Tankers for USAF

The Air Force tanker fleet are still largely the old KC-135 which has been flying for fifty years. That's damn good service life for anything, let alone a jet aircraft. The tanker fleet is as important as the fighters, bombers, and transports flown by USAF. The fighters and bombers nearly always need air-to-air refueling to reach their targets. The F105's from my wing used to tank twice, once on the way in and a second time on the way out on missions into North Viet Nam. Without the KC135's, the Thuds didn't have the range to get to Hanoi. The B2 missions to Iraq all needed tanker support. Without the tankers there are a lot of targets the Air Force cannot reach. So we really need to place an order for new tankers. Remember, years go by between placing the order and delivery of aircraft.
USAF has made two tries to order new tankers and bungled both of them. A third try is in the works. Technologically speaking, the tanker is dead simple, buy a commercial airliner, take out the seats and install fuel tanks. The existing KC135 tankers are Boeing 707's in USAF markings.
Money is the issue. As in who gets the money (Boeing or Airbus the only makers of big jet airliners) and how much money goes for each airplane. Speaking as a taxpayer, either aircraft will do the mission and we should buy the cheaper of the two. The Airbus uses American jet engines which are 1/3rd or more of the final cost. Buy Airbus and US engine makers get a good deal of the money.
There are some smoke screen issues. Boeing accuses Airbus of accepting government subsidies. We are supposed to forget that fifty years ago US government money for KC-135 tankers helped mightily in the launch of the 707 airliner. Is there a stature of limitations on subsidies? This issue doesn't matter to us taxpayers. If the EU governments want to make tankers cheaper for USAF, more power to 'em.
Airbus is quibbling about specifications and threatening to no-bid the job. Specifications ought to be "standard A320". Period. The gold platers infesting the Pentagon will fancy up the aircraft with military avionics and all sorts of expensive gadgets if you let them. The standard commercial avionics and gadgets are good enough, and a helova lot cheaper than any special design military stuff. The commercial airliners are in production, the bugs have been worked out of them, they work, and that's what USAF needs, a reliable airplane that flies when asked to, rather than a finicky special design bird that ground aborts at the slightest excuse. Same goes for Boeing. Standard 767 (or 777), no modifications. Last time Boeing was proposing a "special" 767 with stretched fuselage, extra flaps, longer wing, damn near a whole new airplane. And taxpayer money for all the engineering required.
Ignore the whines from the paperwork people. "Oh preparing a bid is so expensive". "We have to refine our requirements." All the Air Force has to say is how many aircraft, how many spare parts, and how long to deliver them all. All the bidder has to say is how much.
This is a $40 billion program. Lot more economic stimulus in a $40 billion aircraft buy than we are getting from the $700 and something billion porkulus.

Coakley came into money today.

Coakley is running back to back attack ads against Scott Brown in New England Cable News (NECN). This is new. I wonder who gave her all the last minute money. There are Brown ads, but nearly as many. Brown is doing straight forward "vote-for-me" ads rather than attack ads.

Tax on big banks?

Obama is pushing for a tax on the fifty biggest banks on the country. The banks are wailing, Republicans are opposing, but actually, it's not a bad idea in my book. The fifty big Wall St banks bear a lot of responsibility for Great Depression 2.0. The "too-big-to-fail" banks made risky loans on the theory that when they pay off, you get rich, when they don't pay off, the taxpayer (ME!) bails you out.
Since the too-big-to-fail banks enjoy taxpayer support, they might as well pay for it. If they find the tax too heavy, they can always spin off parts and become smaller. Which is a fine idea. That makes them small enough to fail. Which is good, they will be more careful.
Plus, the big Wall St banks don't do a thing for me. They don't do car loans, they don't do mortgages, they don't lend to companies, they don't do venture capital. Far as I can see they just do deals with each other. So tax the bejeezus out of them.

You don't have to be crazy, but it helps

Tina Brown reviews the "Game Change" book here. This is the book that quoted Harry Reid saying "Light skinned" and "no Negro accent". Tina goes on at length describing one gaffe after another. She gives a number of unscripted Hillary moments but fails to mention the one unscripted moment that allowed her to beat Obama in the NH primary. It was one of those "man on the street" interviews, actually a woman at the diner counter, and just once, Hillary choked up a little bit. There was a catch in her voice, and for about 10 seconds Hillary looked like a real person with strong emotions. It was her most effective TV appearance of the whole NH campaign, and yet Tina doesn't mention it at all, instead dwelling on other less important incidents.

Body Language

Obama is delivering a Haiti speech. Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton are standing on either side. But why do Biden and Clinton have such sour expressions on their faces?

Airheads in California

According to this, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has time and money for yet more foolishness. They will require mandatory tire inflation tests with jail sentences for non compliance.
If California ever wants to get serious about cutting state spending, I know just where they can start. Close down CARB, fire all the employees, and burn the files.
Good thing NH is too intelligent to fall for something this dumb. We are, aren't we?

Excessive Wall St Skimming

Wall Street exists to route society's capital into economic development. They haven't done a very good job lately, and in fact, stupid Wall St moves are largely responsible for Great Depression 2.0.
Right now, while the wounds are still fresh, we ought to outlaw, or at least tax the bejeezus out of, risky Wall St speculation scams that do not yield economic growth, or create vast surpluses. The "credit default swaps" don't invest money in the real economy, they are just a cover your ass maneuver. Underlings can make risky investments and tell their bosses "It's safe, I bought a credit default swap to insure it". When all the investments went bad at the same time, AIG couldn't pay off, we taxpayers had to cover AIG's bad bets.
Resale of mortgages and the "mortgage backed security" are scams that allow unscrupulous operators to sell mortgages that should never have been written and dump them on more gullible investors before the junk mortgage goes into repossession.
Credit rating agencies were paid to put AAA ratings on junk, and gullible investors bought the junk. We don't need that kind of credit rating agency. Actually, any broker worth his salt should do his own rating. We would do our selves a favor by taxing the credit rating agencies like Moody's right out of business.
We need to create some corporate governance. Right now the management runs the banks pretty much the way they like. The pay them selves and their buds outrageous salaries with money that by rights belongs to the stockholders. We need to give the stockholders and the boards of directors more say over company operations. For instance top management salaries ought to require a majority vote from the stockholders. Big moves ought to require board of directors say-so.
Then we need to clean up the accounting business. American "Generally Accepted Principles of Accounting" allow companies to carry purely imaginary assets on the books, allow ordinary running expenses to be "capitalized", and allow "sales" to be credited as income before the money comes in. Plus a bunch of other unsavory stuff.

We ought to demand Wall St reform from our Congress critters.