Boeing's Sour Grapes

Northrop Grumman Corporation has won a $35,000,000,000 contract to build Air Refueling Tankers for the U.S. Air Force. Boeing bid on the same contract and lost. Now, Boeing and its friends in Congress are crying "unfair". Sounds to me like sour grapes! This was not just a loss, it was a complete shutout. It is reported that, out of a total of five categories in the selection criteria used by the Air Force to award the contract, Boeing did not come in on top of -- or even nearly tie in -- a single one of them.

I have yet to find the specifics on these five selection criteria, but three of them seem to be cost, past performance on Pentagon contracts, and capabilities. The cost part is obvious. Northrop Grumman came in at more than 20% less per aircraft. When you are talking over a hundred million dollars for each tanker, 20% is a substantial savings. As far as the past performance with Pentagon contracts goes, Boeing is famous (infamous?) for it's delays and cost overruns on government jobs. Northrop Grumman Corp is not.

The capabilities category is a bit tougher. I do not pretend to be an expert on this, or any other type of aircraft. I suspect that those in Congress who are griping about this are, at least for the most part, are also not experts in this area. For this reason, I will defer to the Air Force to know what capabilities are important to them in their aircraft. If the Air Force says one aircraft is more suited to the task they have in mind, I will take their word on it.

The basis of the complaints seems to be that Northrop Grumman is partnered in this contract with a company that is based in Europe. The European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company -- makers of, amongst many other fine aviation products, the Airbus aircraft -- operate primarily in France, Germany, and Spain. The detractors complain that new jobs will go to these countries and not to the U.S. This while officials in Alabama -- where the tankers will be assembled -- are forecasting over 1400 new permanent jobs in connection with this contract. This does not even include the General Electric engines that will be used in the tankers and the many other parts that will be manufactured in the U.S.

Even while Boeing is criticizing Northrop Grumman for being affiliated with a foreign company, they conveniently forget to tell us about the numerous subsidiaries and affiliations they have in other countries. Their corporate information refers to business affiliations with Boeing UK (England), AeroInfo Systems (Canada), Boeing Australia (Australia), Boeing Defense UK (England), Energia (Russia), Arov Kvaerner (Norway), and Sdoyuzhnoye (Ukrane).

In addition, Boeing spends a substantial amount on parts and services from foreign companies that they do not claim affiliation with. These include Japan and Italy as well as China. Boeing has paid Chinese companies alone over a billion dollars for hardware and services. So, while somewhat more of the assembly of these aircraft may have taken place in this country if Boeing had won the contract, they would hardly be a more "American" aircraft.

So, Boeing's claims of job losses and the quality of aircraft from other countries has very little, if any, merit. The Representatives to Congress, who are making the most noise about it, are the one's from the states where Boeing does business. They are, no doubt, looking forward to their reelection. These, by the way, are many of the same people who voted for the very amendments to the "Buy American Act" that enables European companies to be equally considered for such contracts.

What this all boils down to is that Boeing lost a big-money deal and they are now crying over the spilled milk. They lost, apparently, fair and square. They had their equal opportunity to convince the Air Force to buy their product and they failed. Northrop Grumman submitted the better proposal on the manufacture of what the customer has determined to be the better product for their needs. That's the way it goes, every day, in business in the free world. We wanted a free market, we wanted a Global Economy, we wanted Fair Trade. Well, here they are!

Danny Noriega, Idol, Not!

Okay; this is only because I have been asked to weigh in by several people who know that I treat gay folks just like everyone else... because they are just like everyone else. I normally have better things to do with my time than to comment on "reality" (snicker!) shows.

Was Danny Noriega "voted off" American Idol because A.I. fans are homophobes? How in hell would I, or anyone else, know that? Many thousands of fans cast many, many thousands of votes. Mr. Noriega was "voted off". All that means for sure is that the majority of fans liked eleven other contestants better. They may have liked the other voices better. They may have liked the other's songs more, they may have liked the other's cloths, how they held the microphone, or the way they fixed their hair. I don't know. I have no insight into their reasoning.

I would like to think that it was because those fans thought the other contestants were more talented. Both my daughters say that is why they voted for someone else. I am not so naive though that I think everyone votes for talent. It is largely a popularity contest and, to the teenaged majority of the fans, popular often equates to "Hot". I suspect that the teenaged gay male fan base of A.I. is not so great as to carry a gay guy on his hotness. Personally, I think Danny came across as a bit of a rude wise-ass. I wouldn't vote against him for that reason but, all else being equal, that may be something to sway me to vote for another person.

The fact is that, unless you round up every fan, inject them with truth serum, and ask them why they voted the way they did, no one is ever going to know. We can speculate until the cows come home and it ain't gonna prove a thing. No, the real fact is that Danny Noriega was NOT VOTED OFF. Eleven other contestants were more VOTED FOR! There is NO number to call to vote 'against' someone; only FOR people.

