A Concrete Answer
– Marine Log (2/26/2012) – “Huntington Ingalls awarded $ 391.7 million Navy contract for CVN 72 work”
“Huntington Ingalls, Inc., Newport News, VA, is being awarded a $ 391,797,124 cost-plus-fixed-fee, with performance incentives, fiscal 2012 contract option under an existing contract (N00024-10-C-2110) for continuation of the refueling complex overhaul advance planning efforts of USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) and the reactor plants.”-
– Marine Log (2/28/2012) – “NASSCO gets $ 359.75 million contract mod for third MLP”
“General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Co., San Diego, Calif., is being awarded a $ 359,750,000 modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-09-C-2229) for the procurement of the detail design and construction of a third Mobile Landing Platform ship.”-
– Marine Log (2/29/2012) – “BIW gets $ 662.9 million contract mod for DDG 116”
“Bath, Maine, shipbuilder General Dynamics Bath Iron Works is being awarded a $ 662,927,172 modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-11-C-2305) to exercise options for DDG 116 construction and associated engineering change proposals and design budgeting requirements.”-
In just a three-day period, the government has committed $ 1,414,474,296.00 of taxpayer money – not counting the inevitable cost overruns – to the construction and modification of unnecessary, unneeded, unasked for, and unprofitable warships in operating shipyards that should be contributing to the economy instead of sucking it dry.
That billion-and-a-half dollars – along with the original multi-billions in the original contracts – should have been allocated to the construction of our patented container ships. Those billions (trillions?) of taxpayer dollars could have revitalized about 50 of our shuttered yards and created high-paying jobs for millions of our unemployed, who would then turn out thousands of efficient and profitable container ships. We would then see a multiplier effect that would salvage not just the U.S. economy but the economies of other nations as well.
But no. Business Times, on 01 Mar 2012, stated: “It may take 5-6 years for jobless rate to fall –
(NEW YORK) The US economic recovery is ‘frustratingly slow’ and it could take four to five years to ratchet the unemployment rate down … a top Federal Reserve official said.
“‘We do not have a good deal of concrete history for monetary policy to fit our current circumstances, but I am confident the Federal Reserve is making the most of its tools to move the economy in the right direction,’ said Cleveland Fed President Sandra Pianalto on Tuesday.” –
No concrete history?? Hasn’t Bernanke boasted that he knows how we ended the Great Depression?