't really be upgraded to fly from carriers. The F-18 has been upgraded to a limited extent, however the basic shape of the airframe means it will always have a large radar cross section and IR signature no matter what they do. The concern is that it's just no longer survivable against modern air defense systems. So at some point they have to start over with a new airframe. AI technology might allow for totally autonomous tactical aircraft someday. But the technology doesn't actually exist yet, and probably won't for a long time.
  - noir_lord 8y ago
    The F18 vs F18 Superhornet wasn't a limited upgrade. They replace (iirc) 30% of the plane and it's much bigger. https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-2f54130dd50490fcfd1ad0efb0f53ea7 https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-2f54130dd50490fcfd1ad0...
    - nradov 8y ago
      I guess it depends on how you define limited. But regardless, the minor low-observability upgrades in the Superhornet were insufficient to make it survivable.
rjsw 8y ago
Boeing never fixed the problem of the engine ingesting its own hot exhaust gases.
greedo 8y ago
Boeing's proposal was horrible. LockMart at least made a fighter-bomber that could fight. The F-32 would have been fine in A2G, but in air to air would have made the F-35 look outstanding. Plus it had a hard time with ingesting hot gas exhaust.
- rrggrr 8y ago
  Didn't the F35 have the same issue, or was that the F22. I seem to recall pilots passing out for some reason a year or two ago.
  - foldr 8y ago
    OP means an issue with the engine ingesting hot exhaust gas.
  - greedo 8y ago
    The pilot safety issue was due to a failure in the on board oxygen generating system.
    - tabtab 8y ago
      Perhaps the jet procurement committee also lacked oxygen.
      - greedo 8y ago
        It's actually a common problem since the AF has been going away from old school oxygen tanks. The OBOGS (on board oxygen generating system) should be capable, but they're having problems with hypoxia.
fredch 8y ago
What does QE have to do with anything? Also, if you think extending cheap financing to businesses during a financial collapse is wasteful you're a fool. Pretty strange to be bitching about monetary policy then in the same breath praise pseudo-weaponized Keyensianism that doesn't even yield anything useful. Who do you work for, friend?
- rrggrr 8y ago
  Not praising or protesting anything. Just an observation. QE or DOD-pork have utility provided there is a check against moral hazard. As nobody of consequence went to jail for creating the CDO crisis, and as nobody will do so for the F35 boondoggle... the hazard remains.
mrfusion 8y ago
Also Boeing had aesthetics going against it: https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/37745n/boeing_x32/?source=images https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/37745n/boeing_x32/?s...
Aunche 8y ago
This doesn't make any sense. The F-35 program has no similarities to quantitative easing. First of all, I'm not sure how you even got the idea that Lockheed is too big to fail or that the F-35 program is supposed to be an economic stimulus. Second of all, quantitative easing doesn't cost the taxpayers any money, let alone hundreds of billions of dollars. Most importantly, the quantitative easing arguably prevented the next Great Depression, so how's that for benefiting main street businesses and households? The economy is built on debt, which is a good thing because that means cash ends up with people who are spending it instead of sitting idly. If banks deem it too risky to lend out money, the world's economy would grind to a halt.
- tabtab 8y ago
  Indeed. The Federal Reserve stated that they'd rather see law-makers act to produce a sufficient stimulus to prevent 1930's 2.0, but since they didn't, QE was Plan B. Our culture-war-obsessed Congress is dysfunctional. We are lucky we didn't (entirely) repeat the 1930's.
SkyMarshal 8y ago
>The only difference between the F-35 program and the Fed's quantitative easing programs is that the F-35 program provided significant benefit to main street businesses and households. You got that backwards, QE prevented (at least temporarily) a Depression, which would have impacted mainstreet businesses and households far more than whatever benefits they’ve gained from the F-35 have (nothing imho). The jury is still out whether the Fed can unwind QE with a soft landing or not, but so far it’s been far more beneficial to Main Street than the F-35.

by rrggrr 8y ago

gnu8 8y ago

The F-35 project is (so far) the ultimate expression of our permanent war economy which has propped up the United States since the end of world war 2. As such it is no less misguided than QE since the object of this type of military spending is to consume excess production. “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in a final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”

gazsp 8y ago
Who's the quote from?
- Someone1234 8y ago
  Dwight D. Eisenhower
  - twunde 8y ago
    I believe it's from Eisenhower's "Chance for Peace" speech, one of his two major speeches against military spending. The other major speech was his farewell address, where he discussed the military industrial complex. If anyone's interested, I'd highly suggest watching Why We Fight, a documentary from 2005
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
ryanackley 8y ago
This is exactly what I think of when I hear senators and congressman talk about cutting so-called entitlements. The narrative needs to be switched around to highlight defense spending as "entitlements" to defense contractors and numerous local economies that depend on them.
iancmceachern 8y ago
This.
outside1234 8y ago
You forgot about Russia and China in the statement above. You can't make an absolute statement that every gun comes at the expense of the poor, because if we hadn't had guns, I can assure you we all (including the poor) would have been worse off under a Nazi or Russian Communist regime.
- astrodust 8y ago
  In every major historical engagement the US has fought it went in woefully under-equipped, under-manned, and out-gunned. It prevailed because it can tool up quickly and out-produce. You can't tell me that if the entire US fleet was sunk, every tank blown up, that the US couldn't rebuild in a year or two if the public was all-in on support. Instead the US has this enormous force that, by virtue of merely existing, it feels compelled to use now and then.
  - octopoc 8y ago
    > In every major historical engagement the US has fought it went in woefully under-equipped, under-manned, and out-gunned. It prevailed because it can tool up quickly and out-produce. It doesn't seem wise to rely on that always being true. The U.S. has not been involved in wars for very long (considering the history of war) and war has changed so much recently that assuming things won't change in the future seems like a bad plan.
    - mdpopescu 8y ago
      Er what? The US has been at war for 222 years -- https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473 https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473
      - digi_owl 8y ago
        Since WW2, the "wars" have been mismatched to the extreme (never mind that in both world wars USA came in late, and never had its industrial capacity threatened). The closest to a symmetrical war was in Korea, after China sent troops. And that war has never really been resolved.
notfromhere 8y ago
Military spending is such a negligible percentage of GDP that calling the US a 'war economy' is nonsensical.

