Year: 2010

Trying to Go B-1 With the F-22

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Lockheed and the USAF have reached an agreement to preserve the F-22 production tooling for future use.

The claim is that this is about, “will be able to repair and modernise the service’s aircraft, or manufacture new Raptors.” (Emphasis mine)

Make no bones about this: This is not about SLEPPing the airframes or upgrades, they don’t need the tooling for this.

They are hoping for a President, SecDef, and Congress will at some point change policy, as Reagan did with the B-1, and this is the sort of insubordinate crap that really needs to be addressed.

In a perfect world, Obama would find out who is behind this, fire them, and take the tooling and sell it for scrap.

In this world, we’ll see the pigs at the trough every year or so for the next decade in an attempt to restart the program.

An Interesting Point on Moves to Reduce the Size of the General Officer Corps

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It costs a lot, and make you lose wars

One of the areas where SecDef Gates is looking to reduce costs is reducing the level of general officers (general and admirals).

An interesting sideline to this is that history shows that the more officers, particularly general officers, that you have, the worse that your military performs:

Militaries with proportionately large numbers of field [major through colonel] and general grade officers have historically proven to be losers, not winners, in war. At its current levels, the U.S. military is among the worst.

Of course, the voice of officialdom, The Washington Post, notes that an officer’s billet only costs about a ¼ million dollars a year, noting that, “Terminating a single general’s billet might save about $200,000 a year in salary and benefits, barely a rounding error in the Pentagon’s base budget this year of $535 billion.”

This is, rather unsurprisingly, about as completely untrue as one can be without actually making a verifiable lie.

When someone becomes a general, he doesn’t spend his days playing golf waiting for a war, they get a command somewhere.

If there isn’t a command somewhere, then one is created, or the supervision of a task is upgraded from a field officer to a general officer, and the office, staff and budget are increased accordingly.

Once the office has a general officer in charge, there is a bureaucratic imperative for it to become “essential” in some way or another, so it will find things to do, and doing those things, whether needed or not, will cost money.

I would agree to cuts, but I would also suggest repealing the provision of the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act of 1980, aka “Up or Out”, which make promotions a requirement for continued service.

It creates an incentive for rank inflation, what Robert Gates calls “brass creep” in assigning roles in the services.

As to why these additional costs have not been addressed in their article, my guess is that the Post editorial board thinks that something would be missing from Sally Quinn’s cocktail parties if there were not a few generals in uniform there.

After Over a Decade of Starving Their Force to Make Room for F-22s and F-35s………

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The USAF is looking at buying new build F-16s and F-15s to fill the gap:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a new report today that for the first time reveals how US Air Force plans to deal with a fighter shortfall that is expected to reach 200 jets by 2025.

The GAO report summarizes two mandatory reports the USAF delivered in March to Congress. There are four options:

1. Extending the service life of and modernizing about 300 F-16 aircraft
2. Increasing annual F-35 procurement above 80 aircraft per year
3. Procuring new upgraded variants of legacy aircraft such as the F-16 and F-15
4. A combination of options 2 and 3

The fact that the USAF has even considered resuming F-16 and F-15 orders could be very significant. Two decades of USAF leaders have consistently upheld the all-stealth rule for combat aircraft.

Significant is an understatement.

The USAF has been doing its level best to create a fighter shortfall for the past 15 years or so in order to force a move to an all-stealth force.

The fact that the situation has gotten so dire that the USAF is considering buying some Eagles or Vipers is a big deal.

It indicates that the budget pictures on the F-35 are even grimmer than previously understood.

BAE close to launch contract for APKWS rocket

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BAE is looking to get its 1st contract to deliver APKWS guided 2.75 inch rocket.

The advantage to a system like this is that something like a Hellfire is sometimes too big, and always too expensive for smaller jobs, like taking out a room, a car, or a mortar fire team, and a helicopter can carry a lot more of these than it can Hellfires.

Rather unsurprisingly, it’s the Marines who are looking to take a buy.

Honestly, I’m waiting for them to cancel this, and move the money to the JSF or Osprey, which would both penny and pound foolish.

Prior posts on the various programs to add guidance to 2.75 inch rockets.

It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!!

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And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.

  1. Community National Bank at Bartow, Barlow, FL
  2. Independent National Bank, Ocala, Fl
  3. Imperial Savings and Loan Association, Martinsville, VA,
  4. Shore Bank, Chicago, IL
  5. Pacific State Bank, Stockton, CA
  6. Butte Community Bank, Chico, CA
  7. Los Padres Bank, Solvang, CA
  8. Sonoma Valley Bank, Sonoma, CA

Great googly moogly.

After two slow weeks, we just tied the record for most bank closings this year.

Not pretty.

Full FDIC list

So, here is the graph pr0n with trendline (FDIC only):

I would note that are now at the point where the utility of the least squares trendline is diminishing, but I’m keeping it here for historical purposes.