The more interesting question, to my mind, would be; Who started this "voted off because he's gay" rumor anyway? There are a few possibilities. My first suspect would be that someone having to do with the show leaked it. After all, controversy is as good as (often better than) free advertising. It could have been a gay group, looking to drum up some sympathy for the cause. It could have been a journalist, looking to sell more rags. It may have been Danny's fans, trying to make themselves, and othere, believe it was anything other than the level of his talent.

Now, the state of the Nation, the World, and the Universe being what they are, I have better ways to spend my time than to worry about a TV show.

Reward the Greedy and the Ignorant

Our government, in a continuing demonstration of Federal Infinite Wisdom, has found another hole to shovel our tax dollars into. This hole, the Sub-Prime Mortgage hole, was dug by greedy mortgage companies and brokers, and by ignorant borrowers. Now, it looks like we, the taxpayers, are going to have to fill that hole in. Fill it with billions of dollars of our money.

Unfortunately, the perpetrators of the Sub-Prime Mortgage crisis are to be pulled out of the hole as we fill it. They should be left in their hole to climb out by themselves, if they can. By bailing out the mortgage companies, we are rewarding them for making a lot of money, for (in many cases) being less than forthcoming with their customers, and for leaving our economy in a pickle.

By bailing out homeowners with sub-prime mortgages, we are rewarding ignorance, gullibility, and foolhardiness, and are largely just postponing the inevitable. Sub-prime mortgage loans were typically offered to those who could not qualify for a conventional mortgage, fixed or variable. Most of the people who took out sub-prime mortgages had little to no business buying a home in the first place. Sub-primes were a trick to get people in the doors of homes they couldn't afford, or into homes that were bigger and more expensive than they could afford.

But, it was not those poor slobs trying to fulfill their "American Dream" that started the avalanche. Sub-Primes were also used by business people to buy homes on speculation. These people thought they would take out a cheap mortgage to buy a home, hold on to it for several months to a couple years, and then sell it at a tidy profit. Too bad for them, the cost of homes did not keep going up. Suddenly faced with mortgages that were going to cost them more than the homes were worth, on houses that they didn't even live in or rent out, they chose to default. That is what started the avalanche that everyone else got caught up in.

I have little compassion for anyone who would take out a mortgage, that they could barely afford at the time, knowing that the interest rate, thus the payments, would go up in a couple years. What did they think? Were they planning on a long-lost rich uncle passing away and leaving them the big bucks by then? Were they going to win the PowerBall jackpot? We all hope for the windfall. We all think our situation to get better. But few of us would gamble a purchase like a home on hopes alone. Bailing them out now will only help keep them in a home that they still can't afford and we will be going through this again in two or four years, when whatever protections for them expire.

Now, let me say this, lest you think I have nothing to loose but my tax money. I write this as an individual with stock holdings that have suffered, at least in large part, from the sub-prime mortgage collapse. I write this as a homeowner with a mortgage. I write this as the owner of a home that has declined in value because of the sub-prime mortgage situation. Bailing this mess out could help me... for the short term. But, most of all, I write this as a person who believes that one should take responsibility for his decisions and actions.

I have made bad investment decisions and lost money. No one bailed me out. I took my lumps and chalked it up to a learning experience. Those experiences have made me more careful. I study investments more closely before jumping in. I ask questions. Questions like; why would someone want to loan me money, in the form of a mortgage, at a rate that is less than that money is costing him? The old adage "If it looks too good to be true..." works very nicely here.

So, what do we do? We do not one damn thing. If we leave it alone, it will correct itself. Our economy has a wonderful way of correcting itself. At lease it does when it is left alone and given time to heal. When left alone, that great old 'Law' of Supply and Demand -- the one our economy is supposed to be based upon -- will sort it al out. Unfortunately, our Government (Federal Infinite Wisdom) thinks it can do a better job.

So, what will happen if we leave it alone? The greedy mortgage companies will loose a lot of money. Their customers, who can really afford them, will renegotiate their loans to keep their homes. The mortgage companies will renegotiate with them because it will cost them less than a foreclosure. The people who can't afford their homes, will loose them. They will return to renting apartments.

The building trade people and suppliers will go back to work again building apartments. Some mortgage companies will loose so much money that they will fail. They will be absorbed by those who don't. People, who can afford to, will stop waiting for the prices of homes to fall more and will buy theirs. People who are stuck with homes the want to sell will be able to. Best of all, mortgage companies will not do this again because it doesn't work, it doesn't pay, and no one bailed them out.

What about the economy? If we don't "fix" the sub-prime mess, the stock market will not recover quite as quickly. The stock market WILL recover. (by the way, the mortgage issue was not the only issue, or even the major issue, that caused the market to decline.) People will start buying (and selling) homes again. People will go back to work. Two years from now, this will all be as distant and fuzzy a memory as the economic downswing of 2001.

