Lockheed Used Taxpayer Money to Lobby for more Taxpayer Money
By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | November 15, 2014
In the world of federal contracting, it takes taxpayer dollars to win more taxpayer dollars, or at least that’s how Lockheed Martin sees things.
Lockheed Martin for years has been running one of the government’s most important nuclear research facilities, Sandia National Laboratories. Five years ago, its lucrative contract with the Department of Energy (DOE) was coming to an end, so Lockheed Martin started to lobby officials to win an extension.
That lobbying included using some of the money paid by DOE for Lockheed Martin to run Sandia. Under federal law, this is a big no-no. Contractors are explicitly forbidden from using taxpayer money to lobby for more contracting work. But Lockheed Martin did it anyway, claiming they were just trying to better inform DOE managers when it came time to decide whether to give them another contract. The company hired a firm run by former Republican Congresswoman Heather Wilson to make its case.
“This is, after all, how Washington usually functions,” R. Jeffrey Smith wrote at the Center for Public Integrity.
The Energy Department’s inspector general, Gregory Friedman, said in a report (pdf) that Lockheed Martin broke the rules. He called the company’s actions “highly problematic” and “impermissible.”
Lockheed Martin did get a new deal, but it was for two years and $7.7 billion. It had sought a longer extension to keep running Sandia.
To Learn More:
Alleged Attempts by Sandia National Laboratories to Influence Congress and Federal Officials on a Contract Extension (Department of Energy Inspector General) (pdf)
Nuclear Weapons Lab Used Taxpayer Funds To Obtain More Taxpayer Funds (by R. Jeffrey Smith, Center for Public Integrity)
IG: Energy Contractor and Ex-Lawmaker Lobbied Officials for No-Bid Contract Worth $2.4 Billion Per Year (by Josh Hicks, Washington Post )
Violence in Iraq Means Profits for Beechcraft, Lockheed, Raytheon and other Weapons Makers (by Steve Straehley, AllGov )
Economic isolation breach of international law: Putin
Top 5 takeaways from Putin ahead of G20
RT | November 14, 2014
Russian President Vladimir Putin (RIA Novosti/Mikhail Klementiev)
Vladimir Putin says the G20 must address global imbalances together, and economic isolation, especially in the case of sanctions, which not only leads nowhere but is a crude violation of international economic law.
Here are the Russian president’s top takeaways ahead of the G20 summit being held in Brisbane, Australia from November 14-15.
G20 great for ground work, but decisions often just hot air
Putin believes the G20 is still a good and relevant platform for world leaders, however, decisions at the summit are often nothing but words. Decisions made there are only carried out when they are in line with the interests of certain global players, like the US.
Decisions are neglected if they don’t fit the agenda of an individual power, Putin told TASS ahead of the summit.
An example is when US Congress blocked the IMF quota, which was intended to enhance the role of developing economies and redistribute quotes. That move was counterproductive, Putin said.
“The very fact that US Congress has refused to pass this law indicates that it is the United States that drops out of the general context of resolving the problems facing the international community,” the president said.
“Everyone must understand that the global economy and finance these days are exceptionally dependent on each other,” Putin said.
US sanctions violate the very system they created
Sanctions levied against Russia are against the norms of international trade and the core principles of the G20, as they can only be introduced via the United Nations, Putin said.
Sanctions are “against WTO principles and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the GATT. The United States itself created that organization at a certain point. Now it is crudely violating its principles,” Putin explained
Interconnected economy: What hurts us hurts you
Sanctions against Russia have targeted the finance, energy and weaponry sectors of the economy. Russia’s retaliatory sanctions to ban agricultural imports are having a colossal ripple effect on jobs, social sectors, and growth.
This is especially pertinent to Europe, which is feeling the squeeze of the agricultural export ban to Russia, one its biggest markets.
“Everyone must understand that the global economy and finance these days are exceptionally dependent on each other,” Putin said.
Germany’s economic growth is an example of financial blowback from sanctions with Russia.
US-led trade pacts will create global imbalance
Putin believes that the creation of the 2 US-led trade pacts – one Transatlantic and the other Transpacific – will only create more global imbalance. The US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) doesn’t include China or Russia.