Krugman Channels Williams Jennings Bryan

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Is it just me, or does his most recent OP/ED have some significant thematic similarities to William Jennings Bryan’s Cross of Gold speech.

Here is the first ‘graph of Krugman:

As I look at what passes for responsible economic policy these days, there’s an analogy that keeps passing through my mind. I know it’s over the top, but here it is anyway: the policy elite — central bankers, finance ministers, politicians who pose as defenders of fiscal virtue — are acting like the priests of some ancient cult, demanding that we engage in human sacrifices to appease the anger of invisible gods.

Here is the last ‘graph of Bryan:

If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

Note, I am not making accusations of any sort of misappropriation of work. I am suggesting that two people, attempting to address similar problems, deflation and recession, have, 114 years apart, come to very similar conclusions, and expressed them in similar ways.

In any case, both Bryan’s speech, and Krugman’s OP/ED should be read. They are both very good.

Brilliant!

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I think that I injured myself laughing:

Outrage Over Plans To Build Library Next To Sarah Palin

PLANS to build a state-of-the-art library next to Republican catastrophe Sarah Palin are causing outrage across mainstream America.

…………

Meanwhile President Obama has caused unease within his own Democratic party by endorsing the library and claiming that not everyone who reads books is responsible for calling Mrs Palin a f%$wit nutjob nightmare of a human being.

But Bill McKay, a leading member of the right-wing Teapot movement, said: “Sarah Palin is a hallowed place for Americans who can’t read.

“How is she going to feel knowing that every day there are people going inside a building to find things out for themselves and have thoughts, right in the very shadow of her amazing nipples.”

(%$# mine)

No go read the whole thing. It’s pretty short.

Trolling for Bribes

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Hamid Karzai is planning to ban the operations of private military contractors (PMCs, aka mercenaries) by the end of this year:

President Hamid Karzai is planning to sign a decree this week ordering the disbanding of all private security forces by the end of the year, his spokesman said Monday.

But it is not clear how the move, which would constitute an extraordinary change in the security makeup of the country, could be carried out. There are at least 24,000 private armed guards in the country, some foreign but most Afghan, and there is no immediately available alternative for the array of crucial tasks they perform.

This being Hamid Karzai, my guess is that this will not be fully implemented in time or in a consistent manner, but that is like saying the sky is blue.

As to the motivations for his doing this, I see three main policy goals here:

  • An attempt to ameliorate some of the outrage among Afghan citizens who are the ones on the wrong ends of the Mercenary’s bullets.
  • He wants to ensure that whoever is allowed to continue will be people whom he has vetted as being supportive of him.
  • Any mercenary operations allowed to continue will have to pay some sort of bribes to him and his family.

I am a cynic on such matters.

A Few More People on the Right Side of 51 Park

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And they are Democrats.

Senator Al Franken:

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) is slamming conservative opposition to the Muslim community center project near Ground Zero in New York City — the city where he formerly resided for many years — calling the attacks against it “one of the most disgraceful things that I’ve heard.”

And Congressman Charlie Rangel:

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) came out in support of the proposed Cordoba House Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero yesterday, saying that he’s “kind of proud that they’re sticking to their guns and saying this is where they would want to worship.”

Also, lesser plaudits to Nancy Pelosi, who suggested that the anti-Islamic Center movement might be AstroTurf, though she walked it back a bit later in the day.

Great Google Moogly!

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It’s been too ugly for too long
H/t Calculated Risk

Remember how I said that unemployment has been stuck between about 450,000 and 480,000 initial claims a week?

Well, not any more, today’s numbers were up by 12,000 to ½ a million initial claims, with the 4 week moving average rose by 8,000 to 482,500.

Of course, since the article was written by a financial journalist, which means that they feel the need to be a cheerleader, and they are innumerate, they found someone to say that the 13 K drop, to 4.48 million, in continuing claims as, “an encouraging sign,” but later they note that the number of people on emergency benefits, “increased 260,105 to 4.75 million in the week ended July 31.” (the week prior to this one)

Let me explain this slowly for the financial journalists who might read this The people who are on continuing claims are in the 26-week window, if they go beyond that, they are no longer counter as having a continuing claim, they are counted as being on emergency benefits, so the falling number of continuing claims is not people getting jobs, it’s people being unemployed even longer.

In any case, this is really grim. The already inadequate stimulus is winding down, and job losses are once again accellerating, and we have an election in 2½ months, and if the Republicans take power, they will drive the country even further into the ditch.

Yes, a half assed stimulus, which was then watered down by the dickwads in the Senate was such a good idea.

Deep Thought

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Dick Armey created an Army of Dicks.*

Jon Stewart does a good job teasing out the hypocrisy of the Congressman, former House Majority Leader, and über lobbyist Dick Armey casting himself as an anti-establishment foe of Washington .


Jon Stewart, Part 1 of 3


Jon Stewart, Part 2 of 3


Jon Stewart, Part 1 of 3

*The Teabaggers.