5 ms·

(with my tin-foil hat securely fastened) I've always had a suspicion that the generous piles of cash thrown at the F-35 program was really going to two program

(with my tin-foil hat securely fastened) I've always had a suspicion that the generous piles of cash thrown at the F-35 program was really going to two programs: 1) A well-publicised cover (F-35) 2) A secret Skunk Works project like F-117, SR-71 But a corporate welfare program as you suggest is more likely.

ptero 7y ago
Real work is (comparably) cheap. With F35 budget well over a trillion dollars this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output. My 2c.
- wolfgke 7y ago
  > Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output. My 2c. Isn't the idea of skunkwork projects exactly to avoid bureaucratic waste for the sake of radical innovation?! Let me give three quotes from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Skunkworks_project&oldid=920062373 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Skunkworks_projec...: "A skunkworks project is a project developed by a relatively small and loosely structured group of people who research and develop a project primarily for the sake of radical innovation." "Everett Rogers defined skunkworks as an "enriched environment that is intended to help a small group of individuals design a new idea by escaping routine organizational procedures."" "[T]he term [skunkworks] was generalized to apply to similar high-priority R&D projects at other large organizations which feature a small elite team removed from the normal working environment and given freedom from management constraints.". In this sense, the projects you are talking about surely cannot be skunkwork projects, but are just ordinary cooperate projects with a huge conservative cooperate-bureaucratic structure.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - stan_rogers 7y ago
    Yes, and that's exactly what the post you are responding to said. Read it again: it says that the money is far more than skunkworks could possibly spend, so it's far more likely that the evaporating money is being boiled away by ordinary bureaucratic waste with nothing to show for it.
    - wolfgke 7y ago
      I am no native speaker of English, but at > Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output. to me, "it" seems to refer to "[s]kunk work" and referring to skunk work with respect to "max manpower" does not sound like skunk work to me, but throwing lots of cooperate ressources (instead of a small elite team) at the project.
      - ptero 7y ago
        The poster you are responding to is correct. Sorry, I could have been clearer in wording and "it"s. Skunkworks is great, but works while it is small and nimble. Fund it fully. But this could cost billions, tens of billions at most. Not trillions that have been spent on F-35.
      - mkl 7y ago
        "It" here refers to "F35 budget". The punctuation is not ideal; I think it would be clearer something like this: > With the F35 budget well over a trillion dollars (this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower), it is a bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output.
      - stan_rogers 7y ago
        The word "Skunk" does not start a new sentence. It is in the middle of this phrase: "this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain". I'll agree that the punctuation isn't ideal; that phrase should have been preceded by a comma.
  - chiefalchemist 7y ago
    Isn't the idea of skunkwork projects exactly to avoid bureaucratic waste for the sake of radical innovation? In the true sense of the word, yes. However, the MIC and the budgets that support it have their own working definition. It's not about the ends/results, It's about the means (swallowing more and more budget).
- chipsa 7y ago
  Pay attention to the time frame for that trillion dollars: 55 years.
mikorym 7y ago
This is always an exciting question... You know, it's nice to daydream about all kinds of secret and mysterious projects. But I think another question is more about necessity, and I think necessity is what fuels a lot of politics around these kind of military projects. People pull towards both extremes and end up somewhere in the middle, which is maybe the mean of perceived necessity. If the US is clever (NSA: this is your queue) it would find a way to use the current difficult political climate to focus on what they are supposed to do (I guess preventing war maybe) and in a relevant way for the times. The Russians basically did this with internet trolls. They took something simple (and amusing at times) and weaponised it. I guess one would hope enough people that are both clever and uhm, ethical, work for the three-letter organisations.
- Patient0 7y ago
  nitpick: in this context, you would want to use the word "cue" not "queue". "cue" => signal for an actor to go on stage or whatever. "queue" => orderly line of people waiting to buy a movie ticket.
  - mikorym 7y ago
    True, thanks. But in this case it was a fortunate fluke. Their queue is probably pretty long and unresolved as we speak.
    - albemuth 7y ago
      It... doesn't really work
      - mikorym 7y ago
        It was a typo, I acknowledged it, and made a joke. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago
It's such a good corporate welfare program that it produced an actual good aircraft.
- nabla9 7y ago
  It's more worker/voter welfare than corporate welfare. Socialism for the middle class. Lockheed Martin's long term profit margin is around 6-7 percent (recently above 9%). Lockheed pays more wages than it makes profits. If you count the whole value chain, with contractors and their subcontractors, it's probably something like 50% total worker compensation (wages, benefits), 10% profits, 10% cost of capital, rest is taxes, real estate, energy and raw materials.
  - divbyzer0 7y ago
    Trickle-down economics?
LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
Why not have both? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Aurora#U.S._sighting_claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Aurora#U.S._sighting_c... (Evidence of something moving around Mach 5 at high altitude, rattling the rocks, captured by seismic equipment since the 90ies. Overton Window has now been open long enough for Lockheed Martin to tentatively present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_SR-72 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_SR-72 as something new.)
chiefalchemist 7y ago
No tinfoil hat required. Not only was this guy a famous general, he was the POTUS as well. The Military Industrial Complex is very real. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9QXjBVC233s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9QXjBVC233s The Afghanistan Papers - which dropped off the mainstream media's radar almost instantly - is further evidence it's alive and well. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/documents-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/...