“Of course, we want to get rid of such imbalances, we want to work together, but this can be achieved only through joint efforts,” Putin said.
New economic associations should complement existing institutions
All new emerging economic blocks like BRICS and the so-called ‘new G7’, which in addition to Brazil, Russia, India and China also includes Indonesia, Turkey and Mexico, should come as something complementary to the existing groups, Putin said.
According to purchasing power parity (PPP) BRICS nations have a combined GDP $37.4 trillion, more than the G7’s at $34.7 trillion, Putin said. However, its economic girth doesn’t give it the right to start running its own policy.
“And if we go and say, ‘No, thank you, we are going to do this and that here on our own, and you can do it the way you want it,’ this will only add to the imbalances,” Putin warned.
The Russian president also said that all regional integrations like the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan shouldn’t isolate, but complement, global institutions.
Full speech: Putin on G20: Russia sanctions contradict club principles
Amid soaring fuel bills 25,000 UK pensioners to die this winter from cold weather
Press TV – November 12, 2014
A report says that a pensioner will die from cold weather every seven minutes in Britain this winter, amid soaring fuel bills.
The Age UK charity released the report on Tuesday, saying that, this winter, 25,000 elderly people in England and Wales will die as a result of the cold weather and due to high fuel costs and poorly insulated homes.
The charity also revealed that one in three pensioners, or more than 5 million elderly people, are worried that they will not be able to afford to warm their houses.
Caroline Abrahams, the charity’s director, said a growing number of people in Britain are facing difficulties in heating their homes properly.
“No older person should worry that they could die from the cold in their own home,” said Abrahams, adding, “Fuel poverty is a national scandal which has claimed the lives of too many people – both old and young – for far too long and left many more suffering from preventable illness.”
Abrahams called for a long-term solution to the problem, such as bringing Britain’s housing up to a high energy efficiency standard.
The government responded to the charity’s report by insisting that officials are already doing enough to protect elderly Britons struggling to heat their homes.
The UK has seen rising energy costs in recent years. A separate report published earlier this year revealed that the prices of domestic energy in the UK rose by 45 percent between 2008 and 2014.
Russia to launch alternative to SWIFT bank transaction system in spring 2015
RT | November 11, 2014
Russia intends to have its own international inter-bank system up and running by May 2015. The Central Bank of Russia says it needs to speed up preparations for its version of SWIFT in case of possible ”challenges” from the West.
“Given the challenges, Bank of Russia is creating its own system for transmitting financial messaging… It’s time to hurry up, so in the next few months we will have certain work done. The entire project for transmitting financial messages will be completed in May 2015,” said Ramilya Kanafina, deputy head of the national payment system department at the Central Bank of Russia (CBR).
Calls not to use the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) system in Russian banks began to grow as relations between Russia and the West deteriorated over sanctions. So far, SWIFT says despite pressure from some Western countries to join the anti-Russian sanctions, it has no intention of doing so.
Ramilya Kanafina says the system will meet all the market requirements due to its security. A center for processing messages in SWIFT format is in the process of development. It is expected that all messaging options will be operating by December 2014, she added.
The National Payments Council, a non-profit partnership comprising members of the Russian national payment system, proposed establishing a Russian version of SWIFT 100 percent owned by Bank of Russia in September.
SWIFT, is currently one of Russia’s main connections to the international banking system, and if turned off, could hurt the Russian economy, in the short-term. Globally it transmits orders for transactions worth more than $6 trillion, and involves more than 10,000 financial institutions in 210 countries. According to SWIFT’s statute, the system has national groups of members and users in each country. In Russia it’s ROSSWIFT – the second biggest worldwide SWIFT association after the US.
Wealth inequality in US not seen since Great Depression – study
RT | November 10, 2014
A new study has revealed that 0.01 percent of the population holds more and more of America’s wealth. The share of wealth in the hands of middle class families has tumbled to levels not seen since before the Wall Street Crash in 1929.
