5,000 Mich. jobs at risk if Marine vehicle is killed

[Bozita]

Source: Detroit Free Press

Posted: Jan. 6, 2011
5,000 Mich. jobs at risk if Marine vehicle is killed
By TODD SPANGLER
FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF


WASHINGTON – The Defense Department could announce today it is ending its multibillion-dollar push for a new amphibious vehicle for the Marine Corps. If it does, the loss of the program could take the potential of more than 5,000 Michigan jobs with it.

Peter Keating, vice president of communications with General Dynamics Land Systems in Sterling Heights, told the Free Press this morning that the elimination of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, or EFV, would cost Michigan 5,444 direct jobs and 5,281 indirect jobs, according to a economic study the defense contractor had done last year.

The New York Times and other publications reported today that Defense Secretary Robert Gates was considering eliminating the troubled EFV program, which has experienced cost overruns and other problems. Gates is expected to discuss Pentagon efficiencies in an address at 2 p.m. today.

U.S. Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan – who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee – has talked to Gates but has not yet made a comment on the potential loss of the EFV program.

Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20110106/BUSINESS06/110106027/5-000-Mich.-jobs-at-risk-if-Marine-vehicle-is-killed#ixzz1AHhUNJdB

[GillesDeleuze]

1. maybe the CEO

should be penalized for for cost over-runs. They could garnish the salaries of people like, say, Peter Keating, vice president of communications, to train these workers in exporting green technologies rather than making weapons for Empire.

[Submariner]

2. Let them make Light-Rail passenger cars

that way the product will pay for itself with passenger fares. A Marine vehicle just spends money, but doesn't make revenue in return.

[bossy22]

4. an amphibious vehicle may have a ROI

that is not directly counted in dollars and cents. on the other hand this vehicle is rediculous in its own design. I'm all for a replacement for the current AAV but this vehicle just tries to do too much. Scale it down, lose some of the speed, lose the big gun (replace it with a 25 mm cannon instead) and you will have yourself a fine amphibious assault vehicle that will be affordable

on edit: Alot of these weapon system cost over-runs can be attributed to rumsefeld era. Rumsfeld was a terrible program admin and didnt understand the definition of practicality one bit.

[Psephos]

14. I'm sorry to break it to you, but light rail passenger service doesn't make money either.

In the US, it requires government subsidy.

[wilt the stilt]

3. Mr. Upton- are you going to protect this budget killer

Let's see what you do?

[pampango]

5. WaPo: Gates wants to drop Marines' $14 billion landing-craft project

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/05/AR2011010506536.html

Defense officials and analysts said they expected Gates to announce Thursday that he will kill the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, a $14 billion program to develop an amphibious landing craft that one analyst called "a tank on water skis."

The landing craft has been on the drawing board for two decades, and the Marines have sunk $3 billion into the project. It has hit repeated delays in testing, and projected costs have soared. The lead contractor is General Dynamics, based in Falls Church.

"Clearly, the vehicle has not passed its tests," said T.X. Hammes, a retired Marine colonel and senior research fellow at the National Defense University. He said it makes more sense for the Marines to modernize the amphibious assault vehicle used reliably for decades.Other defense officials and analysts said they hope Gates would make good on his pledge to reduce the Pentagon's dependence on contractors and trim benefits programs that have swelled in recent years.

[formercia]

21. This is why the wars will never end in my lifetime.

The government will argue that we can't afford the lost jobs, since a substantial percentage of the US Economy is reliant on the MIC.

Time to go Cold Turkey.

[L0oniX]

6. People need to think seriously about the moral compromise that must be made to work ...

building anything used for offense that has to do with the military ...before they go for the job and money. It's blood money!\

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." - Dwight Eisenhower

That worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor . . . This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism–how passionately I hate them! – Albert Einstein

[former9thward]

7. Virtually every industry supplies the military with something.

Food, clothing, housing, energy, materials for vehicles, services, etc., etc. No one is immune. So we would all have to quit work. That said if the war budget is to be reduced, and I think it should be, people are going to lose jobs. And no, most of these people can't easily shift into so-called 'green' jobs or 'good' jobs. They will be put out of work and we just have to deal with that fact.

[L0oniX]

11. Yea ok so lets all work to make bombs ...pffft

[former9thward]

15. What do you do?

How are you isolated from the MIC? Silence

[L0oniX]

20. By your ridiculous response ...no one should say anything against the gov because we all pay taxes?

Weak at best dude. I suppose I have to move out of the fucking country to be against anything by your reasoning. Nice effort on your behalf to quash dissent. Are you a gov mil MIC shill plant?

[former9thward]

22. And by your reasoning we all have to quit work

because all of us contribute to the MIC in some way. I won't break DU rules like you did and go on.

[L0oniX]

23. No one is stopping you from loving the military and what you say is obviously not worth reading.

Enjoy a permanent stay in my ignore dungeon ...over 1/3 there have received the pizza.

[former9thward]

24. I am so afraid.

I was the one who said the War budget had to be cut. Then you reacted weirdly. You never did say what you did. I now know why.

[freshwest]

8. General Dynamic needs to learn how to make other things.

And other than these jobs, what is the correlation between their profits on making these and creating a better society and world?

Oh, never mind.

[matt819]

9. Makes you wonder

For DU military types

What other naval/marine services have amphibious vehicles? Who makes those and how do they compare? Probably the Chinese, but maybe others. Did it take them 20 years to come up with nothing?

Reminds me of road construction projects. Some of them - I'm thinking the DC area and the San Antonio area - go on for decades, and you can't quite put your finger on any progress. I'm convinced that the contractors for these sorts of projects pass them down to younger generations in their wills. It'd be interesting to see the cash flow projections over at General Dynamics to see how they factor in 3 billion dollars worth of past and future failures.

[Bigmack]

10. OK.. work with me on the math, here....

They've already pissed away $3B on this turkey, and were planning on spending $14B. Kill it and we save $11B.

But the jobs... what about the jobs? 5000 FT jobs and another 5000 indirect jobs.

OK, we pay the 5000 FT jobs $50K a year for the next two years - added to their regular unemployment pay - to just stay home. The indirect jobs, only $25K per year for the next two years beyond their regular unemployment for two years. That's $750 Million. If they find jobs.. the extra keeps coming to them.

Total savings..$10.25 Trillion

[maxsolomon]

12. There's lots more jobs to be lost than these.

The DoD budget needs to be cut in half. The GOP deficit hawks won't even knock 1% off. They're too scared.

[PSPS]

13. The old "military contractor is a welfare agency" line

Why not employ those people is, like, you know, a real job making something worthwhile?

[Gin]

16. Rachel explained this tank as one that works best on "smooth"

roads...HA! The thought of losing all those jobs is sickening but this debacle needs to go.

[robcon]

17. Kill the project

We don't need 'make-work' military projects.

[semillama]

18. I heard about this on NPR

One of the criticisms of the EFV is for the need of such a vehicle - it's been 60 years since the Marines have made an amphibious landing under fire, apparently. If we're lucky, they never will again...

[Earth_First]

19. So is this how the Republicans strike back on defense spending cuts?

They kill military projects and then highlight the loss of civilian jobs?