The One Billion Dollar Fighter That Does it All: It's Coming!

Are things out of whack today?

One great example is the military.

We have allowed vital American subcontractors to merge, be acquired or sold to the likes of Carlyle Group, which by the way is owned by Arabs and controlled by our former leaders. No collusion; no conflict of interest there...

What has this done to the cost of things?

Keep in mind that what the government uses to buy anything is your tax dollars.

But because they are buying from associates and friends and since there are so few viable military subcontractors now, that we are paying such high multiples over what was originally bid that there is little basis for understanding or comparison.

But I am willing to guarantee that the buyers of these weapons are also investors in the weapons companies.

Take for instance our new military hardware: Did we need a F23?

Hardly!

Except that the new weapons system allows the pilot to engage sixteen different targets and acquire them without them ever being aware of it. It sounds awesome....and awesome in somebody's mind might be worth a fortune. Who knows?

Now, there were no planes that could match the previous F19, F18's....so we didn't need to go with the most sophisticated fighter in the world since our present competition couldn't match our old planes....nevertheless, the decision was made somewhere...

Consider this, when originally bid, these fighters cost out at a little over 100 million dollars. Yes, agreed that is a big price tag.

But when it came time to exercise the contract, the price quoted originally more than doubled to more than 200 million dollars. Not a bad rate increase for the seller. How did they justify it? There was nobody around to compete. The other companies were acquired, sold or merged. So instead of buying more than 300 as originally planned with the first order, we settled on less than 200 jets to resolve all of our future air problems.

If we extrapolate from there, the next superjet fighter we buy in 2020 will probably cost double that again and we will be able to afford 100 fighters; in another twenty years, expect that the newest fighter will top one billion dollars and we will be able to afford one.
Because it will be so expensive, we will be afraid to fly it and so it will never fly and only be used at bond rallies where the president will jump in and out and declare any future war senseless because we have the one billion dollar fighter to beat all fighters. Meanwhile, the Chinese who by now own everything will be building 10,000 new jets that cost 25,000 dollars each...

Let's put this into perspective a little because 200 million plus dollars is not exactly petty change.

For the cost of one of these new fighters, we could have purchased 4,600 P47's built in W.W.II that helped turn the tide for America.

How long ago that now seems!

One doesn't object to a little profit on the part of the subcontractor, but when they all want to get rich on the sale of one plane, then we all need to worry. Who, by the way, is looking out for the taxpayer?

Outrageous! You bettcha!



Les Aaron