Author: Matthew G. Saroff

I Love This Stuff, But I Don’t Believe a Word of It

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I feel the same way about Bill Scott and Jay Ward’s Fractured Fairy Tales, though those typically had a greater proportion of reality than recent Russian weapons systems announcements.

Case in point, Russia is saying that it is working on a stealthy, 600 km/h combat helicopter.

Russian Helicopters Holdings, the corporate umbrella for Kamov, Kazan, Mil and Rostvertol, told the Moscow press yesterday the company will invest $1 billion to to develop a “fifth-generation helicopter”. CEO Andrei Shibitov did not provide details, such as what exactly defines a fifth-generation helicopter.

But the Ria Novosti newswire reports Konstantin Sivkov, who is identified as the “first deputy head of the Russian Academy of Geopolitical Problems”, filled in some criteria: Invisible to radar, extended flying range, smart weapons, air-to-air capability and 310-370mph speed.

Well, that and $8.50 will get you a grande Starbucks.

I’m a Bit Late in the Game on This

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But I do want to note that there is a program out there in defense procurement land that is:

  • On or ahead of budget.
  • On or ahead of schedule.
  • Appears to have no technical issues on the horizon.

It is the upgraded CH-53K, which has now had its schedule delayed by over two years.

What is going on here, I think is that the helicopter matches the V-22 in every capability except for speed, it carries more over short distances, and about the same over longer distances, it is more maneuverable in hover, and safer because it can autorotate.

Additionally, it is , and cheaper to buy and operate, and occupies less deck space than the Osprey, and the Marines with some justification, see it as a threat to their MV-22:

Slowing CH-53K development will keep the new helicopter out of the air (and prevent real-data comparisons between platforms) until after a second multi-year MV-22 contract gets signed in FY 2013. Even worse, slowing the CH-53K schedule raised the program price by at least $1.1 billion dollars, raising the per-unit price. The delay may also may dampen the enthusiasm of potential international buyers and give competing firms an opening to exploit this as yet unexplained delay in what was, once, a procurement showpiece. Why slow a program that stands to be a high-demand showpiece with potential markets in Israel, Germany, France, Turkey, Singapore and Taiwan?

Seriously, if we really care about our fighting men, and not about the future contracting gigs of generals, we have to put an end to this corrupt bullsh$#.

Jim Webb Asks the Right Question

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The distinguished gentleman from Virginia is asking why the military has so many flag and general officers (generals and admirals):

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., is pressing the Defense Department for justification of why the military has so many flag and general officers, and he also wants to know why the military is paying salary and tuition assistance to officers on loan to some Washington, D.C., think tanks.

It’s a good question, with about 1/10 the men in uniform as at the height of the 2nd world war, we have more active duty general officers .

Additionally, we just have more officers, with one officer for every 5 enlisted men, up from the traditional number of 1 for 10 that was the standard for the military throughout most of history.

The answer is, I think, that much like the incompetent banksters thinking that it is all about the banksters, the officer corps thinks that its all about the officer corps.

Lots of navel gazing, and lots of waste.

Cut back on the officer corps, and spend it on senior NCOs, and you will get a better military.

When the Going Gets Tough, the Ukrainians Gets Weird

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An-124 Ruslan (NATO Designation: Condor)

Yes, it appears that Antotov is serious about bidding on the KC-X tanker contract, and they have just asked for a 60-day freeze on the competition so that they can get their bid together.

These folks haven’t even decided what plane to submit, with reports of their considering, “three potential offers based on the An-124-KC and two new aircraft designs – the An-122-KC and An-112-KC.”

The AN-124 is clearly too big for the competition, it’s bigger than the C-5, and the competition is for a medium tanker, the KC-10 is the big boy, and according to the Wiki, the An-122 appears to be a 2 engined variant of the of the Ruslan, and lord knows what the AN-112 is.

On the plus side of the bid, Russia’s mega transport does appear to have much better rough field capabilities than the competition, both because of the multi axle main and nose gear, and because its high wing is makes engines less likely to suck debris off an unprepared strip.

Still, this is so silly as to be surreal.

I think that someone, possibly on the side of their US partner might be playing both ends against the middle, and the money is heading to Lichtenstein.

Barack Obama In Trying for Credibility in Defense, Destroys Our Military

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Because Barack Obama and His Stupid Minions™ are terrified about being accused of being soft on defense,* that his future budgets will by expensive high tech weapons systems at the expense of operations, maintenance, and readiness:

U.S. spending on weapons through 2016 likely will grow faster than the overall defense budget, which will have annual increases of only about 1 percent above inflation, according to Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale.

“Our goal would be to get forces and modernization to grow by 2 or 3 percent,” Hale said in an interview, while saying that “it’s not a given.”

