Good News in the F-35 Program?

No sense in splitting hairs.

in·ef·fec·tive (n-fktv)

adj. 1. Not producing an intended effect; ineffectual: an ineffective plea. 2. Inadequate; incompetent: an ineffective teacher.

The "diseases most incident to Republican Government" were basically two: democratic tyranny and democratic ineptitude The first was the problem of majority faction, the abuse of minority or individual rights by an "interested and overbearing" majority. The second was the problem of making a democratic form of government efficient and effective. The goal was limited but energetic government. The constitutional object was, as the late constitutional scholar Herbert Storing said, "a design of government with the powers to act and a structure to make it act wisely and responsibly."

I use Heritage a lot when I have questions, or want to learn about something. I'm still learning.

It's amazing how far away from those founding principles we have moved.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2009/09/the-meaning-of-the-constitution

I like the use of the word "incomplete", with power separated between the three branches, and the states, with none of them having complete power.

I don't think that most people are even aware of the power that is held by the states themselves; I also think that it's going to have to be used, if we have any prayer of turning this mess around.

What is needed is a clear definition of the terms of victory. Sun Tsu wrote an excellent book on the subject way back when, HOWEVER, as good as it is, it has suffered from some translation errors. This is to be expected since we dont really THINK like a medieval Chinese War Lord these days. Those that do (Taliban, Afghan Warlords) succeed. And we in our nice houses and motorcars wonder why they succeed against the greatest military forces brought against them! Sun Tsu will tell you why, but you have to read it, understand it. He also tells you how to beat them.

But do we listen? HELL NO! But then, solutions such as terror and genocide are not
"Western" values. Look at the paralysis when Syria started using poison gas on its own citizens. Sun Tsu would have simply drawn a line in the sand. And stuck to it.

Will the fancy new age aircraft work well on a modern battlefield? No reason why not. They will keep Israel in place in the face of un-matched support from destabizing influences which rock the nations around her. Same with Japan and Singapore.

K is so right in that every strategic initiative selected by his government, whether military, green power, social security or whatever seems to attract those who smell personal monetary gain. This is not new. A really good economy will handle that reality. Not thinking of a powerful economy, which can handle the drag the same way a helicopter handles gravity...(brute force) but one that can finesse through the petty corruption and real-politic which exists in any but the most intense dictatorships.

Its not about military superiority, or politics. Its about economics. The economy of France and England stayed solid during the entire first world war! When a government spends money "in the country", it comes back all the time. K is worried that pension funds from retired civil service employees will destroy the economy. Most economists don't agree, the reason is fairly simple. People in America (including Canada) pay their taxes. Excess government spending certainly would damage an economy if they don't get it back in their pockets in reasonable short order. Good examples of this would be Greece, Sicily, Italy, Spain, where avoiding taxes is pretty much a way of life! Result...riots in the street! Corruption in government, boondoggles, and fat cats of all stripes, encourage tax avoidance. A little is fine...an underground economy just helps distribute the wealth a little quicker. A lot can be a problem.

Large military expenditures are no big deal...it could have been an interstate highway system, or subways in every city. As long as it doesn't end up in the hands of the Columbia Drug Cartels. That money stays out of the economy. (I don't like the economic answer to that one! Sun Tsu would simply have said..."well, compete with them, don't try to beat them with money. Grow your own cocaine and distribute it." Like I said, these are not the values we necessarily are prepared to go forward with, but you have to admit, it would work. But I digress.)

When the Avro Arrow was canned a half a century ago, Canada lost the ability to make great fighter aircraft. The designers all went to NASA. I still think it was a conspiracy to destroy the Canadian aerospace industry. And we fell for it. I do not think it a good thing to do the same thing to the USA's aerospace industry just because of cost over runs. There have ALWAYS been cost over runs in virtually EVERY military project ever undertaken. We must get over it, look at the big picture, examine the Terms of Victory, and get through this.

Because of all the political commentary, I am personally marking this off topic. Though in a very real sense, I believe it was worth mentioning the viewpoint of a 20 year veteran, historian, and a guy who travels the world instead of sitting in his Legion re-fighting old battles on his race to the bottom of his beer glass.

You wrote, "Look at the paralysis when Syria started using poison gas on its own citizens."

That is completely due to ineffective leadership qualities of the US President, not some Western philosophy.

The US President is seen as a weak leader in foreign eyes and for good reasons.

Incidentally, the largest "genocide" to take place in history was executed by Westerners, so I would expect us to have a pretty good understanding about it.

I am not so sure I understand your theory of economics. Government does not generate GDP, it consumes a portion of those profits generated by the private sector.

Government doesn't consume. I agree that it also does not create...it will print to try to match GDP. However, we all agree that too much printing of money is a "bad thing". Of course, we no longer print money...we merely make a weekly statement that we have it. And we hope they are not lying. But usually, they try to keep it all straight.