A research paper from the London School of Economics shows previous estimates have seriously underestimated the amount of wealth controlled by the very rich in the US. Authors Saez and Gabriel Zuchman, have used a greater variety of sources, including the effect of things like property tax and tax avoidance strategies.
The researchers used the bottom 90 percent of families as a measure of middle class wealth. They found that in the late 1920’s, just before the Wall Street Crash, the bottom 90 percent controlled 16 percent of America’s wealth.
This share rose steadily from the beginning of the great depression until the end of the Second World War, due to a collapse in wealth of the richest households, and continued to rise after World War Two as the middle class wealth grew on a par with national wealth.
The middle class also saw rising rates of home ownership during this period and by the early 1980s the share of wealth owned by the middle class was reckoned at 36 percent, roughly four times what the top 0.1 percent controlled.
But since the early 1980’s the net worth of the US middle class has collapsed, due to a sluggish growth in middle class incomes but mainly because of soaring debt, including mortgages.
Meanwhile the fortunes of the very rich have grown. 16,000 families make up 0.01 percent of households in America, and are worth an average $371 million. They control 11.2 percent of total US wealth, which is a similar share to that seen back in 1916.
But even coming slightly down the spectrum, the top 0.1 percent, consisting of 160,000 families, hasn’t done nearly as well and holds 22 percent of US wealth – a bit less than their 1929 peak. This is the same share as the bottom 90 percent.
The authors also sound the alarm over how these huge fortunes were amassed. Although some young families have grown rich through entrepreneurial activity, such as billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, many are rich through fortunes they have inherited.
Putin, Xi Jinping sign second mega gas deal on new gas supply route
RT | November 9, 2014
President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have signed a memorandum of understanding on the so-called “western” gas supplies route to China. The agreement paves the way for a contract that would make China the biggest consumer of Russian gas.
Russia’s so-called “western” or “Altay” route would supply 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year to China.
The new supply line comes in addition to the “eastern” route, through the “Power of Siberia” pipeline, which will annually deliver 38 bcm of gas to China. Work on that pipeline route has already begun after a $400 billion deal was clinched in May.
“After we have launched supplies via the “western route,” the volume of gas deliveries to China can exceed the current volumes of export to Europe,” Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller told reporters, commenting on the deal.
Speaking to journalists on the eve of his visit to Beijing, Putin was optimistic about prospects for the new gas deal with China.
“We have reached an understanding in principle concerning the opening of the western route,” Putin said. “We have already agreed on many technical and commercial aspects of this project, laying a good basis for reaching final arrangements.”
The “western” route deal is one of the 17 agreements signed at the Sunday meeting between Putin and Xi.
They also included a framework agreement between Gazprom and China’s CNPC on gas deliveries and a memorandum of understanding between Gazprom and another Chinese energy giant, CNOOC.
Gazprom and CNPC have also signed a preliminary agreement for China National Oil and Gas Exploration and Development to take a 10 percent stake in Russia’s Vancorneft.
Among the business issues discussed by Putin and Xi at their fifth meeting this year was the possibility of payment in Chinese yuan, including for defense deals military, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited as saying by RIA Novosti.
The Fall of the Berlin Wall, 25th Anniversary
National Security Archive | November 9, 2014
The iconic fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago today shocked international leaders from Washington to Moscow, London to Warsaw, as East German crowds took advantage of Communist Party fumbles to break down the Cold War’s most symbolic barrier, according to formerly secret documents from Soviet, German, U.S., Czechoslovak and Hungarian files posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
The historic events of the night of November 9, 1989 came about from accident and contingency, rather than conspiracy or strategy, according to the documents. Crowds of East Berliners, already conditioned by months of refugee flights to the West and weeks of peaceful mass protests in cities like Leipzig, seized on media reports of immediate changes in travel restrictions — based on a bumbled briefing by a Politburo member, Gunter Schabowski — and inundated the Wall’s checkpoints demanding passage. Television coverage of the first crossing that yielded to the self-fulfilling media prophecy then created a multiplier effect and more crowds came, ultimately to dance on the Wall.