So Obama intends to spend money on crap we don’t need, thereby diverting money from the crap we do need

Of course, the fact that we are already spending more money on defense than at any time since the end of the 2nd World War, and he’s still trying to increase the defense budget in real terms just buggers the mind.

Republicans support wasteful defense spending because:

  • It’s easy to demagogue.
  • They find defense contractors an easy touch for donations.
  • They want to ruin our finances so that we have to make cuts in social programs.

The Democrats support wasteful defense spending because:

  • They are afraid that Republicans will call them names.

Truth be told, I am not sure which one is more pathetic.

*It won’t work, the Republicans will run against you as soft on defense anyway. As the saying goes, “The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one.”

Obama Tries to Prove Rush Limbaugh Right

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Unfortunately, no one notices.

The Obama administration is looking to implement draconian new IP laws that will literally criminalize certain types of thought:

While they may never be able to truly defeat piracy and drive it from the lurking depths of the internet, copyright protection attack-dog organizations like the RIAA and MPAA have long dreamed of the day when they would no longer have to pay for their own copyright enforcement. Now that dream is on the verge of coming true, thanks to the Obama administration.

……

The White House’s vision is perhaps a prelude to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which will go before Congress later this year. The bill would make P2P or BitTorrent client development a criminal offense if the distributed software was used for infringement. It also implements an interesting provision called “imminent infringement”, which allows the government to charge people who they think might be about to infringe with a civil offense (for example if you searched “torrent daft punk”). This is among the first official “thought crime” provisions to be proposed by the U.S. government. The bill also makes it a criminal offense to bypass DRM.

As I have said before, IP law is, at its core, public interest law, as is clearly stated in the Constitution, and this stuff is just nuts.

It does not serve anyone to spend taxpayer money to enforce private licenses, particularly not when doing so implies a regime that would have Eric Arthur Blair* spinning in his grave.

*Better known by his nom de plume, George Orwell.

Motivation, and What Works

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It Sounds good, but is it true?

I know that American, or more accurately Anglo-Saxon, management styles suck. We have no better examples than the economic meltdown, the collapse of 2 of the big 3 auto makers, BP, etc.

The overpaid masters of the universe model is a failure, and I would argue that it was eminently foreseeable.

Certainly the ideas and techniques suggested here are worth a try, and in any case, the cartooning on a white board is worth the 10 minutes 48 seconds.

H/t The Big Picture

South Korean Central Bank Raises Benchmark Rate

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It was only by 25 basis points (.25%) to 2.25%, but it was still a bit of a shocker.

My guess is that they are, like too many “very serious people” around the world, concerned about the invisible bond vigilante fairies, and they figure that the US dollar, the currency of their chief customer for their export driven economy, will be strengthening because of the Euro/PIIGS kerfuffle, so they could.

I’m not sure if it makes sense for them, if it does not drive their currency too high, it probably does, if just because it gives their central bank some maneuvering room if the recession goes double dip before hitting the zero bound once again.

Quote of the Day

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It is remarkable. I had expected that we economists would have to fight Democratic political advisors who would be pushing for policies that were bad in the long run but that gained votes in the short run. I had never expected to be fighting Democratic political advisors who are pushing policies that are:

  • bad in the long run.
  • bad in the short run.
  • lose votes too.

—-J. Bradford Delong, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the United States Department of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration

<Tinfoil Hat>I’m beginning to wonder if Obama isn’t some sort of Republican Manchurian Candidate</Tinfoil Hat>

I don’t really believe this, but his policy of cozying up to bankers, BP, and other corrupt centers of power in our society while cock punching the DFH’s* that are his base seems to be a pretty good job of sabotaging his party.

*Dirty F%$#ing Hippies.

Federal Judge Rules Parts of Doma Unconstitutional

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The areas of the lawsuit were rather specific, and pertained only to couples legally married in Massachusetts, but the the fact that the judge, Joseph Tauro, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, the Mass AG and GLAD brought separate suits, is good news.

I’m an engineer, and not a lawyer, dammit, but I think that part of the decision, where the judge found a 10th amendment violation, because, “federal restrictions on funding for states that recognize same-sex marriage violates the 10th Amendment,which, “declares that rights not explicitly granted to the federal government, or denied to the states, belong to the states,” is likely to be overturned.

Basically the 10th amendment has not been a big part of jurisprudence since some time in the 1930s, and runs in the face of precedent.

The second decision, in GLAD’s case, is based on the 5th amendment equal protection claims, which I think will go a lot further.

Still, I think that it’s heading to the Supreme Court, and that the decision will be overturned by a 5-4 majority.

If I were an attorney for the plaintiffs, I would be starting to suggest that some of the justices who have already made statements that pre-judge the outcome, most notably Scalia, whose public endorsements of bigotry have been longstanding, recuse themselves.

