[oldgoat]

Originally Posted by esoteric

Yes, but aluminum DOES tend to fatigue...

You got me there but, my point is you don't need a new 100 billion dollar plane to drop bombs. maintain what you have and save taxpayer dollars for something else. Do you agree ?

[esoteric]

Originally Posted by oldgoat

Where do you think that excess money goes ? politicans need reelection money from somewhere.

At this point I expect it gets laundered through religous organizations before it ends up back in their coffers as reelection campeign money. That's a different thread, though ;-)

[oldgoat]

Originally Posted by esoteric

At this point I expect it gets laundered through religous organizations before it ends up back in their coffers as reelection campeign money. That's a different thread, though ;-)

Agreed

[esoteric]

Originally Posted by oldgoat

You got me there but, my point is you don't need a new 100 billion dollar plane to drop bombs. maintain what you have and save taxpayer dollars for something else. Do you agree ?

Nope, not at all. You could make an arguement that nothing should ever be replaced because it can always be upgraded. Old car running crappy? Let's pull out everything and replace it. Old motorcycle **** the bed? Swap out that engine, rebore it, spray paint it new, etc. A problem that's being/will be faced is that this hardware was not designed for the service life it currently is expecting. You'll ultimately end up with lots of new parts on a very old frame- basically an old plane/motorcycle/car with a couple neat new buttons and shiny new plastic.

Airlines retire old aicraft for normal safety reasons- you cannot upgrade everything forever. To insist on such a program not only leaves you vulnerable to when these vehicles begin to starte retiring themselves, but you open a massive gulf between your state of technology and your potential as a military force. This very situation is existing with the current space shuttle fleet. Not only have the ships been denied replacement, used near/beyond their expected service life without any outstanding improvement in their basic techologies, but they have begun to fall from the sky. It amazes me the public outcry for a handful of astronauts, but so little concern is raised when an old helicopter crashes killing six or eight... how little will people care when a B-52 (otherwise equipped with ejection seats AFAIK) falls out of the sky with a full or partial crew?

To deny the military, conceivably the most important application for aircraft in maintaining the free world (within which all others exist), the right to retire obsolete hardware is assinine, short sighted, and foolish. If it turns into an us-vs-them debate, I'm all for investing in more advanced technology not only to keep our service personel that much farther from harms way but also to protect the foreign populous from becoming collateral casualties. If a 100billion dollar airplane gets the same job done, but with a greater factor of safety and security for our personel, damn it, let's buy a dozen and at least get a discount on quantity.

[Skully]

Originally Posted by luvtolean

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051017/...ms_spending_dc

How stupid.

We kill the future superiority of our forces to save money to fight a war that is screwing the quality of people going in the army.

Why not close one or two of our wildly unpopular foreign bases instead?

Unfortunately without raising taxes we can't afford both new technology and the cost of the current war on terrorism.

Will the media dictated public opinion allow the taxes to be raised? Hell no. So in the mean time let's finish up in Iraq and put (some) of the new tech stuff on hold for awhile and ensure the money is going to really important stuff.

[Mo Noyz]

Originally Posted by Skully

Unfortunately without raising taxes we can't afford both new technology and the cost of the current war on terrorism.

Will the media dictated public opinion allow the taxes to be raised? Hell no. So in the mean time let's finish up in Iraq and put (some) of the new tech stuff on hold for awhile and ensure the money is going to really important stuff.

+1

[Zeeman]

Originally Posted by Skully

Unfortunately without raising taxes we can't afford both new technology and the cost of the current war on terrorism.

I don't think you need to raise taxes, simply stop paying $4000 for POS $100 LCD screens would be a start. This sort of waste happens every day, whilst my examples are not in the US and may not be military related, I'm sure the same **** happens everywhere...

I often drive/ride by road consturction sites and see 4 or 5 guys standing around "suprervising" whilst one (presumabley a newbie) does all the work.

