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Confusion, uncertainty in industry as Army contracts seemingly halted (breakingdefense.com)
36 points by KnuthIsGod 13 hours ago | hide | past | favorite | 65 comments





Hold on, I need to go place a bet on polymarket that Palantir and Anduril will donate $1M to Trump. I'm confident they will then get to step in and fix this mess for everyone. That money will surely start flowing again, just slightly diverted.

We are now in the era where whichever businessman gives trump the best handjob gets as much taxpayer money as they want.

Now that Diddy is behind bars, someone has to pump the baby oil stonks.

Crude and True!

The sad thing is that after all this, and all the steam vented on both sides of the aisle, nothing is going to meaningfully change on the bottom line. The Federal Government writes checks for fixed expenses. The Pentagon "wastes" lots of money in an absolute sense, but on a balance sheet the DoD pays for salaries and maintenance and fuel and replacement equipment. You can't make a difference by pointing and laughing at some oddball science grant.

And the same goes for the rest of the government, which to first approximation exists to write entitlement checks and issue health reimbursements. Everyone wants to believe that there's a magic line item that will balance things, but there isn't.

Write it down: the deficit as a fraction of GDP will be higher at the end of this Trump term than it is now, not lower.


Anecdotally, one thing I observed as a lowly enlisted soldier is the need to panic spend money at the end of the fiscal year to make sure the budget next year wouldn't be smaller. Maybe we could start with practices like these.

The same thing happens in corporate budgeting too. Seems to be an artifact of big organizations.

Sadly, it never works. If someone is efficient one year, the money will be cut and then it won't be there when it IS really needed. It can't be banked, it can't be returned as credits.

Human nature is why we can't have nice things.

This is why I believe the scope of work should be clearly defined. Requests for funding submitted and approved with relation to that work. Then square up the taxes required based on what was spent, adjust up and down automatically.

Congress needs to vote to make that funding come out of the Rich (higher relative % of wealth the more taxed), to largely exempt anyone under an average (E.G. 10X poverty line is where taxes even START), and treat excess property as an Investment while exempting average ownership (E.G. a similar average for 'housing ownership' and 'transport ownership' value).


Bribery, conflicts of interest, etc are IMO similar. We don't let a manager give a family member a juicy contract without some oversight, and these corrupt budget games should be treated in a similar way. Everyone knows it's rampant, damaging, and totally ignored.

Using up money before it "goes away" and padding budgets should be expressly forbidden. Yes it's sometimes impossible to prove if it's happening, but you can say it's a standard and tell people to follow it, and catch blatant cases. Plenty of rules and standards are hard to prove.


I don't see why this odd pathology is essential to human nature.

It's a feature of Capitalism.

"Waste" that is trimmed one year becomes the new bar "This can run at X".

Allocating additional resources requires far higher push than taking back something not spent.

Yet some years require more resources. What if there are more natural disasters? What if there's an economic downturn and more people need help? What if companies fail and expected taxes are not paid?

What if it's time to replace durable goods that have reached the end of their projected or useful life? (E.G. Some disgruntled person came to court with a shotgun and fired at all the computers; and oh BTW they're both broke and in jail so there's no cash to be had.)

You can see the very reluctance and assumptions in other posts in reply. They assume there are no audits, no oversight in the system. That the cursory pointer towards a larger process was the ENTIRE process which they then attack.


Isn't that the exact sort of thing that happens when the government tries to make huge scale budget cuts? The only reason they do that is because the government is trying to cut their budget in an unintelligent and untargeted way to begin with

Of course, no surprise there. Everyone knows the intentions of this regime.

All of those DoD line items can be reduced: salaries (firing people), maintenance and fuel (fewer, more efficient bases, vehicles, etc), and equipment (cheaper, more re-usable equipment). Anduril seems like a good example here, given that they are not a cost-plus military company and seem to have efficiency fairly high on their list of priorities.

Entitlements and health reimbursements can and should be reduced.


Going with more efficient contractors make sense, but just saying "we'll make our bases more efficient and do more with less" is easy to say and hard to do.

I'm sure a lot of European countries were trying to do more with less when they embraced the 90s peace dividend, and then what we saw when Russia invaded Ukraine and everyone was checking out the state of their armies, was that mostly they had just done less with less.


The counter-point to that is that Russia has continued to spend a lot on their military and yet wasn't able to steamroll Ukraine at all, so maybe the US is also spending more to get less.