Contact your Representatives and tell them NOT to bail out the sub-prime mortgage mess. Tell them NOT TO REWARD greed and ignorance. It will cost US taxpayers billions of dollars and will only postpone the whole mess from collapsing anyway. Let the people who caused this mess pay for it. Tell them that, instead of rewarding the perpetrators, they should THANK the VAST MAJORITY of us, who have acted with financial responsibility.

NAFTA? Forget it!

The North America Free Trade Agreement was a good idea that was negotiated badly. [That doesn't surprise anyone, does it?] NAFTA resulted in American job losses, American manufactured products loosing value, and a lot of bad feelings. But it is not, or should not be, a campaign issue.

NAFTA is not going away. It is not going to be significantly changed by either candidate, upon ascending to the Presidency. Even if they really wanted [and they don't] to make any real changes to the agreement, Congress will fight it every step of the way. It isn't worth it anyway. Despite NAFTA's shortcomings, it is not the real villain.

NAFTA doesn't hold a shadow to the primary reason for American jobs going off-shore. That reason is corporate greed. Corporate greed that is attracted to the low labor and regulatory costs associated with manufacturing in third-world countries, and to a U.S. tax system that rewards corporations for sending our jobs to those places.

There isn't much we can do about the low wages and lack of regulations in other countries. We don't have to. That will fix itself. We should, however, be able to cause changes in the U.S. corporate tax structure, that will stop the rewards to these corporations.

For a start, Congress needs to eliminate the ability of corporations to "defer" taxes to their foreign subsidiaries, enabling them to pay lower taxes to those countries and little to NO taxes to the US. If a US corporation makes a profit, it should pay the fair and appropriate taxes on those profits.

At the same time, they should eliminate the ability of corporations to "transfer" their profits from their US divisions to those same foreign countries, again, to avoid US taxes on those profits and pay little to no taxes on those profits in those countries. If corporations contributed their fair share, US working stiffs wouldn't have to pay the higher taxes to make up for their disgraceful money lust.

That attractive labor-cost-gap is already closing and foreign regulatory costs will soon be increasing as well. The rest of the world is waking up to the facts that they can demand more for their labors. At the same time, those countries are beginning to be pressured to limit the pollution that they currently allow to be spewed into the oceans and the air. It will be a long time, if ever, before they reach the wage and regulation levels of this country, but they will get high enough that the savings will no longer be the attraction it is now.

TAKE ACTION! Call or write your Senators and Congressional Representatives. Tell them to amend the corporate tax structure that is rewarding U.S. corporations for sending our jobs overseas.

As to the current Presidential fracas; the next time one of those annoying campaign people knocks on your door, tell them you don't give a hoot about NAFTA and ask them what their candidate will do about the corporate tax structure that is robbing US all of our jobs and the tax revenue that corporations should be contributing to the US economy.

Make those calls [write those letters, or send those e-mails] to your Reps NOW, before you forget to do it, like I would.

Another Big Child Porn Bust. Kill them.

The proliferation of child pornography seems to be increasing at a rampant rate. Arrests keep getting more frequent and the numbers of pedophiles involved seems to grow. The Police try to get the situation under check but their resources are very limited. When their efforts do pay off, it is all too frequently a short-lived gain.

Our liberal judicial system, more often that not, slaps the pedophiles on the wrist and turns them loose to hurt more children. Only a small percentage are sentenced to prison. Those that are get a short sentence. The majority of offenders get off without prison at all. The result is little to no long-term protection, from these predators, for our children.

It has been generally accepted, for a long time, that pedophilia can not be cured. A pedophile does not get “better”. Once a pedo, always a pedo. And yet, our courts keep setting them back on the streets. Virtually every pedophile, that has been convicted of raping and killing a child, started down the slippery slope with child pornography. Child porn is the gateway-drug that leads to molestation and eventually the killing of children.

Protect our children. Don’t let these pedophiles get loose to rape and murder your children and grandchildren, sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews. These people must be eliminated, completely and permanently, from society. They must be killed before they kill our children.

Call, write, or e-mail your Legislators and (don’t ask) demand that they sponsor bills to make child pornography a Capitol Offense. Demand that anyone convicted of making, distributing, selling, of possessing child porn be executed. This is the only way to make sure that these perverts do not get your children. Kill them! Not too quickly though. They should suffer some of the pain and fear that their innocent victims did.

In the good news department…

In Santa Ana, CA, a convicted child molester saw fit to do the world a favor, by ridding it of a prime piece of scum. The 52 year-old man, having just been convicted of repeatedly molesting a young girl over a five year period of time, jumped to his death from a courthouse balcony yesterday (3/4/08).

I hope it hurt (though I know it didn’t) as much as he hurt his victim. Perhaps, for just a few seconds, he was almost as frightened as she was.

While the action did represent the easy way out for the scumbag, he did do us the dual favors of ensuring that he will not harm another child and of not having to pay for his incarceration. Now, if we could only convince his contemporaries to do us such favors BEFORE they actually act on their depraved pedophilic intents.