Feb 23 2009
Liberal Idiots On Parade
I work in the aerospace industry for DoD and NASA. I have spent a career doing this. So when some liberal who is completely clueless about the industry tries to make elementary school quality statements it is embarrassing to witness that kind of ignorance and arrogance.
David Axelrod [my speed reading got me again, reader Farley as the correction below, but this really changes nothing regarding how naive these comments are] is such an arrogant ignoramous, as are his naive minions. This is crystal clear in the idea that we can dump high tech aerospace jobs and projects and there will be plenty of work around for the displaced (hopefully sans a shovel and a wheelbarrow). Let’s look into the minds of liberal ignoramous, shall we:
Would shutting down the Raptor really put 95000 people out of work? No. David Axe has the data:
Problem is, that 95,000 number counts indirect employment at firms for whom the F-22 program is just one of many clients. And it also counts Lockheed assembly workers who are in high demand for other aviation projects. In fact, ending Raptor production today might not result in a single unemployed aerospace worker.
…
Not to belabor the point, but this is one of the things that Mark Bowden might have bothered to research when writing his Atlantic article about the F-22. Unfortunately, he did not; rather, he uncritically repeated claims made by pilots and manufacturers (neither groups are noted for supplying informed, unbiased economic data) as to the aircraft’s merits and economic impact.
Yeah, like this keyboard genius has a clue. LM has lots of projects, but the engineering and manufacturing skills don’t translate at all. LM has a contract to build the next Crew Exploration Vehicle for NASA – but it is not a Raptor. Not even close.
First note the lack of landing gear. The Orion CEV parachutes to earth, the Raptor doesn’t. Note the wings, the Raptor ‘flies’, the Orion doesn’t. Note the engines. The Orion is built on rocket technology, the Raptor on jet engines. Note the missions – the Raptor is designed to deliver weapons, the Orion is designed to move people and material to the International Space Station. Note the human requirements. The Raptor is designed for atmosphere, the Orion for space. A jet jockey suit is not an astronaut suit – even a 5 year old could figure that out.
I am engineer and I can tell you that unless there are other airplane systems needing engineers and manufacturing skills, the people on the Raptor program will be out of work. They cannot go to LM spacecraft groups – all fully staffed with the right expertise. They cannot go to LM’s maritime groups – all fully staffed with the proper expertise.
This is the kind of completely ignorant concept you would expect from liberals challenged with HS math, let alone cutting edge technology and challenges associated with the differing elements of aerospace.
Let me see if I can find a way to make it clear even to these bozos. An Ear, Noise and Throat doctor is not a Brain Surgeon – they are not interchangeable. Is that simpleton enough for the simpletons???? If you shut down the programs just about ALL of the people will be looking for jobs.
There are not a lot of openings right now in this industry driven solely by Federal Spending, what Axelrod is proposing is disastrous in an recession like this. We all can’t go into infrastructure, there are skill requirements there as well. Building a jet is not at all like fixing a bridge.
Addendum: BTW, every time we invest in a new fighter jet or spacecraft the general market see huge dividends down stream. This is how the internet was developed, to support large distributed DoD projects. Miniature electronics are from weapons systems, fiber optics as well. Voice recognition was being prototyped under the Star Wars program in the mid 1980’s (I know, I was there).
If people want to know the economic impact, beyond jobs and knowledge and skills that keep us ahead of the world, then look at today’s technology and were it originated from. You might be surprised.Â
I know I have a ton of really sharp readers here, and I expect they will be filling the comments section with loads of examples of critical technology which evolved from military programs. Have at it folks!
One of the things I always fear when Dems take over is the fact that the advanced systems both with NASA and DOD are cut. You are correct. It is absolutely amazing how the liberal mind absolutely refuses to connect the dots between employment, transfer of technology, advances, and the fact that dollars spent on this sort of thing are not dollars flushed into a black hole.
We’re talking dollars that multiply into the private sector, creating even more jobs. When I was working as a dreaded lobbyist doing the ‘space thing’ in the 1980’s the dollar transfer was something like upward of $10 dollars being made out of every dollar spent.
Now, after the Dems are resorting to their usual spend everything on give-aways and cut the real money makers, we can only think of what would have been had a quarter of the “porkulus” money been invested in a permanent human presence on both Mars and the Moon.
It is now but a what-if.
Great post.
SJR
The Pink Flamingo
Axelrod’s only skill is to try to use spin to try and convince people they mean absolutely the opposite of what they really mean. He is a fulltime paid professional liar, and everything he says – and I mean EVERYTHING – needs to be run through that filter. Now does he even need to intentionally “lie” anymore? No, not really – once you’ve made the life decision to say whatever is convenient for you and your employers every step of the way, concepts such as “truth” become so irrelevant that there is no reason for a man like him to even waste time trying to figure out what it is. An honest man who valued truth would have said “yes, there will be some job cuts but that’s a necessary price to pay for what we want to do.” But an inveterate professional liar like Axelrod will only say that up is down, hot is cold, white is black, and job cuts are actually job gains.
