Absolutely on target! Amazing how issues like “right to repair” have infected every aspect of our society. We can only hope that Khan, Kanter and Wu will lead us out of this mess. There is more value to the American worker in breaking up monopolies than the entire budget reconciliation act.
Matt, I was so grateful that on "Rising" this week you pointed out that Biden's withdrawal was undermined by the Pentagon (not that Biden's history makes him completely blameless). For more context on this phenomenon, I would refer you to the former Military Intelligence Officer, Professor John M. Newman's book "JFK and Vietnam". One thread in the book is how Kennedy wanted a plan for an orderly withdrawal from Vietnam and the Generals undercut him at every turn.
I was a computer technician on one of the bigger Forward Operating Bases and while I didn't see some of the most egregious offenses, the looming presence of the contractors was part of the whole fabric of existence. There was one time when our warrant officer, who was the SharePoint admin, was on mid-tour leave and I was the only other person who even had access to the admin panel, and they decided that was a good time to put me on tower guard. So one of the SharePoint subsites crashed while I was on tower guard for four days and no one could fix it. Once I got back they immediately called me in to show them how to fix it - a lieutenant had uploaded so many PowerPoint files that it breached the data cap, and we had to temporarily raise the data cap for the subsite and ask him to remove the files, then lower it back to what it should be once it was done. After I showed them how to do it they had to talk it over by committee for a week until they told me that I was to do it while being monitored by the captain in our shop and a couple contractors to make sure I was doing my job, I guess. I think that the contractors were supposed to be able to do it what with how they probably were in the 300 club (it's not enough to make six figures, contractor culture is such that you are constantly trying to clear over $300,000 a year for bragging rights). But anyway the fix was easy and I could have done it right away but because contractors were involved the processed dragged out an extra week because they are supposed to be adding value, so I had to have my performance sandbagged so that they don't look bad.
Stoller is at the top of his game and he is still just at the beginning. I have followed him since DailyKos days and he is better than ever. Did not know anything about these contractors.
This is absolutely true and has been getting worse for decades. I was a missile officer in the Navy early in my career and we weren't allowed to repair the circuit boards for our missile computers. We had to remove them, send them back where the contractor would remove one electronic part, replace it, ship it back, and bill us for a completely new board. That would be $14k in 1977 dollars. This happened every week. We had Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activities (SIMA) ... closed back in the mid 2000's ... that were midway between ship's force repair and going to a shipyard (few naval shipyards remain open, most have been closed). Those SIMA's could do practically anything including in=water hull repair. We had floating drydocks left over from WWII. There are still maybe a couple left but we used to have the ability to make out--of-water hull repairs in a floating drydock 10,000 miles from home.
Once, where Sailors stationed at a Navy repair shore facility or onboard a repair ship ("tender") could gain broad experience by repairing a wide range of gear rather than "work" on only those systems installed on their particular ship. But with the demise of SIMA's and Navy "C" schools, the Navy can't fix its own stuff anymore and is even more reliant on contractors to do the simplest repair. You can't have a war-capable Navy doing that. Our reliance on Beltway bandits, "bicycle shops", and defense conglomerates is killing us. Individual contractor employees can say "no" and refuse to go in harm's way. They stretch out repair jobs to get more per diem. It's a racket.
Absolutely on target! Amazing how issues like “right to repair” have infected every aspect of our society. We can only hope that Khan, Kanter and Wu will lead us out of this mess. There is more value to the American worker in breaking up monopolies than the entire budget reconciliation act.
Matt, I was so grateful that on "Rising" this week you pointed out that Biden's withdrawal was undermined by the Pentagon (not that Biden's history makes him completely blameless). For more context on this phenomenon, I would refer you to the former Military Intelligence Officer, Professor John M. Newman's book "JFK and Vietnam". One thread in the book is how Kennedy wanted a plan for an orderly withdrawal from Vietnam and the Generals undercut him at every turn.
Ya? Soo? We still get to keep the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
I was a computer technician on one of the bigger Forward Operating Bases and while I didn't see some of the most egregious offenses, the looming presence of the contractors was part of the whole fabric of existence. There was one time when our warrant officer, who was the SharePoint admin, was on mid-tour leave and I was the only other person who even had access to the admin panel, and they decided that was a good time to put me on tower guard. So one of the SharePoint subsites crashed while I was on tower guard for four days and no one could fix it. Once I got back they immediately called me in to show them how to fix it - a lieutenant had uploaded so many PowerPoint files that it breached the data cap, and we had to temporarily raise the data cap for the subsite and ask him to remove the files, then lower it back to what it should be once it was done. After I showed them how to do it they had to talk it over by committee for a week until they told me that I was to do it while being monitored by the captain in our shop and a couple contractors to make sure I was doing my job, I guess. I think that the contractors were supposed to be able to do it what with how they probably were in the 300 club (it's not enough to make six figures, contractor culture is such that you are constantly trying to clear over $300,000 a year for bragging rights). But anyway the fix was easy and I could have done it right away but because contractors were involved the processed dragged out an extra week because they are supposed to be adding value, so I had to have my performance sandbagged so that they don't look bad.
Stoller is at the top of his game and he is still just at the beginning. I have followed him since DailyKos days and he is better than ever. Did not know anything about these contractors.
This is absolutely true and has been getting worse for decades. I was a missile officer in the Navy early in my career and we weren't allowed to repair the circuit boards for our missile computers. We had to remove them, send them back where the contractor would remove one electronic part, replace it, ship it back, and bill us for a completely new board. That would be $14k in 1977 dollars. This happened every week. We had Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activities (SIMA) ... closed back in the mid 2000's ... that were midway between ship's force repair and going to a shipyard (few naval shipyards remain open, most have been closed). Those SIMA's could do practically anything including in=water hull repair. We had floating drydocks left over from WWII. There are still maybe a couple left but we used to have the ability to make out--of-water hull repairs in a floating drydock 10,000 miles from home.
Once, where Sailors stationed at a Navy repair shore facility or onboard a repair ship ("tender") could gain broad experience by repairing a wide range of gear rather than "work" on only those systems installed on their particular ship. But with the demise of SIMA's and Navy "C" schools, the Navy can't fix its own stuff anymore and is even more reliant on contractors to do the simplest repair. You can't have a war-capable Navy doing that. Our reliance on Beltway bandits, "bicycle shops", and defense conglomerates is killing us. Individual contractor employees can say "no" and refuse to go in harm's way. They stretch out repair jobs to get more per diem. It's a racket.