Road to 350: What Does the US Navy Do Anyway?

[Random8145]

Dude, all of his links are routed through an organization funded by the Koch brothers… Clearly he is gathering these articles on his own, and not being fed cherry picked articles by a highly biased and financially motivated institution. Really thinking for himself.

It's actually just "Koch brother" now, as the one died

 

[Random8145]

The problem with determining who is qualified to vote (whether through contributions or intelligence) is the same with applying it to who can be a parent or own guns, i.e. it can get very arbitrary and abused. Yes, whole lot of idiots own guns, a whole lot of people have children who absolutely shouldn't, and a whole lot of such people vote. Just a trade-off for having a free society. I would say voting should be limited to citizens though.

 

[AllAmerican75]

The budget deficit is currently $1.7T. If you know how to close that gap without cutting any social programs, drop me a line.

Considering those social programs make up roughly 70% of the federal budget and are the #1 expenditure of the federal government (Service to our debt is #2), eventually cuts will have to happen or else we will need to admit that every single other function and service of the government is secondary to the redistribution of wealth and treasure.

 

[Mirage]

What is your threshold? How will you define a "leech"? Is it if they earn less than $10K a year? $50K? $250K?

What if they're a full-time student?

What if they're a stay-at-home parent?

If I make twice the median salary, do I get to vote twice?

Already answered this. If they pay less in taxes then they receive in govt handouts (such as welfare) all 4 years of a cycle, no vote. That is leeching.

Full time students, stay at home parents, etc don't get welfare, food stamps, etc. They aren't leeching. They get to vote.

Obviously no voting twice.

If your point is that these are insurmountable issues that can't be overcome, then you'll have to try a little harder. Instead, though, I think we should have a thread for this if we want and respect OPs wishes.

 

[JTS11]

Already answered this. If they pay less in taxes then they receive in govt handouts (such as welfare) all 4 years of a cycle, no vote. That is leeching.

Full time students, stay at home parents, etc don't get welfare, food stamps, etc. They aren't leeching. They get to vote.

Obviously no voting twice.

If your point is that these are insurmountable issues that can't be overcome, then you'll have to try a little harder. Instead, though, I think we should have a thread for this if we want and respect OPs wishes.

Let us all know your grand plan on how the fuck this would be administered...

Do citizens have to go down to the county clerks office each year to update your 'leech' status IOT renew your voter registration? Or, is their an IRS database that county clerks across the nation will have access to?

 

[sevenhelmet]

Let us all know your grand plan on how the fuck this would be administered...

Do citizens have to go down to the county clerks office each year to update your 'leech' status IOT renew your voter registration? Or, is their an IRS database that county clerks across the nation will have access to?

That was my first thought. Every good idea requires bureaucracy. We have so much of it already that we’re drowning.

I really don’t want more.

 

[Mirage]

Let us all know your grand plan on how the fuck this would be administered...

Do citizens have to go down to the county clerks office each year to update your 'leech' status IOT renew your voter registration? Or, is their an IRS database that county clerks across the nation will have access to?

I suppose the same way we don't allow others in society to vote. That is, it's not that difficult and would be automated. The IRS has all the data already on your tax return you're legally required to fill out.

None of this matters. It will never happen. If you want to debate it, at least put a modicum of thought into your attempted "gotcha!" comments first.

 

[JTS11]

Sorry, I didn't realize your plan to restrict voting rights to non-leeches was just hypothetical. I was merely curious as to how it would be administered. I guess the point is moot now.

 

[Brett327]

To get this thread back on track...
Here's what your Navy - specifically PEO-IWS and the Pacific Missile Range Facility - did this week on your behalf. A significant milestone in Integrated Air & Missile Defense capabilities. This is the most challenging threat presentation the AEGIS Weapon System has faced to date...
This also provides a glimpse into what we do here at PMRF.

 

[Random8145]

Also regarding the original topic, are our shipyards slow at building the Navy's ships due to bureaucracy and corruption or does it literally take that long to build a modern ship?

 

[BigRed389]

Also regarding the original topic, are our shipyards slow at building the Navy's ships due to bureaucracy and corruption or does it literally take that long to build a modern ship?

All of the above.

Shipbuilding companies have little competition and therefore little incentive to actually improve. DOD and industry are in a mutually dependent relationship, neither can really go anywhere else.