David Axelrod thinks it is good for Obama if these cuts don’t cause job losses, so he cheerfully says they don’t cause job losses. Is that what will happen? Who cares! Axelrod certainly doesn’t, because it’s not about what happens – it’s about the “spin” he can get in the press today.
Men like this are deeply, deeply, evil. They are the kind of men who enabled Stalin’s Russia and who built Hitler’s Germany. They’re the kind of men backing Obama today.
You are right on this. You kill this and lose all associated jobs all the way down stream. And they don’t care…
But if you let they Detroit go broke, most of the associated jobs down stream will be re-established through another car manufacturer in a fairly short period of thing.
They are doing the same thing that was done in the great depression but they will surprised when they get the same results…. Thanking Obama for the “Raw Deal”
A couple of points…
First, there seems to be some confusion as to who “Axelrod” is. Maybe you normally refer to David Axe and Axelrod; I’m not sure, although a quick search of the site didn’t seem to so indicate. In any case, David Axe is a freelance journalist specializing in military issues. David Axelrod is a political consultant and advisor to President Obama. Axe favors buying more F-22s; I don’t know Axelrod’s position on the F-22.
As for the topic of the post, the claim was that the “95000” figure isn’t plausible, as it includes many jobs that are only tangentially connected to the production of the F-22. I very much believe that capping the F-22 program at 183 aircraft would cost some jobs; however, I’m inclined also to believe that the 95000 figure has been substantially inflated for political purposes. You’re quite correct to note that the skills of engineers and assembly line workers aren’t perfectly fungible; at the same time, I suspect that they’re at least somewhat fungible. I’m also not terribly convinced by the argument that because one project contracted to Lockheed Martin is really different than this other project, engineers and workers can’t be transferred in-company.
Finally, I think that most people would agree that military spending serves as stimulus, both in short economic terms and in technology development terms. The question (and there is considerable academic debate on this point) is whether this particular spending represents wise and efficient stimulus; in other words, is it better to save somewhat less than 95000 jobs by building F-22s, or by investing in some other manner. Similarly, there is considerable debate about whether military technology spending is actually the best way to generate technology breakthrough, or whether alternative technology growth strategies would be a better use of capital.
But then, I’m just a liberal ignoramus bozo, so what do I know?
Farley,
Sadly, the way these programs work is people support one project and its specialized components. Very little, if anything, on these systems is ‘shared’. Maybe the tires, not the landing gear. Maybe a cockpit display, not the display contents.
The pieces of this program are mostly dedicated to it – along with the jobs.
Assuming you don’t work in the field (which is clear since you can’t distinguish from a spacecraft and a fighter jet) then yes, you are thinking like an ignoramous.
Do you go to the pharmacists to have surgery too? I mean, they are so closely related and all …
ROTFLMAO!
AJ,
With due respect, you’re being a bit non-responsive. The post you cite specifically notes that the workers could be transitioned to other aviation lines, not to a spacecraft assembly line; indeed, the post cites a Lockheed factory plant manager to the effect that workers on the F-22 could (and, in the view of the manager, probably would) be shifted to C-130 production. Moreover, the post you cite specifically notes that the 95000 jobs in question includes workers who don’t actually work on the F-22, but rather on other aircraft, and that it includes workers who aren’t actually aerospace engineers and don’t work for Lockheed, but rather who work for firms that have only a tangential relationship to the F-22.
Now, maybe there are some engineers who are so specialized that they literally can’t do anything but work on the F-22. If so, those engineers will probably lose their jobs when the Raptor line ends; their future, in any case, is grim, as the Raptor line will end sooner or later. I think it’s pretty clear, though, that they don’t add up to 95000…
Farley,
The post was written by an ignoramous who doesn’t work in my field. How can I be any clearer – it is an idiotic conclusion.
Leave the expertise to the experts dude, you don’t want to try and show off your lack of knowledge around me.
Everyone who had a job supporting the Raptor will be out them. The C-130 is staffed. Get a clue – how many people would work on the Raptor PLUS the C-130, verses the C-130 alone?
Show off some of those math skills bud.
To Acting Presidential Obama, people are interchangeable doodads.
AJ,
Well, in some sense journalists of military affairs do work in your field; at the very least, they report quite a bit about your field. But of course, it is certainly possible for journalists to be ignorant, even of the fields which they focus upon. In this particular case, however, you seem to be disagreeing with Lockheed’s own plant manager, who appeared to be optimistic about the chance that his workers, at least, could be shifted from F-22 production to C-130 production. You also haven’t responded to the argument that the 95000 includes a lot of people who don’t actually support the Raptor, or at least who don’t do so full time.