No, government merely re-distributes. Then collects it. Then re-distributes it. I did not think this was hard to understand, but it seems to be a problem for some. When a soldier (one of the lesser maligned public servants, but a member of the civil service none the less) gets paid, he pays for hair cuts. Meals. Cars. A third of his pay goes back before the week is out. The barber puts his money in an account, and his book keeper keeps a tax account. This money is a third of his income, and goes back to the government quarterly. The barber buys a car, and the dealership pays its employees, and its inventory. Its employees often don't even see the taxes...the dealership's book keepers divert a third of their paychecks to the tax man.

Raising taxes only brings that money back into the government general revenues a little faster. Lowering taxes keeps the money in circulation a little longer. Is money happier in circulation? I think so. No point in storing it under your mattress, expecting it to be more valuable some day.

The largest genocide? It has been a problem for a long time. Don't think anybody can point to another with totally clean hands. Asymetric warfare ALWAYS results in a massacre.

Whats so hard about that? Simple as the philosophy might be, it explains why some economies are so strong. And some are so weak. And some are so nutty.

(all this was from my economics 101 and 102 courses in Carleton U back in the seventies.)

Personally, I find the "government" a poor arbitrator of where to distribute moneys it has collected via tax. Actually, it is a form of redistribution. They do collect taxes and then selectively "spend" that money plus an additional 40% or more that must be borrowed on top of what is collected. There is no money under the mattress, only Federal I.O.Us. Obviously, this can not continue indefinitely, but back to my point.

There is a net cost for any entity to do this, but government has little incentive to be efficient with financial affairs since they are not a for-profit entity, so a percentage of tax funds gets consumed for overhead costs for this redistribution effort.

Now, what we are seeing in the last few few decades is a lot more of this redistributed funds going to paying select citizens' entitlements. So, more money is being pulled out of the private sector (producers) and redistributed to those that are subsisting on entitlements (either in part or wholly).

If the trend continues there is less value added generated by producers because there is less revenue available for private sector use and growth. This negatively impacts the total GDP and further reduces the total amount of funds available for not only the private sector, but the government as well.

The problem is that essentially a whole class of people are being paid for not doing anything. In other words, they are not producing anything for their entitlements, so there is no net gain domestically in the form of goods and services, just consumers paid for by the producers + 40% borrowed.

Now before you have a dairy cow, there are people that need and deserve entitlements. I am not calling for cutting off entitlements, but it is easy to see that the total percentage of revenues spent by the US government in the form of entitlements is growing and has been for some time. The primary reason that it is growing is that elite politicians are effectively buying votes to get into and remain in office, but that is another discussion. It is more important to note the fact that entitlement spending has been consistently increasing as a percentage of total government expenditures.

Europe is an example where this is happening at an expanded rate. Some countries are already past the tipping point of total expenditures versus revenue collected and must rely on wealthier countries to meet their operational costs of the government.

However, while Europe is slowly stabilizing this situation, the long term prospects for prosperity are in even greater peril. Europe's aging population far exceeds the number of potential workers to sustain the needs of those retiring. Adding to the population age imbalance is a fairly steep entitlement system, which further burdens those that are working (both people and corporations) that are able to generate taxable revenues.

At some point the system crashes, which appears to be somewhere around 2050 for Europe and even earlier for Russia, which has a severe negative population growth.

Some US politicians are trying to push the European model domestically. While our population base is not as imbalanced as Europe's, a crash in Europe will be a catastrophic event for the rest of the world's economies.

All of this just makes my original point; government does not generate national wealth, the private sector does. The larger a government gets the more its operational costs go up and the greater burden it becomes on the nation's producers to sustain it and the GDP drops.

The more people that are employed by government the less people are available for private sector jobs (the producers). Almost 37% (more than one third) of US workers are employed as government workers. Their salaries are paid 100% by the remaining 63% of the workforce.

While money does recirculate into the private sector, there is a huge overhead cost burden to do this and there is often little concern as to where it recirculates (i.e., programs that produce little public gain). It would be far more efficient if the money never had to leave the private sector in the first place, but there are a few essential functions the government must do that private sector can not. Those are spelled out clearly in the US Constitution, such as to provide for the common defense (i.e. F-35 program). Unfortunately, the government has been running open loop expanding that definition of "essential" functions to the point where it is now a bloated bureaucracy with an ever inflating entitlement program used primarily to secure the positions of power of the most elite public servants.

But if everybody worked for the government, the money would just go round and round, and everone could be happy.

And borrowing more money, puts more money into the economy.

Brings back memories...I think this was a couple of trillion ago.

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/75918

But if everybody worked for the government, the money would just go round and round, and everone could be happy.

And borrowing more money, puts more money into the economy.

Brings back memories...I think this was a couple of trillion ago.

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/75918

Relax, man!

You're repeating yourself.

Are there two of you?????????????????????

Maybe that's it. You've gotten so worked up that you've exploded!

Just one.

I'm just getting so nervous and scared about what I'm witnessing, that I end up chasing my tail around.

