With High-Energy Lasers Too Heavy to Fly, Raytheon Plans Lighter Ones That Jam Rather Than Blast

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06-22-2011  •  Rebecca Boyle via PopSci.com 


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Lasers that can take down an aircraft or zap a boat in roiling seas are certainly the weapons of the future. But smaller lasers that disrupt rather than destroy could be an even simpler defense system.
Raytheon, which built a laser that cooked a UAV in flight last year, is one of several defense firms working on lasers that take a somewhat more passive approach, such as disabling a missile’s guidance system to prevent it from connecting with its target. Raytheon is developing common infrared countermeasures (CIRCM) systems to be installed on Army and Navy helicopters, and large-aircraft infrared countermeasures systems for the Air Force.
The Quiet Eyes Laser Turret Assembly directs a quantum cascade laser to disable missiles, the company said. It is designed to be installed on any type of airplane, and recently passed a test at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in a C-130 Hercules.
The company is also using off-the-shelf, lightweight fiber lasers that can go on any helicopter, which would solve the weight problem that has plagued airborne laser systems. Previous directional infrared countermeasures were deemed too heavy for any helicopter except the CH-47 Chinook, but Raytheon’s new generation is designed to fit helicopters down to the size of the Bell AH-1Z Cobra, according to the company. Raytheon unveiled its technology at the Paris Air Show today.

Mayors to Obama: Bring War Dollars Home

News Link  •  Economy - Economics USA




06-21-2011  •  Peter Dreier, Huffington Post 

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost the residents of Los Angeles over $1.8 billion this year. That's the amount of tax dollars that Los Angeles has sent to the federal government and will be spent on these two wars, according to calculations by the National Priorities Project, a nonprofit research group. New Yorkers will shell out $5.7 billion to pay for U.S. troops, weapons, and supplies in these two countries. The cost to Atlanta taxpayers is over $203 million; Philadelphians will pay $612 million; in Milwaukee, the price tag is $221 million. The taxpayers of Boise, Idaho -- a city with 205, 707 people -- will spend $75 million in these two war zones this year.
This week, the nation's mayors, desperate for dollars to keep their cities afloat, demanded: we want our money back! At its annual conference in Baltimore, the U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution calling for an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, saying that the money could be put to better use at home. The resolution calls on the president and Congress to "bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs, promote job creation, rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, and develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy and reduce the federal debt."
 

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Big Brother To Further Propagandize The US Economy: Change The CPI

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06-22-2011  •  ZeroHedge.com  
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A few months ago we reported on Goldman's proposal to change the definition of GDP to make the US economy appear to be growing faster than it really is. So far, it has not caught on, as even the revised definition will soon confirm a contraction. But that proposal appears to have given Joe Biden some ideas, who now has taken the Fukushima approach to (sur)reality, whereby one merely changes the terms of data measurement when the data does not cooperate. Enter the revised CPI: "Lawmakers are considering changing how the Consumer Price Index is calculated, a move that could save perhaps $220 billion and represent significant progress in the ongoing federal debt ceiling and deficit reduction talks." And because nobody has an issue with the current artificial hedonic and otherwise adjustments to the CPI which always reflect a far lower increase in prices than what is actually happening, here comes the government with another idea to make inflation appear to be rising even slower:

Stockman: Warns on U.S. “Bond Armageddon”; First Default Could Be to IMF

News Link  •  Government Debt & Financing

06-22-2011  •  EconomicPolicyJournal.com 
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David Stockman, former Budget Director under Ronald Reagan, told CNBC's Nicole Lapin that the first default by the United States government could be a payment to the International Monetary Fund. Lapin reports: He said that this careless “shoveling” of money could lead to a default here in the U.S.— and suggested that the first default will be on our payments to the IMF. Overall, Stockman doesn't think much of the IMF or what the rescue attempts of the PIIGs are doing in Europe. Lapin again: We’re doomed on both sides of the pond, he told me on the set of “Worldwide Exchange,” and he didn’t hold back in name-calling the “lunatics” responsible for our global fiscal mess—especially the EU and the IMF. In Europe, Stockman raged against a dichotomy of tax and debt slavery created by the EU: “They're attempting to go turn the prudent Europeans of the north into permanent tax slaves in order to bail out the big banks in France and Germany and elsewhere who don't deserve a bailout,” he said, adding that, “In order to accomplish that, they will attempt to turn the millions the of people who live in southern Europe into permanent debt slaves in order to pay the piper from the guarantees coming from the north.”...“The IMF is an absurd institution,” he said. “It's destructive. It's the source of holding this whole thing together with bailing wire.” “And the sooner their number is called, he said, “The better off I think we'll all be.”

