The Black Hole That Ate Everything

[unhappycamper]

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/geoff-stevens/2014/08/why-f-35-has-been-buried-black-hole



Why the F-35 has been buried in a black hole
Geoffrey Stevens
August 11, 2014

~snip~

Critics in the United States keep hammering away at the cost. The Pentagon plans to purchase 2,443 copies of the F-35 at an all-in cost (including operating costs over the lifetime of the aircraft) of something in excess of $1 trillion.

To the critics, it's a question of spending priorities. Eliminate homelessness? The F-35 expenditure would be enough, one report calculated, to buy every homeless person in the United States a $664,000 house.

Food for the poor? If the money were directed to the U.S. National School Lunch Program, it would pay for nutritious lunches for all 55 million students enrolled in elementary school in country, not just next year, but for the next decade. Or to look at it another away, the money could fund United Nations peacekeeping operations at their current level for 46 years.

Logic and priorities aside, there is no chance that the United States will abandon the F-35 program. It is too far in to back out, having already spent $298 billion in taxpayer funds.

[pangaia]

1. Which means...

we need more wars so we can use our new little toy(s)..

[Hoppy]

2. But Lockheed gives contributions to Congress. Poor people don't.

[packman]

3. The thing about a black hole

is that no light escapes and it sucks everything in.

[unhappycamper]

5. I'll disagree with you on this

That big chunk o blue pie is (supposedly) all military spending.

Some perspective:

WW II Iowa-class battleships cost $100 million a pop.
A 2014 Zumwalt class destroyer costs over $5.6 billion a pop.

The Marshall Plan created after WW II cost $ 100 billion dollars.
The F-35 program was supposed to cost around $400 billion and produce over 2,400 aircraft. F-35Cs are now over $300 million a pop and climbing.

The USS Enterprise launched in 1960 cost $459+ million dollars.
Our newest Ford-class aircraft carrier will cost somewhere between $16 ~ $40 billion dollars.

I'd like to chop the military budget by 30/40%.