The documents show that the actual collapse of the Wall began with Hungarian Communist reformers who proposed in early 1989 to open their borders to the West, while seeking particularly West German foreign investment to solve Hungary’s economic crisis. Hungarian Communist leaders checked in with Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in March 1989, letting him know they planned to take down the barbed wire; and Gorbachev — true to his “common European home” rhetoric — responded only that “we have a strict regime on our borders, but we are also becoming more open.” (Document 1) The Hungarian decision sparked a stream and then a flood of East German refugees.
Gorbachev himself unintentionally gave a signal that the Wall could fall in his press conference on June 15, 1989 after a successful visit to West Germany, where in response to a question about the Wall, he said that “nothing [was] permanent under the Moon” and connected German rapprochement to the building of the common European home. In fact, his conversations with Kohl and other members of the West German government created a real breakthrough in Soviet-FRG relations, which would stand Kohl in good stead in the difficult reunification talks during the next year (Document 2). Gorbachev especially reinforced the theme of European unity in his speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg where he presented his vision of the common European home on July 7, 1989. After speaking about an essentially united Europe based on universal human values, it would be hard to argue in favor of its continued division.
By August 1989, the Hungarian-initiated refugee crisis had become so acute that the West German embassy in Budapest had to shut down, unable to handle the hundreds of East Germans camped out there for visas. On August 19, Hungarian reformers even hosted a “Pan-European picnic” near the Austrian border, after which some 300 East Germans high-tailed across the former Iron Curtain. The subsequent negotiations on August 25, 1989 between Hungarian Communist leaders with West German chancellor Helmut Kohl and foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher show the Hungarian calculation that only the deutschmark could save them, and by mid-September the Hungarians lifted all East-West controls (Document 3).
East German demonstrators take to the streets in Leipzig, October 9, 1989.
Other world leaders were not at all eager for the Wall to fall, notably the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, who told Gorbachev on September 23 to ignore those NATO communiqués about German unification, that even her buddy, U.S. president George H. W. Bush opposed that kind of change (she would be wrong, when the time came. See document 4). As Gorbachev later commented to his Politburo on November 3, the West did not want German unification, but it wanted to prevent it “with our hands, to push us against the FRG” so as to head off any future Soviet-German cooperation — but Gorbachev believed European integration was the ultimate solution to Soviet economic problems (Document 6).
Czechoslovakia was closer to East Germany than Hungary was, and after Hungary opened its gates, Prague quickly filled with East Germans willing to dump their Trabant cars in the streets for a chance to clamber over an embassy wall and flee to the West. By November 8, Prague had become so choked with East Germans that the hard-line Czechoslovak Communist Party’s Central Committee made a demarche to East Berlin demanding they open their borders — a moment of pressure from fellow Communists that played a key role in the East German party’s decision to announce revised travel regulations the next day (Document 7).
The draft regulations were full of temporizing language and largely intended to let off steam while kicking the emigrant problem down the road. East Germans would have to apply for visas, and the vast majority who lacked passports would have to wait even longer for those. But the presentation of the new regulations came at the very end of a botched press conference from 6 to 7 p.m. Berlin time on November 9 by SED Politburo member Gunter Schabowski, who did not know the back story, the hedges, the limitations meant by the drafters of the documents. Visibly rattled from the shouted questions about travel and the Wall, Schabowski read from his briefing papers the words “immediately, without delay” when asked about the timing of the changes that would allow any East German to emigrate (Document 9).
Television news and the wire services as well promptly announced the opening of the borders, and in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy reinforced by TV coverage, crowds of East Germans massed at the border crossings and ultimately persuaded the senior official at the largest inner-city checkpoint at Bornholmer Strasse to open the gates (a story told in fresh detail by Mary Elise Sarotte in her new book, The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall). Once Bornholmer opened, other crossings soon followed; and within hours, people were chipping off souvenir fragments from the concrete panels formerly surrounded by a “death strip” in which earlier Wall jumpers had died.
So unexpected was the Wall opening that Helmut Kohl himself was not even in the country. Instead, the West German chancellor had gone to Warsaw to meet the new Solidarity leaders of that country, and work out some long-standing Polish-German tensions. The transcript of Kohl’s discussions with Lech Walesa show the Polish leader complaining that events in East Germany were simply moving too fast, and even predicting, presciently, that the Wall would fall in a week or two — at which point Kohl would have no time (or money) for poor Poland (Document 8).
