As offered here before. today’s DoD is about enriching contractors, not about getting anything deployed.
Timely delivery of these submarines is …
Unlikely.
2 Likes
They continue to tell us over concentration in the defense industry has reduced capacity and competition. Costs are rising. Not much competitive bidding. Fewer new ideas. Less capacity. More delays.
1 Like
They continue to tell us over concentration in the defense industry has reduced capacity and competition. Costs are rising. Not much competitive bidding. Fewer new ideas. Less capacity. More delays.
But the pols that write the checks, drown that out by screaming “Godless Commies!!!”, “Yellow peril!!!”, “Islamic boogyman!!!” and keep howling for more defense spending. Forget education. Forget infrastructure. Forget health care. More money for defense, always, at every point.
Steve
The US economy is not based on doing anything right at all.
If it was the tobacco industry would have ploughed under its crops decades ago and shutdown its companies.
Coke would bow out of business or sell its product only as a rust remover.
Not sure why you would want to cut the Pentagon.
Those other things are only affordable if we build factories to do more things wrong in the private sector.
It would be nice if competition in the defense industry could get us say a 10% discount on the cost of weapons systems. Yes, we need them but can we learn to waste less.
Are you sure about that? Seems like defense spending has been trending down, with a few blips here and there, for decades now.
1 Like
Yup. I recently saw an article that noted that, over the last 40 or 50 years, the number of personnel, number of aircraft, and number of ships, in service has been reduced by nearly half. But the money spent, in constant 2018 dollars, goes higher and higher. If we are spending more, and getting less deployed, where is the rest of the money going?
Chart from this page.
Military expenditures data from SIPRI are derived from the NATO definition, which includes all current and capital expenditures on the armed forces, including peacekeeping forces; defense ministries and other government agencies engaged in defense projects; paramilitary forces, if these are judged to be trained and equipped for military operations; and military space activities. Such expenditures include military and civil personnel, including retirement pensions of military personnel and social services for personnel; operation and maintenance; procurement; military research and development; and military aid (in the military expenditures of the donor country).
- U.S. military spending/defense budget for 2022 was $876.94B, a 8.77% increase from 2021.
- U.S. military spending/defense budget for 2021 was $806.23B, a 3.58% increase from 2020.
- U.S. military spending/defense budget for 2020 was $778.40B, a 6% increase from 2019.
- U.S. military spending/defense budget for 2019 was $734.34B, a 7.6% increase from 2018.
U.S. Military Spending/Defense Budget 1960-2024 | MacroTrends
1 Like
And it shows. Remember the Gaza pier project earlier this year? In reading the news articles at the time I found out that we used to have two ACB units (Amphibious Construction Battalion, also known as SeaBees) one on the west coast and one on the east coast. We are now down to one, with the east coast battalion having been decommissioned this year.
Of the ships on the project, two had engine fires and another had to lay up in the Azores for engine repairs.
A retired Army chief warrant officer who has significant experience in the Army’s watercraft community also told Military.com in an interview Wednesday that “if those boats don’t have multiple major mechanical failures – I mean ‘dead in the water’ mechanical failures – I will be shocked. They’re horrendously maintained. I’ve got videos of these things falling apart,” the retired officer added.
DB2
1 Like
As graphs posted have shown, DoD funding, in real, inflation adjusted terms, goes higher and higher, yet the pols keep screaming that we need to spend more and more for “defense”, otherwise the boogyman will get us.
What are we getting for that constantly increasing stream of money?
Not more personnel.
Not more ships.
Not more airplanes.
Where is the money going?
Steve
1 Like
“Where is the money going?”
I haven’t kept up, but as far as I know the Pentagon has never completed a successful audit. That is a staggeringly huge issue, with the amount of national treasure being poured into the military.
Politicians luv,luv,luv to opine about waste and fraud in the government, seems kind of odd that the lack of financial oversight on one of the biggest “line items” in the federal budget escapes the wrath of these politicians. Almost like they might have a vested interest in not looking too close into the problem, lol.
I have commented before on the number of pols and retired military I see on the Boards of defense contractors. Meanwhile, “if we don’t spend more and more on the military, the boogyman will get you” works even better than “you need to make do with less, so the money can be given to the JCs, so maybe you will get a job”.
Steve
2 Likes
Meanwhile costs continue to increase. More dollars buy less.
Why do you imply that is a bad thing? As one of those oh so naughty contractors, I made a good living working on military projects, as do thousands of workers.
You should think of the DoD as running a jobs program, and the last thing the world needs is for any of that equipment to actually work unless your goal is war, destruction, and the death of everyone.
Ques: What is a submarine?
Ans: It’s a hole in the water into which you pour money.
Because many military contractors are systematically screwing the government by falsifying expenditures. Some of the contractors have been caught and they were punished.
Boeing example:
*OSI's $615M fraud recovery > Office of Special Investigations > Display.
KBR & Halliburton examples:
*PolitiFact | Halliburton, KBR, and Iraq war contracting: A history so far
*United States v. Halliburton Co., CIVIL ACTION NO. 4:06-CV-04024 | Casetext Search + Citator
Depends on the velocity of money.
As of the most recent data available, the velocity of money (M1) in the US is currently around 1.59, which means each dollar is being used on average 1.59 times in a given period.
The velocity of money is not constant, but it has had some historic averages:
- 1959–2007: The velocity of M2 money stock averaged around 1.9x.
- 50-year average: The velocity of M2 money supply is 1.7811.
- 10-year average: The velocity of M2 money supply is 1.4060.
This should help. Seems like a good read.
Bob faking a picture is so easy these days. You need to check your courses. BTW that ship can not get into the shallow surf.
One can hope so.
DB2