In today's Times, Michael Hiltzik takes on the unkillable C-17:
Does it make sense to operate the Boeing plant indefinitely merely to preserve a few thousand jobs in Long Beach and at suppliers around the country? Or -- if jobs are the real goal here -- might it be better to spend the same money on creating long-term training programs and developing new industries?This is one of those eye-of-the-beholder questions. One person's wasteful expenditure is another person's urgent national security priority, and who's to say who's wrong. After posing the question rather starkly, Hiltzik answers it more ambiguously:
It's not clear what the right decision on the C-17 program would be just now. But we consistently get these things wrong -- either we're caught without an adequate military establishment, as in the run-up to World War II, or we place our bets on hugely expensive systems that get rendered irrelevant or superannuated before they can achieve liftoff.Till they figure it out, Boeing will be churning out more C-17s.
This is not about national security. It has never been about national security. The Air Force doesn't even want them. This is about JOBS! And you know what - MORE POWER TO THEM. These jobs are right now not some possible future jobs that are going to get filled anyway - and with people who really want them instead of having them handded to them because they are some "minority". This jerk talks about laying off 5000 senior workers in order to put some punk kids to school. Those senior workers have homes and families they are paying for. And those senior workers will be out of work for over a year trying to live on the measly unemployment dollars that barely cover their medical insurance! But Hiltzik doesn't care about them. He takes a very who cares attitude toward them.
I'm sure the feeling is mutual - but mine is more like disgust!
and remember who has the c-17 boeing they dont care either