bilbo0s 8y ago

>the F-35 program provided significant benefit to main street businesses and households Not sure I agree with you there. It's no secret that the Air Force is already developing solutions for unmanned aerial superiority platforms. Being as kind as possible to programs like the F-35, I'd have to say that they will be, at best, "transitional". No way they will have the service life of, say, the F-16 or even 18. You have to wonder, if you know you have to go unmanned anyway, why not just upgrade the F-18 and your existing stealth platforms to get you through? The answer to that question was likely given to us a long time ago by General Butler and Ike.

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago
Because money.
nradov 8y ago
All of the existing stealth platforms (F-117, B-2, F-22) are out of production. There's no practical way to build more, and they can't really be upgraded to fly from carriers. The F-18 has been upgraded to a limited extent, however the basic shape of the airframe means it will always have a large radar cross section and IR signature no matter what they do. The concern is that it's just no longer survivable against modern air defense systems. So at some point they have to start over with a new airframe. AI technology might allow for totally autonomous tactical aircraft someday. But the technology doesn't actually exist yet, and probably won't for a long time.
- noir_lord 8y ago
  The F18 vs F18 Superhornet wasn't a limited upgrade. They replace (iirc) 30% of the plane and it's much bigger. https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-2f54130dd50490fcfd1ad0efb0f53ea7 https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-2f54130dd50490fcfd1ad0...
  - nradov 8y ago
    I guess it depends on how you define limited. But regardless, the minor low-observability upgrades in the Superhornet were insufficient to make it survivable.

rjsw 8y ago

Boeing never fixed the problem of the engine ingesting its own hot exhaust gases.

greedo 8y ago

Boeing's proposal was horrible. LockMart at least made a fighter-bomber that could fight. The F-32 would have been fine in A2G, but in air to air would have made the F-35 look outstanding. Plus it had a hard time with ingesting hot gas exhaust.

rrggrr 8y ago
Didn't the F35 have the same issue, or was that the F22. I seem to recall pilots passing out for some reason a year or two ago.
- foldr 8y ago
  OP means an issue with the engine ingesting hot exhaust gas.
- greedo 8y ago
  The pilot safety issue was due to a failure in the on board oxygen generating system.
  - tabtab 8y ago
    Perhaps the jet procurement committee also lacked oxygen.
    - greedo 8y ago
      It's actually a common problem since the AF has been going away from old school oxygen tanks. The OBOGS (on board oxygen generating system) should be capable, but they're having problems with hypoxia.

fredch 8y ago

What does QE have to do with anything? Also, if you think extending cheap financing to businesses during a financial collapse is wasteful you're a fool. Pretty strange to be bitching about monetary policy then in the same breath praise pseudo-weaponized Keyensianism that doesn't even yield anything useful. Who do you work for, friend?

rrggrr 8y ago
Not praising or protesting anything. Just an observation. QE or DOD-pork have utility provided there is a check against moral hazard. As nobody of consequence went to jail for creating the CDO crisis, and as nobody will do so for the F35 boondoggle... the hazard remains.

mrfusion 8y ago

Also Boeing had aesthetics going against it: https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/37745n/boeing_x32/?source=images https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/37745n/boeing_x32/?s...

Aunche 8y ago

This doesn't make any sense. The F-35 program has no similarities to quantitative easing. First of all, I'm not sure how you even got the idea that Lockheed is too big to fail or that the F-35 program is supposed to be an economic stimulus. Second of all, quantitative easing doesn't cost the taxpayers any money, let alone hundreds of billions of dollars. Most importantly, the quantitative easing arguably prevented the next Great Depression, so how's that for benefiting main street businesses and households? The economy is built on debt, which is a good thing because that means cash ends up with people who are spending it instead of sitting idly. If banks deem it too risky to lend out money, the world's economy would grind to a halt.

tabtab 8y ago
Indeed. The Federal Reserve stated that they'd rather see law-makers act to produce a sufficient stimulus to prevent 1930's 2.0, but since they didn't, QE was Plan B. Our culture-war-obsessed Congress is dysfunctional. We are lucky we didn't (entirely) repeat the 1930's.

SkyMarshal 8y ago

>The only difference between the F-35 program and the Fed's quantitative easing programs is that the F-35 program provided significant benefit to main street businesses and households. You got that backwards, QE prevented (at least temporarily) a Depression, which would have impacted mainstreet businesses and households far more than whatever benefits they’ve gained from the F-35 have (nothing imho). The jury is still out whether the Fed can unwind QE with a soft landing or not, but so far it’s been far more beneficial to Main Street than the F-35.