10 ms·

The F-35 has been highly successful at it's goal of funneling hundreds of billions of dollars into the military industrial complex.

adventured 7y ago
> funneling hundreds of billions of dollars into the military industrial complex What's the total spending on the F-35 program so far, going back to 2006?
- gknoy 7y ago
  > The total cost of the F-35 program is expected to be $1.5 trillion over its 55-year lifespan As of 2018, the estimated program cost was ~1.5T, or 1500 billion dollars. """The F-35 currently costs between $94 million (F-35A) and $122 million (F-35B) for low-rate initial production run 10, though sustainment cost projections are as big a concern as production costs for a program that is expected to cost $1.5 trillion over its 55-year lifespan.""" https://www.aviationtoday.com/2018/09/04/f-35-program-update/ https://www.aviationtoday.com/2018/09/04/f-35-program-update...
  - csb6 7y ago
    And people have the gall to say we can’t afford universal healthcare. “Oh, but now that money is lost, and now we actually can’t afford to spend money on our own citizens,” say the next couple generations of warhawks as we spend $2.7 trillion on a drone army made of caviar. We can do better things with our money.
- jml7c5 7y ago
  "Through FY2017, the F-35 program has received a total of roughly $122.6 billion of funding in then-year dollars, including roughly $54.7 billion in research and development, about $65.7 billion in procurement, and approximately $2.7 billion in military construction." via https://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL30563.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL30563.pdf
neximo64 7y ago
That employs and affects millions (directly and indirectly) of people across multiples countries in high deficit areas. Which is the ultimate goal of the project. A plane that may work is merely the bonus of the R&D spend. Countries that don't do regional-deficit spending in this manner (that seems economically inefficient) end up having severe problems, particularly after the GFC. Much of Europe is easily in this bucket. The F35 is part of the reason the US isn't in as much hell economically speaking as Europe is.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- munk-a 7y ago
  I don't disagree that do-nothing projects can be valuable to society - but defense contractors are an extremely inefficient way to inject money into the economy. Most of that money ends up going into the pockets of people who could find quite decent jobs elsewhere. Redirecting that money to small business grants would provide a much bigger boost to general societal well being.
  - Kalium 7y ago
    Some of it is less about injecting money than it is about maintaining capacity and capability. It's not always about jobs in general, but sometimes about specific jobs. The US defense-industrial complex may not always have a high need for people who can design stealth fighters, but it definitely prefers to keep a few around in case it does suddenly need them. Small business grants may not be a good way of meeting the same need.
    - ska 7y ago
      I suspect there is some truth to this. But I wonder how much of that effort could be directed to more useful infrastructure projects and still maintain skills. The other issue is that some fraction of defense spending seemingly can be viewed as funneling public money into a get-your-friends-rich scheme. I don't think you can find much net upside to that aspect.

adventured 7y ago

> funneling hundreds of billions of dollars into the military industrial complex What's the total spending on the F-35 program so far, going back to 2006?

gknoy 7y ago
> The total cost of the F-35 program is expected to be $1.5 trillion over its 55-year lifespan As of 2018, the estimated program cost was ~1.5T, or 1500 billion dollars. """The F-35 currently costs between $94 million (F-35A) and $122 million (F-35B) for low-rate initial production run 10, though sustainment cost projections are as big a concern as production costs for a program that is expected to cost $1.5 trillion over its 55-year lifespan.""" https://www.aviationtoday.com/2018/09/04/f-35-program-update/ https://www.aviationtoday.com/2018/09/04/f-35-program-update...
- csb6 7y ago
  And people have the gall to say we can’t afford universal healthcare. “Oh, but now that money is lost, and now we actually can’t afford to spend money on our own citizens,” say the next couple generations of warhawks as we spend $2.7 trillion on a drone army made of caviar. We can do better things with our money.
jml7c5 7y ago
"Through FY2017, the F-35 program has received a total of roughly $122.6 billion of funding in then-year dollars, including roughly $54.7 billion in research and development, about $65.7 billion in procurement, and approximately $2.7 billion in military construction." via https://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL30563.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL30563.pdf

neximo64 7y ago

That employs and affects millions (directly and indirectly) of people across multiples countries in high deficit areas. Which is the ultimate goal of the project. A plane that may work is merely the bonus of the R&D spend. Countries that don't do regional-deficit spending in this manner (that seems economically inefficient) end up having severe problems, particularly after the GFC. Much of Europe is easily in this bucket. The F35 is part of the reason the US isn't in as much hell economically speaking as Europe is.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
munk-a 7y ago
I don't disagree that do-nothing projects can be valuable to society - but defense contractors are an extremely inefficient way to inject money into the economy. Most of that money ends up going into the pockets of people who could find quite decent jobs elsewhere. Redirecting that money to small business grants would provide a much bigger boost to general societal well being.
- Kalium 7y ago
  Some of it is less about injecting money than it is about maintaining capacity and capability. It's not always about jobs in general, but sometimes about specific jobs. The US defense-industrial complex may not always have a high need for people who can design stealth fighters, but it definitely prefers to keep a few around in case it does suddenly need them. Small business grants may not be a good way of meeting the same need.
  - ska 7y ago
    I suspect there is some truth to this. But I wonder how much of that effort could be directed to more useful infrastructure projects and still maintain skills. The other issue is that some fraction of defense spending seemingly can be viewed as funneling public money into a get-your-friends-rich scheme. I don't think you can find much net upside to that aspect.