It's All Smiles...

...at The Boeing Co., where they're "looking forward to a little hooting and hollering tonight", after having been awarded a $3.9 Billion contract (which could potentially "soar to more than $40 Billion over 25 years") to build the "Navy's next generation of anti-submarine aircraft, known as Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA)."

The Seattle Times notes, in its story's lead sentence, that the "huge defense contract...will add 1,200 mostly engineering jobs in the Puget Sound region over the next two years," among 1,600 new jobs "companywide".

The Jobs! angle echoes a recent Washington Post report (entitled "Across U.S., War Means Jobs"): "It is impossible to know how many of the 708,000 jobs created in the past three months are defense-related since the Labor Department does not track defense contractor employment. But anecdotal evidence suggests the contribution is significant."

So now that we know one way to stimulate the economy (viz., a government jobs programme), you think maybe those $4 Billion taxpayer dollars could put 1,200 engineers to work doing something better that building war machines?

How if they figure out how to tap clean, renewable energy sources -- wind, solar, lightning, tidal, et al. -- to replace the antiquated method of ripping open the Earth and burning the polluting, non-renewable sources found inside?

How if they figure out how to build a mass rapid-transit grid?

How if they figure out how to deliver affordable health care and housing? (Maybe not a job for an engineer. But, given how difficult it's proven to be to-date, maybe so.)

How if they figure out how to reverse Global Warming, or the AIDS crisis?

This blogger has refused, since nineteen hundred and ninety-five, to pay Federal Income Taxes, for the precise reason that 50% of those tax dollars are wasted away on programmes such as the "Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft" (which aren't, of course, only jobs programmes: these implements are put to destructive use all too often). But he would happily pay taxes if put toward socially useful ends.

A side-note:

This blog frequently pokes fun at Multinational Corporations' absolute mortification at the thought of being exposed to the Free Market. The Times article offers us another example of this most widespread phenomenon.

Carolyn Corvi, head of the plant at which the MMA will be built, notes that had The Boeing Co. not merged its civilian and "defense" wings in 1997, it "wouldn't have had this win." Corvi further enthuses that, "One of the reasons we brought these companies together was to minimize the effects of commerical airplane cycles in our business."

Would that we could all call upon Uncle Sam to lend a $40 Billion helping hand to help smooth out the down-cycles in each of our businesses!

Posted by Eddie Tews at June 15, 2004 03:29 PM