via SaintPetersbergBlog
“First came defense cuts of $487 billion over ten years,” he said. “Then, adding insult to injury, the savings found in the defense budget were redirected to already-bloated domestic programs.”Read the entire thing.
To Rubio, the county’s security is not a temporary fix; a secure nation is something requiring constant vigilance.
“National defense is not an area where we can flip a switch when a need suddenly arises,” he said. “It takes forethought to design and many years to build the capabilities we may need at a moment’s notice.”
Modernization, innovation, and training need to be sustained priorities, even during periods of relative peace.
“For this to happen now, is terrible timing,” Rubio added. “Since a reluctance to utilize ground forces means our reliance on air power is increasing. As it is our only fifth-generation fighter in production, (the F-35) program is too important to abandon.”
With congressional support, Rubio believes the F-35 is poised to become the keystone in a family of fighters, ready to provide air support to troops stationed overseas, or to confront distant targets.
While the program has been gaining momentum in the past year after a number of technical and budgetary setbacks, Rubio said more needs to be done to meet global demand.
Both Russia and China are working on similar fighters, also with plans to export them to other countries.
This will end up as a fight between two Senators that happen to be eyeing making a run for President of the United States. Additionally they're looking to become part of the new breed of Republicans. For Rubio, he wants to be the new defense hawk, taking the place of Graham in that role. For Paul it looks like he plans to lead a wing of the party that is tired of run away spending, foreign entanglements and "USA world police" bullshit that is costing us precious money---and lives.
I'm betting on Ron Paul winning.
As much as Rubio might actually believe what he's saying, the public mood just isn't with him. Others nations need to step up to defend themselves. We can't continue to spend like the paper never runs out without seriously damaging our economy (and the world's).
The lame duck session will be the time when we see additional funding for the F-35. Thats the time to keep an eye on Congress AND Lockheed.
For Christ Sake... I don't care who will win but let this be the dude who kill the F-35. Really! I start to hear rumors a very dangerous rumors that walk thru halls of Polish Air Force that some civilians in MoD start to check if Poland can join this God's forsaken program and buy some F-35...
ReplyDeleteThis is so fraking scary that they need to invent some new word for this.
If it's Rubio v. Paul, that's the first good news in the F-35 debacle.
ReplyDeleteRubio committed ritual seppuku by embracing Blanket Amnesty, and has been little-heard from since.
Only John McCain and Lindsay Graham even take his calls any more, and any wider candidacy is dead.
We still haven't seen details of LRIP-8 and no news when F35C will start trials, I wouldn't be surprised if LMT is waiting for some foreign order "good news" then give a bad news dump of a slow Friday night.....
ReplyDeleteone question are you talking about Rand Paul or Ron Paul?
ReplyDeleteRon Paul was praising secessionist movements on his website last week. http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2014/september/28/scottish-referendum-gives-reasons-to-be-hopeful.aspx He has truly gone mad. As I recall the Civil War did not end too well for the secessionists. This creates quite a dilemma for Rand Paul who will soon be running for President as his father pushes states to leave. It is truly amazing to me how no one has called Ron Paul out on being dead wrong on gold (which has gone from 1921 in 2011 to 1201 today) or the stock market 1172 to 1961 in SP500 in same time period while he was predicting a crash, or his calls for "hyperinflation" as all the commodities are crashing and wages are stagnant. You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
ReplyDeletefather and son can't have different view point? additionally all Ron was doing is echoing many of the views of a great many people. we live in two different countries...maybe three. there is a HUGE difference between the Notheast especially the upper area around New York and DC and how the majority feel in the south. additionally you can pull out study after study but the rest of the country sank and wall street was saved. that was an unnatural intervention by the federal govt and THAT artificiality is whats causing the lingering problems that we're seeing today.
Deletei'm always amazed at the wall street fat cats that seem to hate the idea of welfare but they're the biggest recipients the world has ever seen. but it gets worse. the US also floated the EU and China while our own people are being crushed under a mountain of debt.
i love the Paul's for one huge reason. they want an audit of the Fed. that is the one govt slash private institution that needs desperate reform above all others. we're living in the 1930's the only thing is that we don't have a govt with the balls to take on the robber barons.
Sol, certainly father and son are entitled to differing views, but politically it is inconvenient for the son. The optics certainly aren't good. I couldn't agree more on how there are multiple countries. I am from the south and live in New York now and the looks I get when I tell people here that I am leaving for a weekend to go hunting or fishing are humorous to say the least. With regards to an audit of the Fed, bring it on. If the Fed was smart they would allow it. They have nothing to hide, and their performance has been excellent comapared to what is happening in the Eurozone area. In regards to the south, things around Memphis (where I'm from) are really starting to get better. My father's construction business completely collapsed in 2007-2009 as you can imagine. He barely made it through but last month was his best since 2006. One of the hardest arguments to make is that it could have been a lot worse. With wages totally stagnant I am totally aware that a lot of the country is in deep deep troubles. That being said, compared to the Eurozone whose GDP is shrinking we are making progress. The jobs number reported Friday was up 250k but with no wage growth. If the country can sustain 12 months in a row with more than 250k jobs created a lot of the slack in the labor market will get taken out, wages will start to rise, and I think the mood of the country will be much better. What are you referring to in terms of the US floating China? That actually is my biggest economic worry right now along with the Eurozone. I think China is headed for a crash, and you can see signs of it in all the commodities. Iron ore, crude, soybeans, corn, wheat, ect have all been annihilated the last 6 months.
