Elevation

I get this point, and I also think it's frustrating when you see "Hiring" signs all over yet people are collecting unemployment. I agree with your sentiment, but I think this frustration may be misplaced.


For discussion's sake is it better for the government to bail-out and support businesses that make bad decisions? Is a methed-out dude abusing disability and welfare worse than what we see from major airlines and other companies asking for repeated bailouts? In either situation we're bankrolling dysfunction. I doubt the meth-head has any offshore accounts in tax havens. Most likely the meth-head is going to spend the money at the local stores. The meth-head definitely isn't going to support potential adversary governments or assist in building-out Chinese connections to S. America (All Chinese firms are required to follow CCP directives).


There's about 145 million tax-payers in the US. That mean all of us who pay taxes gave just one profitable ACMI company a little more than two bucks. I'd rather see my two bucks spent on a new telescope, nuclear reactor or something.

Puck Hawg

A new telescope, nuclear reactor....or a BONUS for all the hard work the ACMI’s have done this year.

Elevation

Fair point. It's also one that's good for my employer and, therefore, me. Moreover it brings more immediate benefits, albeit to less scrupulous actors, than a reactor, telescope, space-probe, super computer, etc.

For sake of discussion again, let's press the issue of performance bonuses a little further.

If the US tax payer was going to shell-out money for bonuses in performance, those bonuses would go hand in hand with charitable freight rates and/or furthering our national security goals. Rates are sky high and companies that are taking this money are simultaneously helping large, Chinese ecommerce firms make inroads in S. America. So, for the US tax payer, are we really doing such a good job as to warrant a bonus? What about long-haul truckers? What are they getting for a bonus?

Business is business as they say. The world is full of strange bedfellows (Ukraine sells Russia Antonov parts despite having a portion of their country seized and another portion occupied by Russian paramilitary forces, for example.). So this is just kind of a "gee-whiz, it'd be nice if something worked as advertized" type of discussion.

AstroChessPilot

Check your prices on telescopes. The James Webb is about 10 billion dollars.

Elevation

That's true. My 400million dollar telescope would be a glorified magnifying glass. I was lazy in selecting examples and that doesn't convey my point very well. Here's some cost comparisons. The big point which I failed to support is that public, American money should support American, not Chinese, goals. Luckily I can fix this with Google.

So here's what I googled up for better comparisons. I'm using a single, profitable company's pay-out of $400M USD for comparisons by short, Google searches. Not scientific, etc.

In space 400M would get about 160000lbs to Low Earth Orbit. That's just what we gave to a single company. This is based on SpaceX costs on Falcon 9s.

That money could provide full-ride scholarships with support to 7000 engineers or 2000 doctors from high-school to completion of degrees. Figure 60k to make an engineer and 250k to make a doctor.

In terms of defense we could buy 5 F-15x, 1000 AIM-120C air-to-air missiles, 7000 hours of F-22 flight time, 40 fighter/bomber pilots, 20,0000 equipped American infantrymen (A division!). Big costs aren't in equipping troops but in deploying them. 400M USD would deploy an infantry company to some trouble spot for a year. An infantry company can do a lot of good/damage.

Speaking of damage, spitballing damage done to America is tough. Let's say 3% of those funds indirectly make it to Chinese coffers by way of supporting increased Chinese commercial presence in S. America. That's 12M dollars from US tax money to support Chinese goverment aims. We don't know what it costs to deploy a Chinse division in any open source. We do know that they get paid about 15000 yuan per year. So 12M USD that makes it from Tax assistance to Chinese hands can pay the annual salaries of about 5000 soldiers. 5000 Chinese troops.

I know our government dollars get turned against us. So it's easy to think "If we're going to get effed, why not take the money?". I'll counter by saying, the only way we move forward is by forcing things to work as advertised when we come across shenanigans. This reeks of shenanigans. The more we drive down shenanigans the smaller the portion of our own efforts get turned against us.

This is why I'm no fun at parties. Thank god my friends and family are more fun than me.

Elevation

I'm kind of full of it, though. If I was sitting in front of a board full of investors, it'd be hard to tell them we're NOT going to take money and we're NOT going to take business because of some role we play in American national security, research, etc. So, I mean, it's easy for me to have principles when I'm not the one answering to shareholders.

That's why we have regulators.

Alright. I'll stop with this. Thanks for everyone's patience.

nitefreight

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/at...-bailout-funds

Quote from internal link above:

PurpleToolBox

Maxjet, please don't feed this troll. Block him or her. They are a management troll or worst a management troll embedded in our union. Please don't allow his/her behavior to reflect on behalf of the 5000+ good FedEx pilots. Thanks.