ptero 7y ago

Real work is (comparably) cheap. With F35 budget well over a trillion dollars this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output. My 2c.

wolfgke 7y ago
> Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output. My 2c. Isn't the idea of skunkwork projects exactly to avoid bureaucratic waste for the sake of radical innovation?! Let me give three quotes from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Skunkworks_project&oldid=920062373 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Skunkworks_projec...: "A skunkworks project is a project developed by a relatively small and loosely structured group of people who research and develop a project primarily for the sake of radical innovation." "Everett Rogers defined skunkworks as an "enriched environment that is intended to help a small group of individuals design a new idea by escaping routine organizational procedures."" "[T]he term [skunkworks] was generalized to apply to similar high-priority R&D projects at other large organizations which feature a small elite team removed from the normal working environment and given freedom from management constraints.". In this sense, the projects you are talking about surely cannot be skunkwork projects, but are just ordinary cooperate projects with a huge conservative cooperate-bureaucratic structure.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- stan_rogers 7y ago
  Yes, and that's exactly what the post you are responding to said. Read it again: it says that the money is far more than skunkworks could possibly spend, so it's far more likely that the evaporating money is being boiled away by ordinary bureaucratic waste with nothing to show for it.
  - wolfgke 7y ago
    I am no native speaker of English, but at > Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output. to me, "it" seems to refer to "[s]kunk work" and referring to skunk work with respect to "max manpower" does not sound like skunk work to me, but throwing lots of cooperate ressources (instead of a small elite team) at the project.
    - ptero 7y ago
      The poster you are responding to is correct. Sorry, I could have been clearer in wording and "it"s. Skunkworks is great, but works while it is small and nimble. Fund it fully. But this could cost billions, tens of billions at most. Not trillions that have been spent on F-35.
    - mkl 7y ago
      "It" here refers to "F35 budget". The punctuation is not ideal; I think it would be clearer something like this: > With the F35 budget well over a trillion dollars (this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower), it is a bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output.
    - stan_rogers 7y ago
      The word "Skunk" does not start a new sentence. It is in the middle of this phrase: "this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain". I'll agree that the punctuation isn't ideal; that phrase should have been preceded by a comma.
- chiefalchemist 7y ago
  Isn't the idea of skunkwork projects exactly to avoid bureaucratic waste for the sake of radical innovation? In the true sense of the word, yes. However, the MIC and the budgets that support it have their own working definition. It's not about the ends/results, It's about the means (swallowing more and more budget).
chipsa 7y ago
Pay attention to the time frame for that trillion dollars: 55 years.

mikorym 7y ago

This is always an exciting question... You know, it's nice to daydream about all kinds of secret and mysterious projects. But I think another question is more about necessity, and I think necessity is what fuels a lot of politics around these kind of military projects. People pull towards both extremes and end up somewhere in the middle, which is maybe the mean of perceived necessity. If the US is clever (NSA: this is your queue) it would find a way to use the current difficult political climate to focus on what they are supposed to do (I guess preventing war maybe) and in a relevant way for the times. The Russians basically did this with internet trolls. They took something simple (and amusing at times) and weaponised it. I guess one would hope enough people that are both clever and uhm, ethical, work for the three-letter organisations.

Patient0 7y ago
nitpick: in this context, you would want to use the word "cue" not "queue". "cue" => signal for an actor to go on stage or whatever. "queue" => orderly line of people waiting to buy a movie ticket.
- mikorym 7y ago
  True, thanks. But in this case it was a fortunate fluke. Their queue is probably pretty long and unresolved as we speak.
  - albemuth 7y ago
    It... doesn't really work
    - mikorym 7y ago
      It was a typo, I acknowledged it, and made a joke. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago

It's such a good corporate welfare program that it produced an actual good aircraft.

nabla9 7y ago
It's more worker/voter welfare than corporate welfare. Socialism for the middle class. Lockheed Martin's long term profit margin is around 6-7 percent (recently above 9%). Lockheed pays more wages than it makes profits. If you count the whole value chain, with contractors and their subcontractors, it's probably something like 50% total worker compensation (wages, benefits), 10% profits, 10% cost of capital, rest is taxes, real estate, energy and raw materials.
- divbyzer0 7y ago
  Trickle-down economics?

LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago

Why not have both? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Aurora#U.S._sighting_claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Aurora#U.S._sighting_c... (Evidence of something moving around Mach 5 at high altitude, rattling the rocks, captured by seismic equipment since the 90ies. Overton Window has now been open long enough for Lockheed Martin to tentatively present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_SR-72 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_SR-72 as something new.)

chiefalchemist 7y ago

No tinfoil hat required. Not only was this guy a famous general, he was the POTUS as well. The Military Industrial Complex is very real. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9QXjBVC233s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9QXjBVC233s The Afghanistan Papers - which dropped off the mainstream media's radar almost instantly - is further evidence it's alive and well. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/documents-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/...