Brain Dead Opinions
LETTER [published by the Hartford Courant.com]: Defense Is Bad Economics
March 29, 2013
Congressman Joe Courtney's latest emailing touts his contribution in securing the production of two submarines a year at Electric Boat in Groton. This will account for about 14,000 jobs and nearly $3 billion in economic output, he says.
Each submarine, however, costs somewhat over $8 billion to build. Upon completion, the submarines do what? What they do not do is make a positive impact on our economy and there is some doubt as to exactly how they contribute to our defense.
They do seem to be vehicles to sustain the economy of a small region and as contributions to our national deficit.
Of course, this can be said of defense spending as a whole. We have an economy that depends on "defense," which produces nothing but greater deficits and the need for wars to sustain it.
Then there's Mr. Courtney, who is doing the job he was elected to do. He and the others who represent their districts do so for the benefit of their constituents and their need for re-election. I believe that the needs of the country come in as a distant second in their efforts.
Is there something wrong with this system? I think so.
Stuart Reininger, Mystic
* * * * * *
Does the writer, Mr. Reininger, realize that "$8 billion" is only the current, upper-end cost estimate for an SSBN(X)? Does he understand the strategic mission of SSBN's? Sounds as if he may not, yet we can be fairly certain he still casts votes. - Vigilis
Submarines are always silent and strange.
posted by Vigilis @ 8:08 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
No, Mr. Reininger does not understand that "$8 billion" is only the current, upper-end cost estimate for an SSBN(X. And what exactly would that cost be? And whatever it is, my original question is yet to be answered. Without using catch phrases such as "contributes to our national defense; "serves as an intelligence gathering platform and (I like this best of all) "serves a strategic mission."
Now, exactly how are those billions justified? Uhh, possibly to protect us from future submarine warfare from, say the Chinese...But we borrow money from the Chinese--thus the deficit--to build the things, umm, to protect us from the Chinese...
I do, however, agree with one statement..Submarines are always silent and strange..As are white elephants...
Stu Reininger
Commenter using identity "Stu Reininger":
You have asserted a blogger identity as Stu Reininger, which we tentatively accept though you have no affirming blogs under that name on your behalf.
More to the point, your opinion was cast as "brain dead" because you failed to indicate even the slightest knowledge of the huge difference between SSN submarines and their strategic counterparts, SSBNs.
Worse still, rather than reply to our challenge to aquaint yourself factually with the mission of the latter, you choose to deflect your obvious need for basic research with statements of such spurious opinions as "Uhh, possibly to protect us from future submarine warfare from, say the Chinese".
Very lame, Mr. R., the Chinese will hardly be considered a submarine threat before 2020. Yet, there are other nation states and rogue actors who quicker may be.
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