5 ms·

Pork doesn't work. Ask people inside DOD who are increasingly frustrated at the Primes leading DOD around by the nose with outdated ideas and outmoded products.

Pork doesn't work. Ask people inside DOD who are increasingly frustrated at the Primes leading DOD around by the nose with outdated ideas and outmoded products. For national security, we need a state of affairs wherein it is profitable to build and run a plant in the U.S. that responds primarily to the dynamic needs of private actors. All of the issues there are on the cost side of the ledger.

beauzero 5y ago
Primes? ...sorry not familiar with the lingo.
- stagger87 5y ago
  The major defense contractors.
- ms512 5y ago
  Prime Contractor. It is a company that is responsible for the final integration of a system, but often fans out subcomponents to a large assortment of other companies.
- pebcack 5y ago
  The contracting company that wins a bid for a contract is the Prime contractor. Often times these companies will then subcontract out some of that work (and sometimes it's even required by the contract to do so) to other contracting companies which would then be the Sub-contractor. That's where the "Prime" and "Sub" lingo in re: to DoD contracting comes form.
  - airstrike 5y ago
    And the sub-contractors are sometimes further broken down into Tier 2, Tier 3... depending on how far down the value-chain they are
vkou 5y ago
> For national security, we need a state of affairs wherein it is profitable to build and run a plant in the U.S. The way to do that is massive tariffs, not pork. They will be met with retaliatory tariffs.
dragontamer 5y ago
> Pork doesn't work. Seemed to work when Taiwan basically funded TSMC. If they can do it, why can't we do it? I mean, the USA is also funding TSMC to move to Arizona. I don't got nothing against this, but domestic chip-makers should also get a piece of the pie, right? -------------- In any case, this isn't "Pork". Pork is when you build something useless in somebody's state (aka: The Bridge to Nowhere), so that those "somebodies" vote on some other bill. Aka: Build a bridge in Alaska to nowhere, and __suddenly__ your Alaskan senators / house members starts the process of log-rolling and helps out on other bills. ------ Pork was incredibly common in the 80s and 90s, and has been cut down in the modern era. Today, its impossible to get logrolling, because too many people have demonized pork. If you want to get Senators / House members to support a large-scale bill, you HAVE to have something in there for them. Imagine how much easier it would have been to get Joe Manchin to vote for the infrastructure bill if we tossed in a few coal subsidies (aka: West Virginia Pork) into the infrastructure bill. Alas: today's citizens are ignorant to the wonders of pork. Its actually very easy to convince other senators / house members to do something useful. You just gotta give them a bit of pork. ------- Pork isn't about making the underlying thing more efficient. Its about convincing leaders to support the project to begin with and get it greenlit in the first place. Without pork, you can't effectively build a coalition. And today's Senate / House is proof of that, its incredibly difficult to get anything done because of our anti-Pork culture. Life was better with pork. We did our grand experiment over the past 30 years by demonizing pork, and it failed. Time to bring Pork back.
- paganel 5y ago
  Pork is a pretty efficient way for the richer part of the country to subsidize back the poorer ones without making it look like socialism/communism. It partially makes up for the huge demographic subsidies the richer parts of the country receive from the poorer ones as a result of internal migration.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Your discussion point is interesting, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to take the stance that "Pork is Good". I'm simply a pragmatist. We know Congress is perpetually deadlocked and that we haven't had a proper budget in damn near a decade. Maybe its time to whip out the old Pork technique. That's all I'm saying. Anyone who studied how these budgets got passed 30 or 40 years ago knows: Pork was essential in building coalitions (especially across party lines). You scratch my back, I scratch yours. If you help me pass X Bill, I'll write a useless thing into the Bill that benefits your state. Lets bring it back. Lets get Congressmen working together again.
arrosenberg 5y ago
Pork works really well actually, it's the grease that allows useful projects to go forward. The DOD is getting lead around by the nose because they themselves insisted on consolidation during the Reagan era, and none of the administrations since have bothered to correct the problem. They've been hoisted on their own petard. > For national security, we need a state of affairs wherein it is profitable to build and run a plant in the U.S. that responds primarily to the dynamic needs of private actors. National Security should revolve around the profit motives of a handful of private actors? Hard pass.
throwawaygh 5y ago
> Ask people inside DOD... DOD is a rural jobs program. It functions as intended. Other branches of the federal government that aren't designed to be jobs programs (e.g., NSF) do tend to make good investments and get things done.