If you don’t start making a stink about these now, then they will be sitting on the bench with their minds already made up later.

Economics Update

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It’s jobless Thurdsay, and initial claims fell by 21,00 to 454000, which is still at least 100,000 too high for anything approaching a realistic recovery.

The less volatile 4-week moving average fell by 1250, and continuing claims fell by 224,000 to 4.41 million, though I am not sure if the latter might have been caused by the Senate delaying extended benefits.

Additionally, it looks like what Paul Krugman calls the “Invisible Bond Vigilantes,” still appear not to exist, because the 30-year fixed mortgage rate has fallen to 4.57%, the lowest mortgage rate since Freddie Mac started keeping track of the data in 1971.

Note that even with the banks giving away money, people are still not buying houses now that the tax credit is basically done.

Hoocoocanode?

In other less than surprising news, the Bank of England has kept its benchmark rate at ½%, basically zero, so apparently they don’t believe in the bond vigilante fairy either.

OK, the Federal Reserve is Freaking Out

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And no, I’m not talking about the non-existent inflation threat, I mean that they are great depression type deflationary spiral:

Federal Reserve officials, increasingly concerned over signs the economic recovery is faltering, are considering new steps to bolster growth.

With Congress tied in political knots over whether to take further action to boost the economy, Fed leaders are weighing modest steps that could offer more support for economic activity at a time when their target for short-term interest rates is already near zero. They are still resistant to calls to pull out their big guns — massive infusions of cash, such as those undertaken during the depths of the financial crisis — but would reconsider if conditions worsen.

Top Fed officials still say that the economic recovery is likely to continue into next year and that the policy moves being discussed are not imminent. But weak economic reports, the debt crisis in Europe and faltering financial markets have led them to conclude that the risks of the recovery losing steam have increased. After months of focusing on how to exit from extreme efforts to support the economy, they are looking at tools that might strengthen growth.

Let’s be clear about this: The Federal Reserve fetishizes two things, inflation fighting, and opacity.

The fact that they are leaking to the press about possibly engaging in additional quantitative easing (printing money) because the ‘Phants are playing “Dr. No,” is an indication that:

  • They really don’t want to do quantitative easing.
  • They are trying to kick Congress in the pants so that they engage in fiscal stimulus.
  • That they feel that more needs to be done.

They are seeing things, and I don’t mean the “audit the Fed” bill, that are scaring the hell out of them.

Timothy Geithner Can Bite My Shiny Metal Ass

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So, with all the talk of screwing the ordinary guy on the social safety net through Barack Obama’s Pete Peterson sponsored catfood commission, Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner still has the time to promise people who never worked a day for their money that they will pay less in taxes than the guy at McDonalds:

Obama administration will keep tax rates at levels that benefit job-creating businesses and limit taxes on capital gains and dividends, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday.

Interviewed on CNBC’s “The Kudlow Report”, Geithner said the intent is to extend and keep in place tax cuts that should benefit 95 percent of businesses.

“We’re going to make sure that we keep at 20 percent the existing rates on dividends and capital gains,” Geithner said. “We think that’s good policy.”

Call me a commie, but I think that people who work for their money should pay less, not more in taxes than the trust fund babies who haven’t lifted a finger for their lifestyle.

Economics Update

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Click for full size


Temp hiring surges

It looks like temporary hiring is very strong, up 19.6% year over year, which, in addition to contributing to my finding employment, should be a leading indicator for direct employment, though private “permanent” employment is still down 0.7% YoY, which runs counter to earlier data. (see chart pr0n)

We are also seeing falling rates of credit card delinquencies, which are down to an 8 year low, which could be seen as either a glass half full, that people are getting a handle on their finances, or glass half empty, with people continuing to deleverage, and flying into the “paradox of thrift.”

Finally, in an update from yesterday, when I discussed office vacancies, today, we see that vacancy rates in shopping centers increased in the 2nd quarter.

Why Aren’t The Dems Hammering This Every Day?

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Georgia Democratic Gubernatorial candidate, and former Governor, Roy Barnes, is now explaining to the voters that wingnut Republicans are more than poor stewards of the public trust, but that they they are actually an embarrassment to the people, and the state, of Georgia.

Some text from his ad:

It’s hard for industry to take us seriously when the Legislature attempts to outlaw stem cell research, passes bills about microchips in the brain, and talks about seceding from the Union.

………

We can’t bring jobs to Georgia with the rest of the country laughing at us.

An appeal to civic pride, reminding folks that these folks are f%$#ing nuts, and that we should be embarrassed that they win elections, is a simple and easily understood: They are laughing at you, not with you because of these clowns.

This is a message that can, and should, be hammered at every day until election day.