How many times have I heard, “government shouldn’t pick winners and losers?” If it’s a Republican candidate or elected official, you can almost bet those words have gushed forth at one time or another. They just can’t wait to spit those words out to reinforce, yet again, their take on how government is “bad.” (Does make one wonder why they go into politics, doesn’t it?)
But one must ask oneself, if that’s the case, then why are there so many lobbyists running around D.C. and at all the State Houses trying to help them choose?
Democrat or Republican – it doesn’t matter; all are lobbied to pick “winners and losers.” It’s just the GOP tends to be the hypocrites bout the issue (what’s new?).
And since the lobbyists aren’t going to pack up and go home anytime soon, we need to understand how they system works, rather than let people try to hide what is really going on behind some meaningless bumper sticker slogan.
Anybody who does not believe that the government chooses winners and losers in business is completely ignorant of history. Starting with the canals built with tax dollars during the Articles of Confederation period our government has given legs up to specific companies. Look at the “Clear” (i.e. “Clear Channel”) companies leap forward in wireless internet — based on major government grants handed out since 2005. Say, “Thank God for coincidence.”
Just a couple of short weeks back we saw our representatives fund another two years of development of the F35 Joint Strike Fighter. I will return to this in a moment. At the exact same time, they cut off the funding for development of a next generation (the so-called 2nd engine) jet engine. The last time we funded such development, jet engines became (1) more efficient, (2) quieter, and (3) more reliable. We at least had a chance for another set of improvements from such research and development.
The thing to realize about an “all services airframe” is that it is an incompetent myth! A Navy plane is pulled off of an aircraft carrier with a steam-powered piston that drags the aircraft up to speed. A Navy plane then (mostly) flies in an exaggerated oval within a few hundred miles of the group it is supposed to protect. When it lands back on the aircraft carrier, it is jerked to a stop by a system of cables and weights. These forces require structure to work. Structure takes up mass and volume in such an aircraft.
The Air Force, on the other hand, flies from airfields where the engines supply the thrust to get them into the air. They fly serious hundreds (often thousands) of miles evading whatever “goodies” our “opposition” has placed in their way, deliver a “payload,” and return to their airfield where engine thrust reversers and wheel-based brakes bring them to a stop.
An airframe that performs well for one of these mission profiles will, by definition, do poorly when applied to the other mission profile. Everyone involved in this “work” knows this well and truly. This is only the latest in a long line of charlie foxtrot programs designed to mulct $$$ from the taxpayer without providing a useful (or functional) addition to our military arsenal. Wall Street, and the other fraud markets where pieces of paper are the “product,” will (and do) love it
Who today remembers the George H.W. Bush era National Aerospace Plane program? Do we have, or are we any closer to having a “plane” that can take off from a runway, fly into orbit, and support our commercial and scientific efforts in space? No. However, as part of the “costs” for this (Cost + 15%) program that paid Boeing nearly $24 billion in “plus,” Boeing got the land, buildings, and tools in their Fredrickson facility. How does this not “select” Boeing for success?
Please believe that I can go on and on and on about this. All the “major corporations” get this kind of (ongoing) taxpayer assistance. Anyone thinking otherwise is ignorant of the nature of the beast.