A few years back there was a big fuss made about a politician who was on the back bench for 3 years, then retired with a payout of $1m - which he had instant access to. What did this guy do in 3 years, as a back bencher, that made him worth $1m?

Our federal parliment building was recently refurbed (Now, I'm going on memory for this one, heard it on the radio a few months back now, so there may be discrepencies) with Marble that was carved in Italy... WTF for? Was the existing marble in such a state of decay? Does our governent not buy it's own "buy Australian" propoganda, and decided to get the marble carved in Italy instead of in Australia?

Australia’s $Aus15 million (US$9.06 million) federal terrorism awareness campaign has reportedly won an international award for being one of the most stupid security measures introduced since Sept 11.

A focal point of the campaign was a fridge magnet.

The Howard Government took out the Most Egregiously Stupid Award for the kit, delivered to Australian homes urging people to report anything suspicious while asking them to be “alert but not alarmed”.

The Howard Government is spending over $100m dollers selling it's new work relations policy - why are they bothering? They have a senate majority, they don't need to sell anything, they can just make up the rules as they go along! It's not like they are asking for a public vote on the issue...

I also remember reading about the Governemnt funding a University project in Queensland to find out whether Jesus was gay (the conclusion was, surprisingly enough, yes!)

Add to this all the contracts that charge $10000 for toilet seats and $3000 for car tyres, and I'd be willing to bet a lot of waste spending is political/coroporate back scratching.

Imagine how much more money there would be for health, roads, defence etc if the Govt was able to spend it's money wisely.

Actually, I wouldn't care about the polies perks and pay so much if they could actually do what they were paid to do properly. Nothing pisses me off more than seeing footage of Federal Parliament, and seeing that half those present are actually having a little snooze. They are being paid hundreds of thousands of $ a year, and they don't have the courtesy to the people they represent to actually remain awake while they are working...

somewhere along the line, the Polies have forgotten that they serve us, and we pay their wages.

Z...

[seamus]

Originally Posted by luvtolean

...I couldn't disagree with you more...

LTL, I'm not against maintaining technological superiority. A lot of the programs that are up for the guillotine wouldn't really get the bang for the billions of bucks. They are/were technological wonders much like going to a major auto show. A lot of the technology is there and will be put to use on other, more economically, strategically feasible vehicles.

The stuff getting axed usually falls in this realm. The multitude of companies that put a piece of technology on an end item will usually continue to provide that piece of technology in another form. For example, the FLIR/I2 system intended for the Comanche (already axed) will find its way onto the Longbow (hopefully sooner rather than later).

[Mo Noyz]

Originally Posted by Z-Man

I don't think you need to raise taxes, simply stop paying $4000 for POS $100 LCD screens would be a start.

This brings up a great point.

And although it has nothing to do with this thread, it points out one of the major flaws with socialized medicine(something the liberlas so badly want).

Bottom line(using your example), the government needs LCD screens, and the companies that provide this know it. Therefore, they will charge what they want to.

[BDA116]

Originally Posted by Zeeman

...Imagine how much more money there would be for health, roads, defence etc if the Govt was able to spend it's money wisely...

Imagine how much money could be left to those that actually earned it to provide for things they should be responsible for like health insurance, etc., not to mention the resulting economic boom, if the government were able - and would - spend the people's money wisely.

[Bacchus]

Originally Posted by Mo Noyz

This brings up a great point.

And although it has nothing to do with this thread, it points out one of the major flaws with socialized medicine(something the liberlas so badly want).

Bottom line(using your example), the government needs LCD screens, and the companies that provide this know it. Therefore, they will charge what they want to.

Was that supposed to be a profound revelation? And WTF does that have to do with socialized medicine? Hasn't it already been stated that this is what the military has been doing for years?

[Zeeman]

I'm actually surprised there is no "rip off" clause in some of these contracts. You'd think that the Govt would be able to get some legal minds to write a clause that says something along the lines of "We will not pay more than 110% of the market value for an item at the time it's purchased. Hell, most people give discounts for bulk buys - just look at Walmart....

Z...