We're moving into a mob rule democracy, and the mob wants everything for free.

I spent part of my afternoon reading Castro's speeches. They are nicely indexed. I started at the beginning. As we know, it failed. I really can't imagine what will happen to a country of our size, with these policies being implemented.

http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/castro.html

You spent the afternoon reading? What happened to work?

The mob is in Congress, and Washington D.C.

They just brought us to the brink of disaster, and guess what? They have decided to do it all over again in two months. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Why don't you find out how much money crosses the palms of the fine "gentlemen" who are playing with our future every time we approach the brink.

Let's see, I'll guess we've had one of these about every 4-6 months where nothing gets done, except more money getting funneled into politicians pockets, and the can getting kicked down the road.

It's about votes, about votes, about votes and only votes. Even if that vote is two years away.

No civility, just insults. I remember when politicians actually talked to each other. That's politicians of different parties. Maybe over a drink or two.

Those days are gone and the mob is running wild all over the voters.

To get the attention of the pollies in a fair and equal USA, then their offices should also share the pleasure of no money. An instant turning off of the dollar tap. Why not?

OK, back to the F-35 program. Maybe the whole defence welfare industry should be run by the best of Wal-Mart, Fedex and Amazon logistics experts plus the promoters of rapid manufacturing.

Example: 8am war starts. In these days of rapid manufacturing, do you need all your shelves stacked with F-35's that have been sitting in massive storage facilities for some years, rotting away? Yes, the airstrip infrastructure could be built, but at the start of the war, do you need every machine ready to go? Yes, it is a major deterrent but a single strike could turn it into ashes.

So back to the defence welfare industry. Build the stocks needed for the first period of trading, spend on co-share infrastructure that works both for defense and the general public, and hold the intellectual property for simple and rapid duplication.

I'll go back to an earlier thought ... even touched on when looking at new ways of presenting statistics dynamically .... and educate the women of the world where the benefits could turn the whole defense welfare on its head.

Yesterday was an awards ceremony at Emily's school, and the rest of the week is teachers' work days...no school.

As big as the money problem is, it's the least of our problems. The American people and the US constitution have no representation in Washington.

It's notable, that one of the first things that Castro did, was to expand the government and bring the average pay for government workers from $65 per month, to $85 per month. He went after the rich, and was hailed as a savior.

Today, the average wage for a government worker, stands at $20 per month, and the bulk of the population lives in abject poverty.

You're right...the mob is congress and Washington DC; and both parties are in favor of a massive, (unconstitutional), centralized government, with all of the control that comes with it. The few people that are attempting to fight for the people and the constitution, have been labeled as racist, haters.

It's like watching your house burn down, and realizing that there may be little chance of rebuilding it, once it is gone.

We've got a population of petty, selfish people, sending petty, selfish people to Washington...and it's a recipe for absolute tyranny and disaster.

Is GDP a reliable measure of economic growth?

If a haircut costs 8 dollars today and that same haircut costs 10 dollars next year does it contribute 2 more dollars to the GDP growth metric? But its still only one haircut. Has there been an increase in services?

If an automobile costs 20,000 dollars today and 25,000 dollars next year does this increase in cost contribute to an increase in GDP? Has there been an increase in the production of goods?

If the unit price of goods and services increases through inflation does it translates to an increase in GDP as long as the unit production remains constant? How is that growing the economy?

Is price inflation factored out of the metric? If not then what good is GDP as a growth metric.

How valuable is the GDP metric in measuring real economic growth?

These prices, of course, are set by the market. When you say my haircut costs ten bucks more than it did two years ago means that the money I pay for that haircut is worth less than it was two years ago. Which means somebody (FED) is printing money to cover debts. It initially sounds topsy turvy, and you can play fun word games with it, but thats all it is. Print too much, you can go into a death spiral, and not be able to cover your debts. They say that thousand mark Reichmarks were cheaper than wallpaper when that happened. Result was the collapse of the third most powerful banking system in Europe in the day. So, you CAN NOT be too big to fail.

The causes were different then than now. Lots of wordage and skull sweat has gone into finger pointing and so forth, however I have not spent much time analyzing why this happened. Mostly because I found it too depressing. But there are many parallels with our present crisis, and a few hours on google will open a lot of eyes.

But... essentially, what happens is this. When you get several economies some get depressed, and some are bullish. The strong, bullish economy can buy (perceived) cheap shirts and socks from a depressed economy, and help that economy flourish. However, your economy will suffer from a lack of currency as a result and will become dangerously over extended.

Can we see this happening?

But really good questions! The last question...how valuable is the GDP metric in measuring real economic growth... Well, its very nature is a metric. I can only suggest it is the best tool, the best yardstick we got.

And I am not an economist. I am a historian, and a blacksmith. I am buying up a winter's supply of food right now. If you are not doing the same, don't come running to me.

Well said Yusef1. Deserving of a good answer.