Lockheed, Northrup Face Big Defense Cuts

[mourningdove92]

Lockheed, Northrop face big defense cuts
Pentagon seen responding to White House demands
Updated: 7:53 a.m. ET Jan. 4, 2005WASHINGTON - Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp. would bear the brunt of proposed cuts in U.S. weapons purchases totaling $30 billion over the next six years, according to the summary from a Pentagon budget document made available to Reuters Monday.

Nearly $18 billion would be slashed from programs run by Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon's biggest supplier, according to a trade publication, InsideDefense.com, the first to report details of the plan.

The cuts were spelled out in a so-called Program Budget Decision signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and dated Dec. 23. It would reduce previously budgeted purchases by $6 billion in fiscal 2006, which begins Oct. 1, and nearly $30 billion through 2011.

The belt-tightening amounts to half the cuts the White House budget office had sought only a week earlier, said Loren Thompson, a defense consultant at the nonpartisan Lexington Institute research group with close ties to the Pentagon and industry.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6784652/

[DulceDecorum]

1. Halliburton faces big gains?

It's not what you know,
it's WHO you know
and his deferred paycheck.

[LibDemAlways]

2. Thousands of aerospace workers

who voted for the chimp thinking they were going to ride the gravy train for another four years are in for a big shock as these programs are cut to funnel more and more money into Iraq and the greedy paws of Halliburton.

[Barkley]

3. What has this news done to Lockheed and Northrup stock prices?

'A Stronger America?'

Like Greenspan, Paul Wolfowitz waited until after the election to inform us of the defense cuts.

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. Hey Lockheed, Northrup, tough ass.

And tough ass to any of the assholes that get laid off from those shit places. They are populated by rw shits.

[Psephos]

6. Aerospace workers care more about feeding family than politics

I'm not talking about the executive suite. Skilled trades workers, assembly people, engineers, software programmers, the people who run the daycare center and the company gym and the cafeteria...they all care way more about a keeping a good job than about pundit bullshit. Labor forces tend toward Democratic Party affiliation, not "rw shits" as you put it. BTW, members of the labor force in aerospace tend to own some of the company stock, too, because they can buy it at a discount.

You clearly don't work in aerospace, which may explain why you think in this case it's cool to laugh at other peoples' misfortunes.

It's not.

Even France and Canada have huge defense industries, so please abstain from the argument that it serves them right for picking a non-PC industry. Every industrial country has a military, and every industrial country makes military goods. We live in a world that is what it is, not what we wish it to be. When you have a kid at home, and a good job available to you, it's funny how little you care about what intellectuals argue about.

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. I had the misfortune of working aerospace for a while

The work was shit, the people were shit, the company was shit. They are paid very well and the benefits were probably even better than for government employees but it wasn't worth it. I got out at the first opportunity. Life is too short. I have no pity for them, they don't have to do it, they do it for the security of a pseudo government job, while they carry on about welfare cheats and so on. They live the life of old style soviet bureaucrats all the while spouting Jeffersonian ideals. Fuck them all.

[Squatch]

5. F-22 is also on the chopping block. Boeing is the prime on that contract

[Corgigal]

8. I wonder how Honeywell aerospace

will do? I guess if they are cutting Lockheed and Northrop then it really can't be too far behind.