Not doing less with less doesn't mean you are doing more with more.


Russia's problem was they thought they were spending a lot on their military, but they were really enriching their top military brass while their ancient gear mostly rotted.

Yeah, I remember reading a headline like: "Kremlin can't account for 63% of nearly $4 trillion in assets"

Gotcha! That was actually the Pentagon[1].

[1] https://responsiblestatecraft.org/pentagon-audit-2666415734/


Reducing health reimbursements requires a top down overhaul of the whole US medical system. Either that or just telling poor people they can die in the streets outside of the hospital

> Reducing health reimbursements requires a top down overhaul of the whole US medical system.

Great let's get started.

> Either that or just telling poor people they can die in the streets outside of the hospital

Does the lion's share of US healthcare reimbursements go towards ensuring poor people don't die on the streets? I hadn't see that statistic.


It's worth pointing out that literally none of the magic tricks you're invoking are part of the linked article. I get that it sounds great in a libertarian comment on HN. It won't happen, is my point. It's too difficult, not amenable to simple solutions, largely mistaken, of questionable value (c.f. my points above) and in any case would be to politically costly to even contemplate in public.

So they're doing theater instead.


These are not magic tricks, they are things businesses/organizations/countries do every single day.

Last time when Trump was president somebody said he is akin to Netflix's 'Chaos Monkey' for the government but it didn't last long. It became boring. It seems he is living it this time as the true one. /s

It would be interesting to see the United States Chaos Monkeying its way into random wars with unsuspecting countries, just to see what happens.

"interesting" is a word for that I guess

As opposed to sentiment the article was likely written with - I warmly welcome the initiative.

The organization that digests humongous amount of taxpayers money, consistently fails audits for years in row, participates and encourages global wars - should be dismantled or severely reformed at bare minimum.

Whether Trump administration be able to achieve that remains to be seen, but hopefully it's a start.


A severely weakened or dismantled US Military would encourage aggression by China against Taiwan, by North Korea against South Korea, (continued) aggression by Russia against their former Soviet states, and Iran against Israel and Saudi Arabia, leading the planet into a 3rd World War.

Or, the US could stay out of conflicts that don’t involve us?

I find it interesting how the left has gone from anti-war to pro-war in the span of a 2-3 decades.


Wars with our trading partners and military allies involved us, duh.

There is a difference between being pro-war and anti-invasion.

Most people including the left don't want another repeat of Iraq or Afghanistan where the US chose to regime change a country.

But are happy with supporting a democratic country to defend itself against unwanted aggression.


You're basically saying the US should have let Iraq take Kuwait. Or let China take Taiwan?

Any weaker democratic country can be taken by a stronger non-democratic country?

"Invasion" is part of war. If you go to war against a country this may often involve invading. Wars are hard to win if you're not there. If there is no threat of going to war you are essentially yielding the world to Russia and China and the likes.

This is not to say the US hasn't made a lot of mistakes but I'll take a US world order with mistakes over a Chinese or Russian world order.


There is no conventional war with China the US can win. Therefore, it's a big fucking waste of money to pretend we can with aircraft carriers and tanks. Nuclear weapons are relatively cheap. What the US military is good at is dropping bombs that cost the equivalent of houses onto primitive people living in tents.

The US invaded at least 2 countries and killed 2 million plus people in the last 25 years. Where were you then to stop the "invasion?"


I agree there are distinctions worth making. The above poster's comment was concise. I'm not sure they intended to conflate the two ideas.

It is easy to observe how under Obama, the allegedly anti-war candidate pivoted to supporting invasions. He forgive his predecessor's use of torture. He said incoming administrations shouldn't prosecute the previous. The only gift he didn't grant was the wish to invade Iran.

There is a sense that the defense, foreign policy and intelligence establishment will have their way regardless of electoral outcomes. Trump's first term was unique in that he did not start any new wars. Permanent Washington sought to actively sabotage his administration. Many infer a correlation between the two observations.

As for the assertion that, "If we don't spend x amount of dollars or intervene, the world will devolve into WWIII", I'm not sold on this doom. We might equally ask, If the US continues to misallocate resources via uncontrolled spending, will we have a functional economy capable of fielding a meaningful military response?


Obama let Syria devolve into a civil war with something like half a million dead and many millions of refugees because he was afraid to use the power of the USA to stabilize it. The consequences of which still impact us today. In general he messed up the Arab Spring completely.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/12/29/obama-never-understood-...