Unlike aircraft or weapons, there's no real foreign market for warships to expand the industrial base beyond our bare sustaining minimum. Nobody is really asking us to build a DDG or FFG for them to take into service...because anybody who can afford AEGIS or equivalent capability is more than capable of slapping a ship together, and just buy the actually unique warship stuff like weapons and radars off us (if they even need that - plenty grow their own).

But ships do also just take a long time to build. But simply slapping a "ship" together actually isn't terrible, DDGs go from keel laying to launching into the water in roughly a year. A year to build something that floats and is tightened up enough that you don't need any further dry construction isn't too bad.
It's the fitting out with actual weapon systems, then testing them all that is highly variable. The last of the Flight IIAs took only about 3 years from start to commissioning, which is pretty good. Flight IIIs, which had a lot of design updates from the IIAs took about a year longer.

So, direct proximate cause - lack of shipbuilding capacity/industry and skilled labor.
More fundamental causes - all the various factors impacting the national manufacturing and industrial market.

 

[hscs]

This thread was started to discuss the state of the Fleet and the ability of the Navy and Congress to expand it. It would be appreciated if we could get back to that on this thread.

We can always re-open Thunderdome.

Yes. Thank you.

Ready- discuss.

Karlin Says U.S. Can Support AUKUS Submarine Builds

The AUKUS agreement is a priority, as nations look to strengthen deterrence in the face of Chinese efforts to undermine the rules-based international order that has done so much for peace in the

www.defense.gov

 

[BigRed389]

Yes. Thank you.

Ready- discuss.

Karlin Says U.S. Can Support AUKUS Submarine Builds

The AUKUS agreement is a priority, as nations look to strengthen deterrence in the face of Chinese efforts to undermine the rules-based international order that has done so much for peace in the

www.defense.gov

The SSN piece is the main driver for the agreement, but it's potentially a pretty big deal.

We kinda need to face the reality we are not the sole manufacturing powerhouse of the world. This isn't WW2, and in any scenario involving China, that just isn't a model that will work (we crush the PRC in a flood of metal). It's not a problem where just throwing money at it will actually help (in any realistic manner anyway)

Between the Aussies and the UK, we all have the potential to level load certain defense items across our industries to help get more optimal results. Fundamentally, it's economic specialization. We don't all need to develop different missiles, EW pods, or whatever that do the exact same thing.

Partnering with them would also let us pool their smart people with ours. There are so many engineers out there who are smart on things like hypersonics, radars/EW, or whatever - AND can get the appropriate clearances.

Ironically, the Aussies have the opposite problem that our defense industrial sectors has had. Maintaining continuous demand for production from just the ADF is challenging, so they tend to either have more capacity, or they have to stop/start shipyards. We have plenty of demand, but are constrained by domestic capacity.

 

[Random8145]

Yes. Thank you.

Ready- discuss.

Karlin Says U.S. Can Support AUKUS Submarine Builds

The AUKUS agreement is a priority, as nations look to strengthen deterrence in the face of Chinese efforts to undermine the rules-based international order that has done so much for peace in the

www.defense.gov

Yes, the Free World needs to try to operate as a cohesive integrated whole on these issues, as no one nation, even the U.S., can develop and manufacture everything. But the whole of the Western free world likely can or at least come a lot closer.

 

[Spekkio]

Considering those social programs make up roughly 70% of the federal budget and are the #1 expenditure of the federal government (Service to our debt is #2), eventually cuts will have to happen or else we will need to admit that every single other function and service of the government is secondary to the redistribution of wealth and treasure.

"Those social programs" usually refer to Medicare and Social security, which actually make a profit. Then the SSA buys treasuries from the Secretary of treasury to fund discretionary spending shortfalls - intragovernment debt. (also the G fund in TSP). The idea here is that *sometime down the road* the SSA will go negative due to the population inversion when boomers become retired en masse while discretionary spending has a small enough deficit to issue treasuries to banks or a surplus to cover the difference.

The issue is that the surplus is narrowing while the discretionary spending deficit continues to grow exponentially, and therefore this house of cards is going to fall down in a decade or so without some kind of change.

Of note, Bush 43 wanted to enable the SSA to invest some of that money into index funds, but at the time he was President the use of 401k plans wasn't widespread enough for the public to hear anything other than "Bush wants to privatize social security." Then 9/11 happened and this idea died on the altar.

I'm a fan of most of this. Read table 2 and table 3 in particular... that's where government spending is actually going to: https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/economic-growth-opportunity-tax-reforms/