In Washington, the George H. W. Bush White House greeted the fall of the Wall not with joy or triumphalism (that would come much later, when the President was running for re-election in 1992), but anxiety and even fear about instability. When questioned by reporters why he did not show more elation, President Bush replied, “I am not an emotional kind of guy.” (Document 10)
Bush’s caution and prudence were appreciated in Moscow, where Gorbachev’s messages to Kohl centered on preventing chaos and reducing instability, keeping “others within limits that are adequate for the time being….” (Document 11)
But at Gorbachev’s side, his foreign policy adviser Anatoly Chernyaev in private let loose with one of the very few high-level expressions of real joy about the fall of the Berlin Wall. Chernyaev’s diary entry for November 10, 1989 (Document 12) contains the coda for the demise of the Iron Curtain, “the end of Yalta” and the Stalinist system, and a good thing, about time, in Chernyaev’s remarkable view.
The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall, by Mary Elise Sarotte.
THE DOCUMENTS
Document 1: Record of Conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and Miklos Nemeth, Moscow, March 3, 1989.
Document 2: Mikhail Gorbachev Press Conference Excerpts, Bonn, June 15, 1989.
Document 3: Hungarian discussions (Nemeth/Horn) with West German leaders Kohl and Genscher, Bonn, August 25, 1989.
Document 4: Conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher, Moscow, September 23, 1989.
Document 5: Anatoly Chernyaev diary excerpt, October 5, 1989.
Document 6: Notes from the Soviet Politburo Session, November 3, 1989.
Document 7: Demarche from the Czechoslovak Communist Party to the GDR SED, November 8, 1989 (original German language version).
Document 8: Record of Conversation between Helmut Kohl and Lech Walesa, Warsaw, November 9, 1989.
Document 9: Documents from the East German Communist Party (SED) and the transcript of the Gunter Schabowski press conference, November 9, 1989.[1]
Document 10: President Bush Remarks to Reporters, Washington D.C., November 9, 1989.
Document 11: Record of Telephone Conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and Helmut Kohl, November 11, 1989.
Document 12: Anatoly Chernyaev diary excerpt, November 10, 1989.
NOTE
[1] Document 9 is courtesy of the German scholar Hans-Hermann Hertle, who was the first to reconstruct in detail the Schabowski press conference debacle, including his own transcription of the Schabowski video and publication of the backstory documents of drafts and SED decision making on travel regulations, in his seminal article, “The Fall of the Wall: The Unintended Dissolution of East Germany’s Ruling Regime,” in the Cold War International History Project Bulletin No. 12/13, Fall/Winter 2001, pp. 131-164.
Household Wealth Falls Considerably for Majority of Americans
Center for Economic and Policy Research | November 6, 2014
A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) shows that most households now have less wealth now than they did in 1989. The report, “The Wealth of Households: An Analysis of the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances,” presents data on household wealth by age cohort based on the results of the most recent Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). The analysis shows little or no gains for the majority of Americans over the last 25 years, even in the years since the end of the recession. This is true of and particularly concerning for near retirees.
“This is especially bad for those nearing retirement,” said Dean Baker, a co-director of CEPR and an author of the paper. “Households in this age cohort will not have a chance to benefit from any strengthening of the economy and will only have the wealth they have accumulated to date to depend on in their retirement.”
The authors document several trends gleaned from the SCF. Between 1989 and 2013, average household net worth rose from $342,300 to $528,400 in 2013 dollars. However the average gains are misleading, as the population was older in 2013 than it was in 1989. More importantly, median net worth actually fell from $84,100 in 1989 to $81,400 in 2013, indicating that much of the gains of wealth accumulation went to those in the top quintiles. Other key points of the analysis include:
- The median net wealth of near retirees (ages 55-64) was $165,700 in 2013, down from 177,600 in 1989.
- The average non-housing wealth for the typical household in the 55-64 year old cohort was $89,300, compared to a peak of $160,700 in 2004.
