Month: November 2008

The South Should Be Irrelevant in American Political Discourse

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Brad Delong finds some graphs that show a big difference between the South and the rest of the nation.

As he aptly puts it, “The whites in the heartland of today’s Republican Party just do not vote–and do not think–like the rest of us do.”

Simply put, in the rest of the nation, the greater contact with black people in your daily lives, the less bigoted you are, and in the south, the he greater contact with black people in your daily lives, the more bigoted you are.

One of the founding principles of the United States is the melting point. At the core of the melting pot is the idea that once you know the other, you will accept the other.

Anything else is un-American, and should have no part in our public policy discourse.

This is About Pork, Nothing Else

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Well, it looks like the US Navy is looking at moving a carried from Hampton Roads, Virginia to Mayport, Florida, near Jacksonville, and the Virginia Congressional delegation is throwing a fit over this.

This is not surprising, the presence of that carrier pumps something like ½ a billion dollars into the local economy.

The Navy is arguing that, “The five East Coast carriers should be dispersed as a hedge against a natural disaster or attack that could shut or cripple the sprawling Norfolk base.”

So, in order to hedge against natural disaster, you want to move the ships into hurricane alley, otherwise known as Florida.

Of course the idea that foreign power will launch a sneak attack on the base is ludicrous.

SecNav John Lehman did this in the 1980s, on the argument that it would make more difficult for Soviet subs to shadow fleet movements, but it was a crap argument then.

Of course, these days the USSR is no more, and the Russians can’t deploy a significant portion of their fleet and the Chinese are a decade from a meaningful submarine fleet, so there is no risk of attack.

The reality was that Lehman wanted to do this because it created more constituencies for his vision of a 600 ship navy, because a large number of small bases gets you the support of many congresscritters, where as one large base just gets you 1 or 2 districts support.

With the Navy claiming that their ships and aircraft are wearing out and need to be replaced, they still want to drop a billion dollars on the move, not because of military need, but because of political need.

More on the JSF Norway Buy

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So, we have the statement by the Prime Minister that Norway has settled on the F-35 as its F-16 replacement.

What I find interesting is this article, which says Norway will pay $2.54 billion for 48 aircraft, because that figureds to $52 million per aircraft, which is less than half the unit costs I’ve been seeing.

Something is seriously whack with those numbers, which, as the Norwegian PM notes in his statement, is less than the Gripen, which is half it’s weight, and you pay for aircraft like you pay for ground beef, by the pound.

It may be that the money already put into the program by Norway as a JSF partner is being counted, but there have to be some seriously heavy duty “Jedi mind tricks” in the accounting too.

An Interesting Article on the Gripen

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And specifically on how SAAB will ensure that the upgraded Gripen NG will remain cost effective: (paid subscription required)

Moreover, Gripen NG embodies a new business model that aims to cut costs even with low production rates. “The market is extremely price-sensitive,” and the build approach for the new version reflects this, says Bob Kemp, marketing director for Gripen International.

In the past, Gripen embraced technologies that designers modified to fit specific needs—as was the case with the General Electric F404 engine that Volvo turned into the fighter’s RM12 powerplant. For the Gripen NG, Saab went directly to GE and asked for an F414, the latest version of the F/A-18E/F’s engine with minimal changes. The F414G features some adjustments to the full-authority digital engine control and power supply, largely because Gripen is a single-engine fighter (whereas the F/A-18E/F has two engines). This seemingly innocuous change allows Saab to reduce engine costs 20%, even though the F414 is a higher thrust engine with a greater sticker price than the F404.

(emphasis mine)

Another possibility in this model is the use of some commercial systems, with even greater cost/performance advantages.

It’s why I think that it will be see a successful export market. even though it just lost in Norway, because these aircraft, and pretty much all of the high end military systems out there, have gotten too damn expensive.

BTW, here is a nice bit of video from Aviation Week:

USAF Looking at Another Bite at the Raptor Apple

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Despite the best efforts of the Pentagon, which has determined that further F-22s are not necessary, the US air force is still trying to buy more of the gold plated fighters. (paid subscription required)

Of course, the USAF has said for years that they need 381, but now because they see that this number is impossible, they are trying to go for about 100 aircraft less, specifically something in the 250-275 range.

There is a word for this behavior, insubordination, and the civilians who are constitutionally in charge need to put a stop to this.

And Now the Existing F-22 Fleet is Becoming Unaffordable

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That is the unintended message from Pentagon acquisition executive John Young, who is asking for $8 Billion to upgrade the first 100 or so jets.

And it’s not just upgrades, the operational costs are spiking too:

But that’s not all the next Pentagon leaders will have to debate about the super-secret Raptor, he said. He said operational tests have showed the plane is “proving very expensive to operate.”

Those tests have shown what he called a negative trend, meaning the “maintenance man-hours per flying hour has increased through those tests. The last one was a substantial increase.”

Young also expressed concerns about the plane’s mission-capable rates, saying recent marks in the “62 percent kind of range” are “troubling.” He also said data shows the plane “meets some but not all” of its key performance parameters.”

Seriously, the Airforce won’t take budgeting and maintenance issues seriously until we take an entire generation of the Air Force’s latest and greatest to the Boneyard, Davis-Monthan AFB and chop them to bits while the UASF Chief of Staff is forced to watch.