CBO Long-Term Projections Don’t Show True Extent of Debt Crisis

June 22nd, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement commenting on the Congressional Budget Office’s latest long-term projections on the growth of the national debt:

“The debt crisis is worse than we are being told. The CBO analysis does not take account of the gross $14.344 trillion national debt, nor does it reflect the $430 billion in gross interest payments we are paying every year. In addition to ‘debt held by the public,’ there is debt owed to the Medicare and Social Security trust funds, and which interest is owed to as well.

“These are real liabilities that the American people are expected to honor, and do honor under CBO’s analysis. But they are not revealed until 2024 and 2036, when the trust funds are fully exhausted. Why? It’s just an accounting gimmick that hides the full extent of the debt crisis.

“Because those liabilities are not fully taken into account, even the dire scenarios that are presented to the American people are actually rosy. We cannot afford to wait 15 to 25 years to be honest about the debt burden we have taken on. It’s real, and the problem is now, not in 2021, nor 2024, nor 2036. It’s now.

“For example, the American people are not advised that the national debt will actually be larger than the entire economy in 2012 if not sooner. At $14.344 trillion, the national debt already represents 95.5 percent of the $15.010 trillion Gross Domestic Product. Yet the CBO reports the debt will not be larger than the economy until 2021.

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‘Cut, Cap, and Balance’ Pledge the Only Way

By Robert Romano
“The only way Republicans’ leverage on the debt ceiling will work is if they’re willing to not increase the debt ceiling,” Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson declared in a recent plea to congressional Republicans.

He wants them to hold firm on their commitment to attach significant spending cuts to any increase in the nation’s borrowing limit.

Today, Wilson is joining congressional conservatives and other free market and limited government leaders today in a press conference in support of the “Cut, Cap, and Balance” pledge.

ALG and others are concerned that without firm conditions, the current fight over increasing the $14.294 trillion national debt ceiling will only yield token cuts that will fail to rein in Washington, D.C.’s out-of-control spending. The pledge is targeted to all federal elected officials as well as candidates for federal office including the presidency.

“House Republicans gambled big time on the continuing resolution earlier this year, when they had the threat of a government shutdown to use. But that only yielded $352 million in actual spending reductions for this fiscal year,” Wilson noted, warning, “After promising the American people something big on the debt ceiling, they cannot politically afford to fall short like they did in April.”

Wilson believes the debt ceiling is an opportunity for members to redeem themselves in the eyes of the American people. “It’s never too late to do the right thing,” he said.

By signing the pledge, members of Congress are agreeing not to under any circumstances increase the $14.294 trillion debt ceiling — unless the deficit is reduced by hundreds of billions of dollars immediately, spending is statutorily capped to no more than 18 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, and a Balanced Budget Amendment is passed in both houses of Congress and sent to the several states for adoption.

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Cut, Cap and Balance... A New Concept For Washington

Video by Frank McCaffrey

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Organized Labor, Green Groups Well Positioned to Advance Policy Goals Through Shareholder Activism, Inspector General Report Shows

By Kevin Mooney
Without additional transparency and tighter enforcement of proxy-voting requirements, privately held companies could be pressured into accommodating political agendas that are detached from the economic interests of retirement funds, according to a U.S. Department of Labor Inspector General audit released in March.

Since average Americans are reliant upon retirement plans that invest in corporate stock, they are entitled to know whether or not shareholder recommendations are made with an eye toward potential financial gain, or if public policy motives have worked their way into the process.
Proxy advisory firms, which make shareholder recommendations to investors and research proxy issues, are an integral part of this equation and deserve more scrutiny. Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), formerly RiskMetrics, is widely viewed as the most influential of the advisory firms. It also appears to be joining forces with organized labor. That’s bad news for investors and bad news for the economy.

Bradford Campbell, who oversaw EBSA as the Assistant Secretary of Labor during the Bush Administration warns that, “The law protects workers by prohibiting pension plan officials and others in charge of the plan's assets from using their positions to benefit themselves or to pursue a political agenda. Proxy voting is a fiduciary duty, and the economic interests of the plan cannot be subordinated to the personal, union or corporate interests of the person casting the vote on the plan's behalf.”

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