Sunday, May 15, 2016

This is What Happens When Profit has Major Influence on Not Only What is A Priority...


...In National Security, but how those priorities are addressed.

Even supposedly fierce competitors get comfortable in their relationship with the government, and each other, so that the bottom line looks really good for every body, except us of course. One could even be forgiven in thinking that, even when an item, like a very expensive new fighter plane contract for example, gets awarded to one team, as opposed to another, they all know where the base line of the bidding ought to start from; and even if the one team loses it still makes money as a sub contractor.

Elon Musk, as a new player in the area of launch vehicles, is to be congratulated in providing much needed "disruption" here as he seeks to take advantage of more nimble ways of doing things. Even as we acknowledge that, however, are we to then conclude from this that Capitalism has been sufficiently "spanked,"  and will sin no more? That, down the road, once Mr. Musk's company, in its turn of being successful, won't come to sit back comfortably in it's own new relationships with other players and the government?

If history is any indicator this would seem something that you wouldn't want to bet on, at least with the hope of having anything even approaching winning odds.

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How Elon Musk exposed billions in questionable Pentagon spending

Ten years after a joint operation of Boeing and Lockheed Martin was born, the FTC’s direst warnings have come true, along with outcomes even the skeptics did not predict.

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