This crap is absolutely out of control.

NG Announces Plug-In Tactical Laser

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The good folks at Northrop Grumman Space Technology have announced a 15kW solid state laser module.

It’s a rack mount, though at 15 kW, your backplane on your rack better have some heavy duty busbars.

Still, the fact that what appears to be a fieldable electrically powered laser is available for military deployment, though it is unclear as to how soon this would actually hit series production, seems to be an important development.

Certainly, it is a step up from the expensive and messy chemical lasers that we are seeing in places like Boeing’s airborne laser, which would appear to need an environmental impact statement each time that it fires.

Northrop Grumman Announces the FIRESTRIKE™ Laser, World’s First Weaponized Solid-State Laser for U.S. Military Services:
‘This is a rugged electric laser with power levels, beam quality and runtime suitable for offensive and defensive military utility. Also available is a newly designed laser current source assembly (LCSA), which is compact, and specifically developed to precisely meet FIRESTRIKE(tm)’s power needs. Combined with advanced electro optical and/or infrared sensors, the FIRESTRIKE(tm) laser can provide self-defense, precision strike and enhanced situational awareness capabilities.’

Interesting Note on Stealth Aircraft

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In this Aviation Week article on research into more making electronic systems on aircraft more efficient: (paid subscription required)

Goals of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Integrated Vehicle Energy Technology (Invent) program include extending range and endurance 10-15%, increasing power and thermal capacity by 10-30%, overcoming cooling challenges in low-observable platforms, and reducing life-cycle costs.

Because the stealthy F-22 and F-35 dump their heat into the fuel, they are “flying Thermos bottles,” says Steven Iden, AFRL’s Invent program manager. The heat loads in the F-35 are up to five times what they are in the F-16, he says, and could increase by another factor of four in a future laser-armed fighter

…The Invent power and thermal management system will extract, store and reuse electrical power and adaptively use the heat sinks available, including fuel, low-observable ram air, and heat exchangers in the engine fan duct and the “third stream” provided by the Advent engine. This is a third flowpath introduced on Advent to vary the bypass ratio.

….

In the F-35, regenerative energy from the power-by-wire flight-control actuators is dumped into heavy resistor banks, which produces heat. For Invent, AFRL is looking to develop an “electrical accumulator” that would store the energy and use it to meet peak power demands from the systems, similar to a hydraulic accumulator.

(emphasis mine)

On further thought, this is not surprising, as a cooling scoop for external air is typically a non-stealthy feature, though the degree of the problem surprises me.

It restricts time spent on the ground at idle, and increases the unusable fuel in the tanks, as it has to be used for component cooling .

Citi Dead Pool

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Well, we have the stock tanking by 25% yesterday, and Its CEO Vikram Pandit denying reports that it is looking for a buyer.

I dunno, its market cap has dropped from $274 billion to $21 billion in a couple of years, and $21 billion sounds a lot like a handful of beans.

We have reports that “non core” assets might be sold off, and there are leaks that notwithstanding Mr. Pandit protestations, that they are looking to merge with someone.

Zimbabwe

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It looks like Mugabe is going to be forming a government unilaterally. They have already sent a copy of the legislation to form the government to Thabo Mbeki, who will doubtly side with Mugabe again.

Thankfully, Mbeki is no longer South African president, because if he were, he would never have moved to withhold 300 million rand ($28 million) in Zimbabwe aid over the stalled negotiations.

That’s a positive development, and occurred only because the ANC forced Mbeki out of the presidency.

Well, This is One Way to Get Out of Debt

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It appears that the Ecuadorian debt audit commission has found serious and pervasive irregularities in the debts that it owes.

This is not surprising, foreign debt to third world nations is typically geared toward maximizing the shafting of the recipient countries, and not the niceties of western accounting:

Ecuador’s debt audit commission said it uncovered “illegality and illegitimacy” in the country’s foreign obligations, findings that may give President Rafael Correa the legal basis he’s sought to halt bond payments.

The commission said in a 172-page report that the global bonds due in 2012 and 2030 “show serious signs of illegality,” including issuance without proper government authorization. Correa, who last week withheld a $30 million interest payment on the 2012 bonds while he awaited the audit, said today that the country’s bonds due in 2015 also are marred by irregularities. He called the audit results “truly disastrous” and “conclusive.”

It appears that they are looking at filing criminal charges.

It’s likely true that the audit committee’s review is accurate. The question is whether the western banking interests can get him to knuckle under, and if not, what happens when other 3rd world nations follow Ecuador’s example look at their debt deals closely.

Switzerland?????

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According to Crooked Timber, it’s Switzerland that is the next western nation to be hit by the credit crisis:

Not only major institutions but whole national economies are up for grabs now. The national bankruptcy of Iceland seems likely to followed by something similar for Switzerland. As Citi itself points out, UBS and Credit Suisse are bigger, relative to the Swiss economy, than Kaupthing was for Iceland. Felix Salmon (also predicting doom for Citi, has been all over this).

Go read the whole article, whose main thesis is that the financial markets are heading toward either very aggressive regulation, or government ownership, or both.

But still, what hit me in the gut was the Swiss possibly being broke….That’s amazing.

I gotta go short Swiss chocolate futures.