I also wish that you would engage with the argument that the aviation industry is not, in fact, fully staffed; I’ve heard this argument from a number of aviation professionals, and Axe cites an article to this effect. Because if there actually is demand for aviation workers beyond the F-22, then you’re argument doesn’t really go very far… unless we are to believe that anyone who was unfortunate enough to work on the F-22 project suddenly lost all other potential employment opportunities in the aviation industry…
Farley,
You are a clueless git. Most reporting in my field is laughable in its ignorance.
The Aerospace industry is fully staffed. The NASA budget has not moved in years. The drive is to reduce costs. We keep losing people to these idiotic budget cuts.
This is the end of our discussion, I don’t have the time to educate you, and it is not my responsibility. Your ignorance is your fault.
AJ
I have been in Aerospace Engineering for 45 years, been a jet fan since the Korean War and I simply have no words to explain the insanity of shelving the F22. We have a generation edge over other country’s and if they do this it will probably be lost
One economist opined that the best way to spend our way out of this mess is to increase military spending. Not only would it make the country more secure, it would provide meaningful jobs for millions of people . The best part being we would have something to show for all the money spent. For the life of me I can’t see what benefit a $9.5 million 1 mile bike trail is going to do for the country. The only thing all this massive spending for the sake of spending is going to do is make the crooks richer and everybody else poorer. Any contractor who would bid $9.5 million to build a 1 mile bike trail has got to be a crook. Either that or inflation is worse than I thought. And anyone who would award a contract to that bidder is either an imbecile or also a crook. Maybe we should try spending some of these mega billions building more prisons to house all these crooks who are looting the treasury. After Obama makes a few more raids on the national treasury, maybe people will wake up and realize that he is just another African leader who’s aim is to loot the country’s treasury and leave the country a basket case like all those “popularly” elected tyrants in Africa have done. Does anyone remember Idi Amin or Robert Mgabwe? Jimmy Carter helped Mgabwe overthrow the Rhodesian Government by ordering our CIA agents who were assisting the Rhodisian Govt. to switch sides and help Mgabwe. Some legacy for Carter. Obama is cut fromt he same mold. So bend over America.
Something nobody has mentioned is that if you eliminate these jobs, it is going to be VERY costly to reconstitute in four or five years when people wake up to how dangerous the world really is.
We already have a problem with engineering in this country – it’s a field that is essential to a technically advanced society, but is both underpaid and vastly under-respected. Aerospace engineering is a particularly stressed field.
And if you start cutting major acquisition programs, you wind up driving people away from the field.
I note the total lack of consideration of what any major procurement issues will have as direct impact on California where a lot of the defense industry work is done.
The wrong steps for all the wrong reasons and California will slide into a death spiral.
Also it is worthy to note that there is along with the Raptor program a forced second engine requirement as an alternate source in Mass.
If the Raptor program gets cut that engine manufacture program will also bite the bullet.
It is a pure pork program any way, since even the Air Force said they did not need the second source for the engines.
Well put Mike M. I have seen this happen but we managed to recover but with this one I am not sure
We are also doing some work on Constellation, CEV, Orion. Well, mainly to expand the control center to handle these new vehicles!
Mike M., you’re spot on. While there are no plans to build a new shuttle, but let’s play Devil’s Advocate, suppose we are to build a new shuttle. Can we? No. All the people with the shuttle building experience are gone. All the equipment is gone. No sparing parts. It would be very difficult to reconstruct a new shuttle from scratch. The last one was built with spare parts.
Steve W., I don’t think we would be able to recover from the cancellation of F-22. And we are going to need it.
lurker9876
Agree on all points as well. The same thing happened to the F-1 after Apollo
This is just another attempt to disarm the American Nation.
When RReagan built up the defenses of this country we had very good employment and tax revenue.
The Defense Industry is one of the Ultimate in Hi-tech.
Cut it and we are doomed in more ways than one.
Double it and we will work our way out of this recession, Obama and his minions understand this.
If we let this happen we are doomed for the scrap heap of history.
We are running out of time to remove the traitors who would leave us defenseless, hungry and sick.
These people have a plan, this is not by accident.
How much longer before we start acting like the Americans at the Alamo and Fort Mchenry and realize that we are in this together.
As long as the republic survives we all do. Our nation dies and so do we all.
Open your eyes AJ you are a smart man and the rules of logic apply.
People think in Patterns, where have you seen these patterns before.
This is our greatest opportunity, in history a crisis equal to the American Revolution. Which way do we go?