E.R. Campbell said:
It may be that the government is getting close, closer anyway, to an economically sound defence procurement policy. But it is important to bear in mind that good economics is rarely coincident with good politics.
In a perfect world the Department would present the government with a list of reasonably well expressed operational requirements ... for example:
Example only:
"We need two supply ships/oilers of something very, very like the Berlin class which originally cost about $500M each and which we should be able to build for $1B each;"
"We need two more multi-purpose support shops, perhaps akin to the UK's Bay class landing ship which originally cost about $250M each and which we should be able to build for $750M each;"
"We need six Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships which should cost less than $4.5 B;"
"We need eight general purpose combatants of about 5,00 tons, perhaps like the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen class frigate which originally cost about $600M each and which we should be able to buy/build for about $1.25B each;"
"We need eight corvettes (about 1,500 tons), perhaps like the German Braunschweig class corvette which originally cost about $350M each and which we estimate we could build for about $750M each;"
"We need six air independent propulsion submarines, something like the German Type 212 submarine which cost about $600M and which we should be able to buy for about $900M each;" and
"We need several more training vessels of something like th current Orca class and a smaller version for operations by Naval Reserve Divisions in rivers and lakes."
It is then up to the government to take DND's $30B+ guesstimate and return a counter-offer, say, $27.5B over n years, and then allow Supply and Service to get the ships DND finally says it must have for the money the government says it can have.
There should be money used for job creation and to directly, legally subsidize Canadian industry ~ and all that money should come from Industry Canada's budget, which will need to increase substantially.
Reputable economist teach that subsidies that are built into projects distort both costs and values. Project money should be kept fairly 'pure,' that is to say NO regional subsidies. Please remember that there is no such things as "regional industrial benefit" ministers and generals and corporate titans all talk about them but they (admirals, bureaucrats and business leaders and, especially, politicians) all fall into one (sometimes both) of two categories: either they lie or they are stupid. They all think we are stupid and will believe them .... 99% of us do.
We are allowed, under international law, to directly subsidize our national security; military projects are almost always exempt from almost all trade law. Liberals may not like but no one who really cares what Liberals think.
Mr. Campbell,
I just read your propositions to my D9er, a lady of "a certain age" and considerable intelligence. She cheerfully ignores me most of the time.
I didn't get past your second proposition concerning the Bay class ships and she interrupted me (another common occurence - she considers me long-winded): "Why do they cost so much?" I still can't answer that question in a cogent manner. Even as I agree with you that those constitute fair statements of reality.
They describe the point at which Keynesian economics become so attractive to politicians that the hard-nosed Austrians can't effectively compete.
But here's the real question in my mind: Is there any real appetite for pulling back the curtain and exposing the Wizard?
I don't think that a public statement by CAF to the Government, couched in those terms, would be well received. In fact I think the authors could find themselves dismissed.
What, I believe, you are essentially proposing is to make plain that people on welfare are going to be paid exorbitant sums to perform unnecessary work. They will be put on the payroll of a very large government funded project and paid - for what they are paid is immaterial. I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that there are two or more sub-contractors paid to dig holes while others fill them in.
The reason I question if anyone wants to lay those secrets bare is founded in Ed Milliband's problems with Labour supporters in Britain.
When Maggie threw Arthur's coal miners out of work they retained their hate but bought a white van and created their own jobs. Those people all aspired to get out of the pits in any event and become middle class types just like Maggie, the shop keeper's daughter. They hated Maggie because she denied them the opportunity to get out of the pits on their own terms and forced them out on her terms. They got what they wanted but not the way they wanted it.
Curiously Maggie was just like them. That doesn't stop the hate. And it won't.
What it did do was drive them out of the arms of the Fabian Society. The Shavian Socialists discovered that they no longer had a reliable constituency for which to do good works. Their constituents increasingly saw them as the Lords of Manors, some of whom were acceptable in that they were to the manor born for centuries and some of whom, like the Millibands, Brown and Blair, were upstarts that merely aspired to the manor. And there is nothing that a British socialist detests more than people who don't know their place. It makes it that much harder for the hard-grafting unemployed miner to get on in the world. They are forever putting barriers in the way of a bit of honest graft. They clamp down on men with white vans by demanding certification and recorded transactions when all they were trying to do was earn a bit of beer money fixing the neighbour's plumbing. The white van men are no worse than the wreckers of Cornwall, the smugglers of the Broads and the pot men of Ayrshire. A pox on Dragoons and Excisemen.
This has all recently come to the fore in Britain over
this case:
Labour party at war over Emily Thornberry’s ‘snobby’ tweet
Party ranks descend into attacks after Thornberry was accused of mocking Rochester house draped with England flags
What Labour has discovered is that even the lower classes have their pride and are very traditionally minded. They don't want to live on handouts. They would rather do illegal work than accept hand outs. And they reserve special resentment for those that will not work - native Brits and foreigners alike. The Shavians have lost Scotland to the Scots socialists. And now they are losing the North of England and Wales to Farage's UKIP. And a good chunk of that is being attributed to universities not understanding white vans, wreckers and pot stills.
I fear that if your proposition were ever to become public then the Canadian descendants of those Ayrshire pot men and Cornish wreckers would end up punishing the politicians that agreed to be so blatant. You would be wounding them in the two places that matter most: their purse and their pride.
Their purse, obviously, because you are stealing money from those that graft to give to those that won't and in their pride because you are saying that the only way Canadians can get a job is through workfare, inefficiently administered.
(I told you the wife was intelligent. I am long-winded). :nod:
