Divemedic

Let’s imagine that the government signs a contract with Boeing, where the company will provide 500 military aircraft over a ten year period. The contract is structured so that Boeing gets $10 million for each unit, payable on delivery, and another $5 billion at the end of the 10 year contract, as a bonus for completing all aircraft on time, bringing the total of the contract to $10 billion.

Nine years into the project, 450 aircraft have been delivered, and the company is well positioned to deliver the remaining aircraft before the expiration of the contract and collect the bonus. The Air Force decides that they cannot afford to pay the bonus, and unilaterally alters the contract to eliminate the bonus, and decides that the original price of $10 million per copy is sufficient. The military also announces that while other contracts with defense contractors are unaffected by this contract change, budgetary constraints may cause them to alter other contracts in the future.

Boeing protests, saying that each aircraft costs the company more than $10 million to build, and the company stands to lose money on this contract if the previously promised bonus is not paid. Boeing further states that had the bonus not been a part of the contract, they would have signed other, more lucrative deals with other parties, and that the bonus was the reason the deal was agreed to in the first place. Boeing petitions their congressman to reinstate the original conditions of the contract. Instead, the Democrat-controlled congress threatens to pass a law preventing corporations who receive money from military contracts from negotiating the terms of those contracts.

Boeing responds by refusing to deliver the remaining aircraft. Other defense contractors, afraid that their contracts are in danger of future cuts if this precedent is allowed to stand, send strong letters and lobbyists to speak to congress in Washington. Many of these letters claim that the companies will cease delivering products to the military if such a law were passed.

1. At this point, is Boeing justified in refusing to deliver any more aircraft?
2. Should the government be able to force them to deliver them anyway?
3. Is the law preventing defense contractors from contacting their representatives constitutional or fair?

Most would say that the Air Force and Congress are out of line. Sure, $20 million per aircraft seems steep, but the Air Force still made the deal, and should have considered that prior to having the work done.

How is this any different from what is being done to those who provide labor as their product? The employees have delivered the product (their labor), and now that the work is done, there are attempts to alter the agreement. Attempts to negotiate are met with threats of making negotiation illegal, and so the employees refuse to provide any more labor under those conditions. I am interested to see what answers our Republican fanboys have to the above questions. I bet they avoid answering them.

The only difference I see is that the Republicans don’t like the fact that many unions support Democrat politicians. As Borepatch says:

the problem isn’t the Democrats, and the solution isn’t the Republicans.  The problem is an institutionalized ruling class that views the rest of us with increasing contempt.

EDITED TO ADD: I am tired of being spammed by comments that do not directly relate to the posts. Comments that are not related to the post, or are mere links to other sites with no comment will be deleted.

In my previous post,  there were some comments that public employees should be prohibited from contacting their government representatives as a group, because doing so was against the will of the people. So much for that theory.

Americans strongly oppose laws taking away the collective bargaining power of public employee unions, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. The poll found 61% would oppose a law in their state similar to such a proposal in Wisconsin, compared with 33% who would favor such a law.

I am not, nor have I ever said that public employees should get their way, and I am also actively opposed to so-called “closed shops.” I do however, feel that they should have a seat at the table. Telling them that they cannot speak collectively is like telling people that they can only protest alone. What happened to the right to peaceably assemble?

The First Amendment is as important to me as the Second. There are many that I used to admire for their love of the Constitution, but I am sorely disappointed that they are only interested in using the words of the founders to feather their own nest.

When I paid my OUC electric bill online, I keyed in my checking account information wrong. They called and told me, so I paid it, plus a $25 fee, in cash the next day. Now they say I am cash only, no checks, no credit cards, no online payments for the next two years. In person, in cash, only. That is total bullshit. If they didn’t have a total monopoly, I would switch today.

OUC is a government owned utility. There is no practical choice for getting electricity any other way than through the local government. They require me to come pay in cash, while at the same time they are violating the law themselves by prohibiting me from carrying my concealed weapon in their government owned offices, despite being prohibited from doing so by Florida’s preemption laws.

I am going down there now to pay my bill. In nickels.

EDITED TO ADD: OK, I checked. They will not accept bulk coins. I am going to contact as many elected officials as I can to cause trouble for this. This is purely a vindictive thing, as they will not even accept money orders. Cash only, in person only.

A constitutional amendment that would take court procedural rulemaking authority away from the Supreme Court and give it to the Legislature has been introduced in a House subcommittee that has been studying the issue.

Currently, Art. V, Sec. 2, provides that the Supreme Court has the authority to adopt practice and procedure rules for the court, and the Legislature may repeal any rule by a two-thirds vote of both chambers. It also includes some technical language about the court and the district courts of appeal submitting questions on military law for an advisory opinion to a special military appellate court.