Deletewhat do i mean about China? China is an artificial construction that was aided by the US govt! all it would take is a bit of simple tax regulation or a tariff to protect US business, a common sense economic measure i might add, and you would see that cheap labor not be so attractive anymore. additionally if you want to talk about stagnant wages then you can lay part of the blame on globalization and US workers having to compete with lower wages in lower developed countries.
Deleteits a house of cards and the carrot to the idiocy was that we were suppose to be developing a Chinese middle class that would want our goods and services. didn't happen and won't because you're dealing with a communist govt, nationalistic bordering on racist people and the fact that they will do anything to keep the Wan from actually being valued properly.
back to the US. glad for your dad but construction is also a false indicator! its the backdoor continuing stimulus that is being pushed by the feds. as far as the federal reserve, if they had nothing to hide they would have done it by now.
and last. the eurozone is collapsing, the US jobs increase was a false indicator because the participation rate is pure shit! China is slowing down and the fed is scared shitless to stop quantitative easing! where is the economic recovery you're spouting! come on dude! really? when 74% of the country thinks that we're headed in the wrong direction then you can bet that means that economic suffering is at an all time high.
the thing that people, people on wall street need to recognize is that the country is watching, the people are pissed and bad things happen when the masses are pissed.
Ok let's start with the Eurozone. I agree it is collapsing. Basically the French and Italians refuse to make necessary economic reforms and their monetary policy has been WAY too tight relative to economic conditions. They are doing what the Ron Pauls of the world wanted, which is no "money printing" and it isn't working. The technical term for what they are in is called a liquidity trap, similar to what happened to the world during the Great Depression. Here's a classic link to what Paul said in 2011 when QE2 started. http://www.thestreet.com/story/11041675/1/ron-paul-predicts-hyper-inflation-says-dollar-will-be-rejected-as-reserve-currency-of-the-world.html He will NEVER admit he has been wrong. Right track/ wrong track isn't the proper way to look at the economy. In terms of jobs, housing prices, corporate profits, the govt deficit (under 3 percent this year compared to over 10 in 2008) we are clearly much much better off than we were a few years ago. Again I get that things for many people are terrible and totally agree no growth in wages, but that's much better than losing 500-800k jobs a month a few years ago. Construction is not a back door indicator. Nonresidential is doing better because companies are investing in their facilities for the first time in years, and housing is picking up because we basically built dramatically fewer homes thatn we need to accommodate population growth between 2008-2012 so there is a catching up process going on right now. What I think you are calling for is tariffs against low wage Chinese goods. The problem with that is the price of everything at Walmart, Target, ect ect would then go up dramatically. That's a hard sell, but you are 100 percent correct that the Chinese are artificially holding their currency lower than it should otherwise be. They do this by buying US treasuries in a mechanism called sterilization. Ron Paul does not get this because he has been claiming the Chinese are going to dump our bonds and we will have a financial crisis. They won't do this of course because if they quit buying our bonds their currency would rise, which we both agree they do not want.
Deleteso you're basically saying that i'm a Paul clone. i know just enough to be dangerous but not enough to solve the problem.
DeleteNot at all. Look I was where you were 3 years ago. I was convinced QE would be a disaster and that we were all headed for 1970s style stagflation. I was buying gold on every dip, but the data has proved my previous position to be wrong. Something that I've learned from Warren Buffet is that when you are wrong in a financial position you need to admit it and learn from it. As he says, if you are batting 1000 you aren't playing in the big leagues. You are correct about what is happening in Europe and what probably will happen eventually in China, and your comments about the labor force participation rate and wage stagnation are spot on. I think China is the biggest bubble in history. All I am saying is that the "austrian" economists and writers from zero hedge to the Pauls have been dead wrong for going on 4 years now and refuse to admit it. In the real world they could never make money with those views. In regards to the labor force participation rate, I am absolutely SHOCKED that people who are concerned about deficits (rightly so) do not realize what is happening with the social security disability program. It might be one of the biggest frauds in American history. This is well worth watching http://www.cbsnews.com/news/disability-usa/
DeleteAnd meanwhile in China.
Deletehttp://defense-update.com/20141006_j20_carriers.html#.VDOkdoccSpo
Auditing the fed is a joke anyways, given the track record of such "regulation" i.e. a further example is the "efficiency" or lack thereof, of the SEC. Im not saying "deregulation" is the answer either. There are no good answers, there are just less bad ones.
DeleteNot only were austrian economists wrong about everything, but so was their opposition. Buffet and his ilk of magical money peddlers are just as wrong as the "gold curency now!" crowd.
"They are doing what the Ron Pauls of the world wanted, which is no "money printing" and it isn't working"
Iceland is the best example of this, which you curiously left out. They have far superior economic recovery than the US AND Europe, despite taking the course of action that chicken littles said would have caused the apocalypse (and it probably would have, given the importance of the US economy worldwide, but, so fucking what?)
do you want your apocalypse now or later?
As long as we live in a monetary paradigm that depends on infinite economic growth and the assumption that resources will be infinite, the end result will be the same.
Keynes was right. We're all dead in the end.
And the US Navy will hopefully get these by 2025 or later.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqi_5GRRYMY