He's super smart, had great intentions, and messed things up completely.


He didn't "let it devolve into a civil war." He authorized the CIA to fund rebel groups which maintained and expanded the civil war.

What exactly do you suggest Obama should have done with "the power of the USA to stabilize it?" Invade? How would trying to 'fix' Syria be any different than trying to fix Iraq or Afghanistan?


> the power of the USA to stabilize it.

The power of the USA is what destabilized it, by creating a breeding ground for all sorts of fun militias in Iraq.


Here's an interesting take. Not my favorite source ideologically, nor are some of the citations. However, citing the WaPo (again, strong dislike) which has been favorable to the Neocons is something.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-the-us-supports-the-islami...

>Ultimately, whether one pallet drifted into ISIS hands by accident in a recent airdrop is a moot point. Billions in cash, weapons, equipment, and vehicles have already been intentionally supplied to the many groups that ISIS represents, as planned as early as 2007. ISIS is the purposeful creation of the United States in its pursuit of regional hegemony in the Middle East, and ISIS’ atrocities were predicted long before the first shots were fired in 2011 in the Syrian conflict, long before the term “Islamic State” went mainstream.


It's an interconnected world. All conflicts involve you. Pretty much all the current crop of wars are a direct result of the US getting "less involved". Putin's goals in Europe and the middle east. China's goals in Taiwan. All of these are a direct opposite of the "western world order". The thinking that the US can just withdraw from the world and it would become a peaceful free place is obviously failed. It's not restricted to one side in US politics either.

I think the US left is still generally anti-war. They hesitated to support Ukraine. They're locked into "why can't we all just get along" thinking. The right doesn't think we can get along but also doesn't want the US involved.


> Pretty much all the current crop of wars are a direct result of the US getting "less involved"

Whereas the previous crop of wars was a direct result of the US getting "more involved". Afghanistan, Iraq II, ISIS in Syria, Libyan civil war...


How'd that attitude work out when your grandpa believed the same thing in the 1930s?

In the 1930’s? Pretty well?

How has it worked out since then? I count a 100% failure rate.


No rational, reasonable person is always pro war or always anti-war. You ought to understand that nuance is involved. Lots of liberals were opposed to the Iraq war that started in 2003 and now support fighting against Russian aggression in Ukraine. Your view is simplistic.

A severely senile and incompetent leadership would encourage aggression even more. When did you think the Russian aggression was initiated?

Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. Are you saying Obama was senile?

Russia invaded Georgia in 2008. Are you saying GWB was senile?

Fact is, Russian aggression towards its neighbors has never really stopped. I'm not sure it matters to them who is president in the US.


Don't be disingenuous. I said "senile and incompetent".

> Don't be disingenuous.

I am completely sincere.

> I said "senile and incompetent".

Okay, so answer the question: are all us presidents in the last 20 years, in your opinion, senile and incompetent? If so, what is the point of your comment in saying "When did you think the Russian aggression was initiated?"


Russian aggression technically started with the Annexation of Crimea in 2014 during President Obama's 2nd term.

While I do think Biden was fairly incompetent as a leader, the strategy adopted was probably the best option given the poor circumstances: wait and see if Ukraine could repel the initial invasion, then fund the resistance to draw Russia into a stalemate.


As someone who thinks we spend too much on the military: coming in and immediately pausing everything is an insane way to go about doing things. Unless your goal is to cause a bunch of worry and confusion until you restore the things you like, there are far better ways to cut spending.

Your post history makes it clear that you are sympathetic with Russia and China. I'm curious since you have such an interest in American politics - what country are you from?

Edit - stylometric analysis confirmed what I suspected: your first language is Russian. Makes sense that you would be here making inflammatory posts about the US.


Realistically, the programs that are likely to be trimmed are hugely expensive things like the F35 program, which the newly-promoted tech class would to a large extent replace with drones (land- or carrier-based) [0].

We might expect to see a civil war within the admin between the factions who favor traditional defense hardware programs vs newer tech (drones, AI, autonomous). There's a lot of $ at stake so there will be heavy lobbying. Also, the traditional revolving door.

Also the opportunity for insiders to enrich themselves. Perhaps 2025 will be to defense and AI stocks what 2020/1 was to pharma and vaccine stocks.

One political self-preservation mechanism that traditional defense has done that tech hasn't yet much is to spread the federal spending around across states and congressional districts (think B-1 bomber). So, don't expect these battles to be fought on the merits, let alone net benefit to the taxpayer.