The amendment repeals all of that, and instead specifies: “No court shall have the power, express or implied, to adopt rules for practice and procedure in any court. Court rules of practice and procedure may be recommended by the Supreme Court to be adopted, amended or rejected by the legislature in a manner prescribed by general law. If there is a conflict between general law and a court rule, the general law supersedes the court rule.

Make no mistake, this change is intended to neuter the Supreme Court. The state Legislature of Florida intends to make the Supreme Court of the State a useless appendage. When any branch of government seeks to overrule the others, watch out.

State Senator Jim Norman, a Republican from Tampa, wants to make it a First Degree Felony to photograph a farm without the owner’s permission. A first degree felony carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, a $10,000 fine, and prohibits you from ever owning a firearm or voting again.

This means that the second conviction for enticing a child into a building to molest him is a lesser crime than taking a picture of cow or an orange tree from the side of the road. Sexual battery on a child over the age of twelve that does not use force is only a second degree felony.

Tell me again how Republicans are champions of the Constitution. Sorry, they are no better than the Democrats.

With fuel prices rising, I hear people claiming that they want to buy an electric car to avoid the high prices. Look at the numbers:

It takes 30 kWh to go 100 miles in an electric car. The cost for that at 13 cents per kWh (that is what my utility charges) is about $3.90. The cost to go the same distance in a 35 mpg car at $3.50 a gallon is $10. That would save you $610 a year in fuel if you were to drive 10,000 miles a year.


The catch is that the charging station will cost from $700 to $1500 installed. The all electric Leaf is $32,000 with a tax credit of up to $7500. So even assuming the best case, the Leaf will cost you $25,200. The gas powered Toyota Yaris costs $13,000. A difference of $12,200.

This means that you would have to drive the car for 20 years to break even. The savings just isn’t there.

The Wisconsin legislature wants to outlaw collective bargaining. A law eliminating collective bargaining is an assault on the First Amendment. Elimination of collective bargaining would mean that the employees no longer have the ability to assemble and petition their government for a redress of grievances.

Assembly is the key to free speech. One voice can be silenced, thousands cannot. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.

Since all laws are enforced by the police power of the state, any law that is passed carries with it the implicit threat that force will be used if it is disobeyed. Therefore, a law that outlaws the right of employees to collectively bargain outlaws free speech, under the threat of violence. When free speech is eliminated, there are few options left to a people who want to be free. None of them are pretty. The Republicans in this case have decided that if they cannot win against the unions at the negotiating table, they will simply outlaw them, and thereby eliminate their free speech rights. Free speech for everyone, as long as you say things the Republicans like.

To me this isn’t a union issue, it isn’t about anything other than free speech. If you allow the government the ability to silence a group that you disagree with, who will defend you when the government comes to silence YOU? Since the Republican legislature wants to silence free speech, the people (union employees are people) are protesting, and doing it in a non-violent way. The government responds by sending police to violate the rights of the protesters and ordering them to leave, and the police refuse, even though the police would be exempt from the law that prohibits collective bargaining. Maybe there is hope for the Constitution.

The only thing I am addressing with this post is the attempt to outlaw collective bargaining. This is far too large of a topic to tackle all things union. Any other topics, like how public employees being disciplined have due process rights, or any other union topic will have to wait for another day.

The military rank structure is an anachronism, and needs a major overhaul. Our current system of officer and enlisted is a left over from the days of feudalism, and being hundreds of years old in its basic concept, no longer fits into our modern society.

It used to be that officers were the educated gentry, and enlisted troops were illiterate proles who were little more than cannon fodder. During battles, it was once against the rules of combat to deliberately target officers, as it was believed that the officers were needed to keep the troops in check, or massacres would result. The concept of “officer and a gentleman” is used to assume that somehow, an officer is better than an enlisted man, and is thus entitled to better housing, food, and working conditions.

That is no longer how our society functions, nor is it how warfare functions. Gone for the most part are the days when enlisted troops were unable to read and write, and were good for nothing but serving as bullet stops. To become a commissioned officer requires one to have attended a college with an ROTC program, or have graduated from a service academy. During my time in the military, I knew some good officers. I also knew some officers who couldn’t lead a platoon of soldiers into a whorehouse without pissing them off.

Instead, a modern system of leadership and coordination could be used to overhaul the current system and make the management, leadership, and control of the armed forces more responsive, and better able to manage the war. Are there any businesses that are still using the same organizational structure that they were using 40 years ago? Our military has been using the structure that it has for over 200 years, and that structure itself was copied from European militaries who had been using it for hundreds of years as well. Something to think about.