- The net wealth for the middle quintile (ages 35-44) of mid-career workers averaged $50,100, less than half the net wealth of the same quintile ($103,800) in 1989.
- The average housing equity for the middle quintile of mid-career workers was also down considerably, from $63,500 in 1989 to $23,200 in 2013.
- There was some improvement for the middle quintile of recent retirees who saw their average net wealth go up from $142,900 in 1989 to $239,300 in 2013, but this was still less than the peak of $270,700 hit in 2007.
When compared with the previous Surveys of Consumer Finances, it can generally be said that wealth grew in the United States from 1989 to 2007 and shrank from then on. At the time of the 2013 survey, the stock market had almost recovered to its 2007 peak. House prices had not. With house prices representing a larger share of assets for the bottom three fifths of Americans, this helped increase the differences in wealth between the top and the bottom. All in all, the results of the survey yield a pessimistic picture of economic progress since the end of the recession.
The full report can be found here.
China announces $40 bn Silk Road fund
The BRICS Post | November 8, 2014
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday announced China will contribute $40 billion to set up a Silk Road Fund to strengthen connectivity in the Asia-Pacific region.
Xi said the goal of the Fund is to “break the bottleneck in Asian connectivity by building a financing platform.”
The new Silk Road Fund will be used to provide investment and finance for infrastructure, industrial projects along the “Belt and Road”, Xi said, referring to China’s Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives.
He added that the fund will be “open” to investors from both within and outside Asia.
The Asian Development Bank has estimated that in the next decade Asian countries will need $8 trillion in infrastructure investments to maintain the current economic growth rate.
“The Silk Road boasts a 3-billion population and a market that is unparalleled both in scale and potential,” Xi said in September last year.
The Silk Road connected China and Europe from around 100 B.C.
The 4,000-mile road linked ancient Chinese, Indian, Babylonian, Arabic, Greek and Roman civilizations.
A new map unveiled by Xinhua shows the Chinese plans for the Silk Road run through Central China to the northern Xinjiang from where it travels through Central Asia entering Kazakhstan and onto Iraq, Iran, Syria and then Istanbul in Turkey from where it runs across Europe cutting across Germany, Netherlands and Italy.
The maritime Silk Road begins in China’s Fujian and ends at Venice, Italy.
In a landmark achievement, 21 Asian nations including China and India last month signed on a new infrastructure investment bank which would rival the World Bank.
One of the first projects of the new Bank is expected to be financing infrastructure projects along the “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the “Maritime Silk Road” re-establishment.
Meanwhile on Saturday in Beijing, the Chinese President stressed that efforts should be made to realize Asia’s connectivity by making Asian countries a priority.
“Asian countries are just like a cluster of bright lanterns. Only when we link them together, can we light up the night sky in our continent,” he said.
China will provide neighboring countries 20,000 training opportunities for connectivity professionals in the coming five years.
Experts say these new announcements will boost China’s global influence and enhance its soft power.
Apart from the AIIB, the BRICS new $100 billion Development Bank is also being headquartered in China.
“China has considerable experience in infrastructure planning and construction, and financing projects outside the country. As Finance Minister Lou Jiwei has said, China Development Bank’s commercial infrastructure loan is now far bigger than that of the World Bank and ADB combined. And surprisingly, this process started only 20 years ago,” write Asit Biswas and Cecilia Tortajada, China scholars at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore.
TBP and Agencies
Pentagon Resists Call for Oversight Unit to Rein in Cost Overruns on Major Weapons Systems
By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | November 8, 2014
Despite numerous examples of runaway costs on expensive weapons programs, the Defense Department is resisting calls to make changes to its process for ensuring quality control.
The Pentagon’s inspector general (IG) recently reviewed the work of the Office of the Defense Undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics and concluded in a report that it hadn’t “established an overarching quality management policy to ensure the consistent application of quality management system requirements across DoD components.”
In other words, do a better job of monitoring the development of new weapons systems before budget overruns result in soaring costs.
Not that there haven’t been a lot of examples of this problem:
· The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle fell four years behind schedule and accumulated an overrun of $750 million.