beauzero 5y ago

Primes? ...sorry not familiar with the lingo.

stagger87 5y ago
The major defense contractors.
ms512 5y ago
Prime Contractor. It is a company that is responsible for the final integration of a system, but often fans out subcomponents to a large assortment of other companies.
pebcack 5y ago
The contracting company that wins a bid for a contract is the Prime contractor. Often times these companies will then subcontract out some of that work (and sometimes it's even required by the contract to do so) to other contracting companies which would then be the Sub-contractor. That's where the "Prime" and "Sub" lingo in re: to DoD contracting comes form.
- airstrike 5y ago
  And the sub-contractors are sometimes further broken down into Tier 2, Tier 3... depending on how far down the value-chain they are

vkou 5y ago

> For national security, we need a state of affairs wherein it is profitable to build and run a plant in the U.S. The way to do that is massive tariffs, not pork. They will be met with retaliatory tariffs.

dragontamer 5y ago

> Pork doesn't work. Seemed to work when Taiwan basically funded TSMC. If they can do it, why can't we do it? I mean, the USA is also funding TSMC to move to Arizona. I don't got nothing against this, but domestic chip-makers should also get a piece of the pie, right? -------------- In any case, this isn't "Pork". Pork is when you build something useless in somebody's state (aka: The Bridge to Nowhere), so that those "somebodies" vote on some other bill. Aka: Build a bridge in Alaska to nowhere, and __suddenly__ your Alaskan senators / house members starts the process of log-rolling and helps out on other bills. ------ Pork was incredibly common in the 80s and 90s, and has been cut down in the modern era. Today, its impossible to get logrolling, because too many people have demonized pork. If you want to get Senators / House members to support a large-scale bill, you HAVE to have something in there for them. Imagine how much easier it would have been to get Joe Manchin to vote for the infrastructure bill if we tossed in a few coal subsidies (aka: West Virginia Pork) into the infrastructure bill. Alas: today's citizens are ignorant to the wonders of pork. Its actually very easy to convince other senators / house members to do something useful. You just gotta give them a bit of pork. ------- Pork isn't about making the underlying thing more efficient. Its about convincing leaders to support the project to begin with and get it greenlit in the first place. Without pork, you can't effectively build a coalition. And today's Senate / House is proof of that, its incredibly difficult to get anything done because of our anti-Pork culture. Life was better with pork. We did our grand experiment over the past 30 years by demonizing pork, and it failed. Time to bring Pork back.

paganel 5y ago
Pork is a pretty efficient way for the richer part of the country to subsidize back the poorer ones without making it look like socialism/communism. It partially makes up for the huge demographic subsidies the richer parts of the country receive from the poorer ones as a result of internal migration.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Your discussion point is interesting, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to take the stance that "Pork is Good". I'm simply a pragmatist. We know Congress is perpetually deadlocked and that we haven't had a proper budget in damn near a decade. Maybe its time to whip out the old Pork technique. That's all I'm saying. Anyone who studied how these budgets got passed 30 or 40 years ago knows: Pork was essential in building coalitions (especially across party lines). You scratch my back, I scratch yours. If you help me pass X Bill, I'll write a useless thing into the Bill that benefits your state. Lets bring it back. Lets get Congressmen working together again.

arrosenberg 5y ago

Pork works really well actually, it's the grease that allows useful projects to go forward. The DOD is getting lead around by the nose because they themselves insisted on consolidation during the Reagan era, and none of the administrations since have bothered to correct the problem. They've been hoisted on their own petard. > For national security, we need a state of affairs wherein it is profitable to build and run a plant in the U.S. that responds primarily to the dynamic needs of private actors. National Security should revolve around the profit motives of a handful of private actors? Hard pass.

throwawaygh 5y ago

> Ask people inside DOD... DOD is a rural jobs program. It functions as intended. Other branches of the federal government that aren't designed to be jobs programs (e.g., NSF) do tend to make good investments and get things done.