This is Not the Jobs Program You’re Looking For

[unhappycamper]

http://themoderatevoice.com/198125/this-is-not-the-jobs-program-youre-looking-for/



This is Not the Jobs Program You’re Looking For
Posted By JIM SATTERFIELD on Aug 23, 2014

Or at least it isn’t the one you should be looking for if you want something with waste approaching a rationally low level of waste. After all, no project undertaken by humans will be perfect. But using massive “defense” projects as job projects is more wasteful than usual. But there’s wasteful and then there’s two of the most disgraceful excuses for defense programs in existence that have, so far as I can tell, continue to exist and grow solely because of jobs.

First up, that favorite that has received tons of bad press, the F-35. It has been featured on 60 Minutes in a relative puff piece, slammed as not really being stealthy in The Daily Beast, had its multiple software glitches pointed out in the IEEE Spectrum (The newsletter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.), and most directly for what I’m pointing out in this post, the Washington post has a column pointing out that the entire problem riddled program shows the complete hypocrisy of anyone who claims to be worried about the deficit even as they push for this program to continue. As pointed out in the Plum Line column:

~snip~

Now, as a science fiction fan, techie and all around lover of cool technological toys I have nothing against amazing defense technology. When it works and when it can actually be deployed at a cost somewhere in the same solar system as the original estimate. But when utter garbage like these projects and the many others that have been foisted off onto the American public over the last few decades in the name not only of defending the country but in the name of jobs that have carefully been distributed to key congressional districts then I don’t like them even a little bit.

I cannot help but wonder how many bridges, roads, sewer systems, water systems and other vital parts of our national infrastructure could be repaired with that wasted money. There are a lot of things that need to be done in this country and programs that produce far too few jobs for far too much money hurt us, they don’t help us.

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Some of the F-35 largess recently distributed:

http://australianaviation.com.au/2014/09/bae-australia-to-supply-f-35-audio-control-modules/
http://www.janes.com/article/42316/canadian-contracts-attributable-to-f-35-have-reached-usd587-million
http://www.naval-technology.com/news/newscarothers-construction-wins-navfac-f-35-hangar-contract-4356228
http://www.law360.com/articles/571923/navy-pads-lockheed-f-35-contract-with-another-122m

[littlemissmartypants]

1. Thanks for your post, unhappycamper.

I particularly like the picture of the beautiful, however tethered, elephant.

This is my favorite phrase:

When it works and when it can actually be deployed at a cost somewhere in the same solar system as the original estimate. 

Love, Peace and Shelter.
~ littlemissmartypants

[littlemissmartypants]

2. I forgot to mention aviation and engineering are two of my favorite reading topics.

Thanks again!