· The Advanced Threat Infrared Counter Measure/Common Missile Warning System got five years off-track at a cost of $117 million.
· The F22A Raptor Advanced Tactical Fighter exceeded its budget by $400 million.
The USS San Antonio, an amphibious transport dock ship, took three years longer than planned to build and consumed an extra $846 million along the way.
The IG recommended the Pentagon create a central quality management oversight office to help reduce delays and cost overruns.
The response last month from the Defense Department was they don’t need another layer of bureaucracy. “While we agree there are benefits to central leadership, it already exists,” Katrina McFarland, director of Defense Acquisition Resources and Analysis, said according to Government Executive. These quality checks “are in many cases are working poorly right now for a very simple reason: a shortage of trained and qualified acquisition professionals in the quality field.”
The IG requested another response, this time one that addresses its concerns, by December 5.
To Learn More:
Pentagon’s Buying Managers Resist IG’s Call for Central Oversight Office (by Charles S. Clark, Government Executive)
Evaluation of Government Quality Assurance Oversight for DoD Acquisition Programs (Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense) (pdf)
Unnecessary Defense Acquisitions are a Costly Mistake for the Pentagon, Taxpayers (by David Williams, Townhall.com)
Majority of Pentagon Weapons Contracts Go Over Cost Estimates (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Stunning Cost Overruns in Weapons Development Programs (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Hungary under US pressure due to South Stream
politics.hu | November 6, 2014
The United States is putting Hungary under great pressure due to its objections to the Russian-backed South Stream pipeline and the expansion of the Paks nuclear power station, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in Munich on Thursday evening, after an address delivered at the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
At a question and answer session, Orban said the pipeline and expansion project were primarily economic issues, but they had become entangled in “geopolitical, military-policy and security-policy issues” due to the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
Washington interprets both issues as “getting closer to Russia”, whereas “we don’t want to get any closer to anyone; neither do we wish to distance ourselves from anyone.”
“We are not pursuing a Russia-friendly policy but a Hungary-friendly policy,” he added.
The prime minister said that construction of the South Stream gas pipeline and the Paks expansion were both in Hungary’s national interest.
The construction of South Stream, which is a “twin” of Nord Stream that supplies Russian gas to Germany, bypassing Ukraine, serves Hungary’s interests, ensuring secure gas supplies by eliminating risks posed by the situation in Ukraine, Orban said. Even if this project does not diversify gas sources, it does diversify delivery routes, he added.
Concerning the upgrade of Hungary’s sole nuclear power plant at Paks, Orban said cheap energy was key in strengthening Hungary’s competitiveness. Unlike Germany, Hungary does not have vast funds to direct towards supporting renewable energy production, and the country’s own energy resources are scarce, he said.
The “only possible means” for Hungary to reduce its dependence on external energy resources is the expansion of the state-owned Paks nuclear plant, he said. Since the plant has been built using Russian technology it is “evident” that its expansion must be carried out in cooperation with the Russians, Orban said. Yet the US interprets this as Hungary’s “moving closer to Russia” at a time when its position is that Europe should instead “move away” from Russia rather than cooperate with it. This is why the US “is strongly opposed” to Paks, Orban said, noting the US “would have also been rather keen” on constructing its two new blocks. … Full article
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Secret document reveals plans for civil war in Lebanon, Israeli false flags, and invasion
By Randi Nord | Geopolitics Alert | April 5, 2019
Beirut – During his visit with US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, Lebanese President Michael Aoun reportedly received a US-Israeli document detailing plans for creating a civil war in Lebanon with covert false flag operations and possible Israeli invasion.
Although the source of the document is Israeli and created in partnership with Washington, no one knows who presented it to Aoun. The Lebanese TV station, Al-Jadeed, initially reported the document on Lebanese TV and a video on its website. Geopolitics Alert translated the report for this article. … continue
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- Egypt’s Warning to Israel Before Oct 7
- Israel’s siege signals another cruel winter for 1.8 million Gazans – Daily Update
- Netanyahu Asked UAE Leader to Deny Report on Oct. 7 Warning in Secret Visit, Sources Say
- No Tricks Zone
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