[colryn]

Originally Posted by Zeeman

Hell, most people give discounts for bulk buys - just look at Walmart....

Z...

Yeah, and just look at the quality of the goods that they sell. When is america and the world going to realize that Walmart is not bringing cheaper prices, just cheaper goods.

[Mojave954]

Originally Posted by Mo Noyz

This brings up a great point.

Bottom line(using your example), the government needs LCD screens, and the companies that provide this know it. Therefore, they will charge what they want to.

What a lot of people don't know about things of this nature is what goes into acquiring "some" items. When the gov't goes into negotiations to get a part with a contractor, that part has to meet certain requirements. Can't speak for anything outside Naval Aviation but, in order to put anything on a P-3 it has to pass a 20g requirement. (the only time a P-3 is going to exceed 20g's is if it auger's in, NOSE FIRST), then there is environmental testing (salt, fog), then there is vibe everything has to go through as well. If a part fails and has to go back to the vender to upgrade/fix usuaully the contract is, Cost PLUS. Along with environmental the military is now extremely concious about the environment, so min HAZMAT.

Here is the kicker, we have vanishing vendors and obsolescences to take into account. Technology is leaving the military behind. My tuners on the the plane I was on, were made in the 60's. We had to change harddrives and carriages 3 times in one year cause of this type of technological leaps. We can't get certain parts, can't get people to work on them cause the equipment to fix them has been excessed off by the companies or, the tech has retired (yes, somethings we have are that OLD). We had to get a company in France to retool once to make us some interlocks for our recorders. You don't want to know the cost and pain of that incident. So, with that history, contracts are now being made for life time buys/service. The gov't is now forcing the companies to keep this technology/machines on hand to fix these items on an as needed basis, while the civilian market moves on. This incurrs a HUGE cost on the supplier. And guess who pays that cost? While working for Raytheon we had to keep 2 886 computers and 3 286 computers with ALL the associated software on hand in case certain parts came back to the vendor for repair.

So, when contracts are awarded all of this and more is taken into account. The program offices don't like paying this kind of money, believe me. But we are between a rock and a hard place with this kind of thing.

Yep, we need more 20g coffee pots and toilet seats.

Remember, people in these agencies pay taxes too. Don't think for one moment they aren't thinking about this same thing.

WE have no choice to upgrade and move up and on with technology. The techs in the field don't like it either, integration problems, capability lost cause some moron back in DC or NAVAIR made an uninformed decision.

Here is a quick example. Got hauled into a meeting yesterday. It was proposed to a gov't agency that the operators of a new aircraft turn OFF certain items, in order to operate other items. Ummmmmmm........ NO!

[Mo Noyz]

Originally Posted by Bacchus

Was that supposed to be a profound revelation? And WTF does that have to do with socialized medicine? Hasn't it already been stated that this is what the military has been doing for years?

It's quite simple, Bacchus.

In the medical world these days there are a lot of companies who build medical products. Therefore, there is a very competitive market for the products that they make and hundreds of thousands of customers to sell to. This is what keeps the prices down.

If the government were to take over health care completely, one company would essentially get a contract for a particular item. Said company will then charge whatever they like because they know that the government needs the product they supply. And with single contracts, for example let's say Siemens would get the government contract for X-ray rooms, other companies would go out of business because they wouldn't have anyone to sell their product to.

Without healthy competition, prices skyrocket. And guess who gets to foot the bill.

Socialism and Statism all rolled in to one tidy little package.

[BDA116]

Originally Posted by Mo Noyz

Without healthy competition, prices skyrocket. And guess who gets to foot the bill.

The evil rich people. After all, they can afford it and didn't earn their keep anyway. They don't work, they're not the working class, they just sit around all day counting their money and pissing on their slave laborers that they underpay just so they can have more money.
Yeah, stick it to the evil richies, that won't have any negative effect on the economy in any way.

[Mo Noyz]

And don't get me started on "waiting lists" either.

[Bacchus]

OK mo noyz, guess I missed where you were coming from earlier.