[0]: "The F-35 Program is Costing More and Doing Less, GAO Says" https://dsm.forecastinternational.com/2024/04/19/the-f-35-pr...


There are no drones available today or even on the drawing board which can perform even a fraction of the F-35 mission set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-A_aF7lpm4


Irrelevant. Noone said "cancel the F35 program", and noone said it can be totally replaced. The F35 program is running over-budget, so it's entirely reasonable to look at some cost reductions on the $2 trillion. (The current admin said they were looking for trillion-dollar cost savings by this April, and laying off the entire federal workforce wouldn't going to do that.) The choice is not a binary "100% of all the F35s currently budgeted, or no F35 program at all".

You can get thousands of suicide drones for the equivalent price of one F-35A ($80m). Both Ukraine and Russia are using these daily. (Obviously they don't have a fraction of the capabilities of an F35.)

The Houthis interdicted the Red Sea to commercial shipping in 2024. This is asymmetric: the US Navy couldn't afford to keep shooting down cheap Houthi drones with $2m missiles ("cost exchange ratio"). This is costing billions in economic damage. [0][1]

Another obstacle to where the F35 can't be deployed is the US blocks deploying leading-edge technology to some allies, for multiple reasons (espionage, lack of training, geopolitical), so such conflicts will determine which mix of drones or missile systems or F16s (yes, generations older) are more cost-effective.

[0]: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/07/houthi-yemen-defens...

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/dp-wor...


Irrelevant. The military is retooling to fight China. Cheap suicide drones like what are being used in Ukraine lack the range and sensors necessary to be relevant in the Pacific theater. Funding for the F-35 program will not be cut; if anything it will increase.

> Whether Trump administration be able to achieve that remains to be seen

Does it? Do we truly need to be born anew every day, unable to look into the past to see how Trump has run his businesses, or how he conducted his first term, or how he has promised to run his second?


So far, culture war aside, everything's proceeding according to plan if the plan was written by a hostile foreign power.

Trump has run several successful businesses, and with a 50+ year career several failures as well, which I’d imagine a entrepreneurial board like HN wouldn’t hold against him.

He’s been found by a jury to be a sexual abuser. He can’t run a charity in New York. Stiffs employees and hires illegal workers. He lies constantly and makes shit up. Like using a sharpie to change a NOAA map because he is incapable of admitting he’s wrong. Anyone doing business with him deserves what happens to them. Like all the lawyers, advisors, and sycophants that ended up in prison during his first term in office.

This doesn’t address my point or the topic at hand at all.

He has had severe successful business enterprises.


You don’t think character counts in terms of whether or not he’d fit in Ycombinator? That says much about either Ycombinator or you. Stiffing employees and not being able to run a charity very much counts in this discussion. As does the tendency of his business partners and confidants to end up in prison. You’d go into business with a rapist who lies constantly?

The question wasn’t whether he’d “fit in” with YCombinator.

But it makes sense that you’re answering every question with another and the one that accused him of being a grapist.

You're grasping at straws to avoid admitting he's a successful businessman.

ABC News has agreed to pay $15m (£12m) to US President-elect Donald Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit after its star anchor falsely said he had been found "liable for rape".

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrw57q4y9do


Here’s the post you originally responded to:

Does it? Do we truly need to be born anew every day, unable to look into the past to see how Trump has run his businesses, or how he conducted his first term, or how he has promised to run his second?

His character is relevant to the discussion. He cheats. He lies. He steals. He rapes. He shirks responsibility. But he has made a lot of money. Like the $30 billion in bribes he took 2 weeks ago. He is a great buinessman but that is not relevant to the discussion. Reread what the origanal poster wrote to see this. It was about his character and how we can judge the future by his past deeds.

My responses included rhetorical questions.


He's been convicted of accounting fraud and he's nowhere near delivering the kind of returns that YCombinator seeks. Plenty of things to hold against him.

You’re really reaching, LOL.

No, he wasn’t convicted of accounting fraud. What else do you believe that’s wrong? Not to mention it’s a misdemeanor unless politics demands a felony.

And “delivering the kinds of returns YC does”? Is that the bar now? How’s Obama stack up? LOL


A bag of leveraged real estate and casino holdings, plus a smattering of dollar store swindles is what denotes entrepreneurialism in the modern HN world? Wild times.

HN has a pretty low tolerance for fraud.



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