Lockheed Wins DoD Contracts Worth as Much $5.6 Billion

[NeoConsSuck]

Source: Bloomberg.com

Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT) today received Defense Department contracts worth as much as $5.6 billion for 31 additional F-35 jets and the last two of six advanced military communications satellites, the Pentagon said.

The contracts will be immune from the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration taking effect in 2013 if Congress and the White House can’t negotiate an agreement to prevent more than $600 billion in tax increases and the spending reductions. Pentagon officials have said that most contracts awarded before the start of 2013 wouldn’t be reduced.

Lockheed’s Fort Worth, Texas-based Aeronautics unit’s contract for a sixth installment of F-35s can’t exceed $3.67 billion when its final details are hammered out next year. The Pentagon said it also awarded the company’s Sunnyvale, California, Space Systems unit a $1.93 billion contract for the final two Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellites in a constellation of six.


Today’s so-called “undefinitized contract action” for the F-35 doesn’t trigger a $3.67 billion payment to the nation’s largest defense contractor. Instead, it sets a threshold target and obligates an unspecified amount to begin assembly of 18 conventional U.S. Air Force models, seven U.S. Navy variants designed to land on aircraft carriers and six U.S. Marine Corps short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) versions.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-28/lockheed-wins-dod-contracts-worth-as-much-5-6-billion.html

---

It warms my heart to know that BOTH political parties will make sure the DOD will be well fed, regardless of the outcome of the fiscal cliff negotiations.

[valerief]

1. More money for more crap we don't want and don't need. Where 60 cents out of every tax dollar goes.

But it makes rich people richer, and that's ALL THAT MATTERS. Right? Apparently so.

[newfie11]

2. Exactly

I feel every politician has been bought. Our congress is out of control and we and the world will pay the price.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. In both 2009 and 2008 the company topped the list of US Federal Contractors.

The same company that screwed up, resulting the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter at a cost of $125 million.


Same company that has been found to be fraudulent in various government contracts.

"Lockheed "ranks number one on the 'contractor misconduct' database maintained by the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington-DC-based watchdog group."
Since 1995, the company has agreed to pay $577 million to settle fifty-four instances of misconduct."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Incoming Lockheed CEO resigns after ethics investigation

Chris Kubasik, who was slated to take over CEO of Lockheed Martin in January, resigned Friday over an inappropriate "close personal relationship" with a subordinate employee.

Kubasik left the company Friday after Lockheed conducted an ethics investigation that confirmed the relationship, the company said.

Current CEO Bob Stevens announced Kubasik's resignation on a conference call on Friday, saying he was “deeply disappointed” in what he called a personal indiscretion. He said Kubasik violated the company's ethics code.

Kubasik will receive a $3.5 million separation payment from the company, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on the resignation. The $3.5 million totaled one-year's worth of salary and bonus, a company official told The Hill.
http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/industry/267165-incoming-lockheed-ceo-resigns-over-relationship-with-subordinate

In plain English, he was having sex with an employee and was caught only AFTER an investigation,
but not fired, he was allowed to resign and to get paid 3.5 million.

[Panasonic]

11. Golden parachutes ought to be taxed at 1000%.

That means that CEO should be owing the Government 3 billion personally.

[Hotler]

5. I have no hope. I see no future. n/t

[a11ig8r]

6. Free market?

Is this really capitalism at work? A pipeline of money that goes from Congress to the pockets of CEOs and shareholders. A defense industries company that is guaranteed military contracts and money from the government without even even lifting a finger to obtain those contracts. That's called fascism.

[liberal N proud]

8. The one who can pay the congressmen the most wins.

[LizW]

7. And the planes still don't work

This is part of the $396 billion F-35 project that is most expensive weapons system in military history, and the most horrifying part of it is that that 10+ year after the contract was awarded, the planes still don't work.

See this article from the New York Times last month:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/us/in-federal-budget-cutting-f-35-fighter-jet-is-at-risk.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[ChairmanAgnostic]

12. oh, they work, all right. Just not as planned.

Too easy to shoot down, too expensive to maintain, too likely to smother the pilot and cause asphyxia, too fragile for war zones, too fast for close encounter battles, too heavy to meet the original specs for flight length (they had to change the specs in order to be able to order the beast).

In war game simulations, a rogue USAF commander decided to use his own tactics, rather than the "predicted and approved approach from Russian and Chinese forces" and totally screwed up the US side. Luckily, our enemies will follow the plans we lay out for them, and not come up with something creative. Enemies do that, don't they?

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. Never fear, Lockheed sells them to other coutries.

I believe Israel ordered a bunch.
That ought to be interesting.

[naaman fletcher]

9. they are just looking after the big guys on the big name projects

t warms my heart to know that BOTH political parties will make sure the DOD will be well fed, regardless of the outcome of the fiscal cliff negotiations.

the vast majority of contractors doing necessary maintenance work on our near bases will face cuts in order to provide for the unneeded big ticket items

[xtraxritical]

14. I was recently in Rapid City S.D. and I was visiting a lady that lived accross the road

from Elsworth Air Force Base. She told me that at year end they set fire to all the remaining jet fuel so the AF could say they used it and not have their budget reduced. I believed her.

[naaman fletcher]

16. I've never seen that..

But I do some consulting work sometimes for a friend who has a small firm on a naval base. He got lots of orders right before the end of the fiscal year just because the base had to spend all of its money or else it wouldn't get as much the following year.

[Panasonic]

10. Hello? Massive cut waiting to happen - all DoD contracts deemed unnecessary by the CBO should be

CANCELLED. AND NO MONEY PAID.

STUPID! ALL FOR WHAT? 31 MORE STUPID WAR MACHINES?!

[L0oniX]

13. Bombs = jobs. Hmmm ...Does China make bombs ...yet?

[PSPS]

15. A portion of which will be dutifully laundered back as "campaign contributions."

[Dawson Leery]

17. More corporate welfare.

[LaPera]

18. The filthy rich get filthy richer from our tax dollars & this is just one of hundreds....

of corporations & CEO's living off the Pentagon trough, our tax dollars - the Military Industrial Complex - that the republicans plan to give even more money, our tax dollars to these corporations - even though we already spend more on the military than all the other counties on earth combined.