Lockheed Martin And The Controversial F-35

Over the course several years - from late in the 1950s to the early 1970s - Lockheed was embroiled in the “Deal of the Century” where the company was found guilty of bribing foreign countries’ governments to select the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter over arguably better alternatives in addressing those nations’ respective air force needs.  Today, Lockheed Martin is the leading contractor on the F-35 Lightning II project, which is intended to produce the world’s most advanced stealth strike-fighter for US armed forces and those of several allied foreign nations.  However, the F-35 program has become the single most expensive project in American history and has been beset with serious technical problems, major schedule delays, cost overruns, and the F-35’s performance capabilities are seen by many as inferior to the nation’s potential adversaries’ fighter aircraft, if not inferior to the aircraft it is intended to replace.

Factors Influencing Recruitment into the U.S. Armed Services: Could Health Insurance be a Motivator?

Caring for our nation\u27s veterans is a responsibility of the federal promise that began with a promise by Abraham Lincoln on the event of his second inauguration. The 2017 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Army to recruit an additional 16,000 enlisted personnel and retain an additional 9,000 soldiers by the end of September 2017, with the Army offering enlistment bonuses of up to $40,000 and upwards of$10,000 for soldiers willing to extend their contracts for one year (Myers, 2017). A RAND Corporation study identified several risk factors for Army recruitment should the need arise to commit forces including the stress placed upon the reserve component and the rapid turnaround necessary to meet operational commitments (Nataraj, 2017). To address the need for better recruitment incentives necessary for current staffing guidelines, and to help deal with the growing mental health crisis among the current veteran population, lifetime health care coverage would serve to address both these issues. To address the potential recruiting problem and help with the growing problems in the VHA this paper investigates the potential effect that free lifetime health care benefits for all veterans could prove an effective recruiting incentive. No available research was found that looked at this proposition so a study was devised to examine the potential impact. To gauge this a survey instrument was created and distributed through the SurveyMonkey.com platform to a representative sample of the general population of the United States. The results of that survey were tabulated and analyzed to determine the level of support for a measure to grant lifetime healthcare and to determine if that measure might be effective as a recruiting incentive. Results of the survey proved that people support the idea of granting lifetime healthcare to veterans and that providing healthcare coverage could impact a decision to enlist favorably

The US Militarys Department Store - The Military Exchanges: Should They Be Replaced By Commercial Retailers?

The mission of the military exchange program is to (1) provide quality merchandise to military members and their families worldwide at competitive prices, and (2) generate income to support military morale, welfare, and recreation (MWR) programs. In overseas locations the military exchanges provide military members and their families with familiar competitively-priced, top-quality American products and services, priced in US dollars. The military exchanges are agencies of the US Department of Defense (DOD). The exchanges are tax free stores. This tax advantage, in concert with the exchanges competitive pricing, helps make the products and services offered affordable for military members on their all-too-often meager salaries. Profits from the military exchanges are channeled to MWR programs benefiting military personnel and their families worldwide. However, could and should military exchange functions be contracted to commercial businesses that are actually in the business of retail? The purpose of DOD is national defense, not retail sales and the related logistics. While the original need for establishing a military-operated exchange program was valid many years ago when the commercial sector was not capable supporting worldwide military operations and operating locations, is that still the case? Could a negotiated contract with a major commercial retailer provide service members and their families with better products, at better prices, and with better service, all at reduced cost to the US government, hence reduced cost the US taxpayers

The Bank For International Settlements: An Evolutionary Institution

Established in 1930 in Basel, Switzerland, to expedite and supervise the payment of reparations by Germany to the victors of World War I, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) quickly evolved into a banking establishment for various national central banks to negotiate and work out mutually-beneficial monetary policies and financial arrangements outside of the usual political and national channels. During World War II the BIS stayed open as a neutral central bank for central banks and provided significant back-channel communications between the Allied and Axis powers that could not have occurred any other way. As an example, discussions for the reconstruction of post-WWII Germany were underway between German and Allied representatives to the BIS at least two years prior to Germany’s surrender in May 1945. The post-WWII BIS then went on to become a global central bank for the world’s national central banks. In spite of the BIS holding so much effective financial power on an international scale and, hence, affecting nearly everyone in the world, few have ever heard of the BIS. This includes many economists and financial-economists. Why? Although technically not a secret organization, the BIS has always maintained an intentionally low profile. The BIS has never advertised its existence. It operates through many other organizations it has either directly created or where it holds major influence. This paper discusses the BIS, its history, and its impact and influence on world events. Questions concerning the role the BIS should possibly play in world events and central banking are raised for discussion near the end of this paper. This paper is focused primarily towards both upper-level undergraduate and graduate finance and economics courses, particularly in the areas of money, banking and financial institutions, financial markets, and monetary policy. However, other courses, to include those outside of the financial-economic arena, can find great use for this subject matter as well. Such outside arenas could include political science and history courses

Optimal target search on a fast folding polymer chain with volume exchange

We study the search process of a target on a rapidly folding polymer (`DNA') by an ensemble of particles (`proteins'), whose search combines 1D diffusion along the chain, Levy type diffusion mediated by chain looping, and volume exchange. A rich behavior of the search process is obtained with respect to the physical parameters, in particular, for the optimal search.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, REVTe

Measuring the efficiency of capital allocation in commercial banking

Commercial banks leverage their equity capital with demandable debt that participates in the economy's payments system. The distinctive nature of this debt generates an unusual degree of liquidity risk that can, at times, threaten the payments system. To reduce this threat, insurance protects deposits; and to reduce the moral hazard problems of the debt contract and deposit insurance, bank regulation constrains risk-taking and defines standards of capital adequacy. The inherent liquidity risk of demandable debt as well as potential regulatory penalties for poor financial performance creates the potential for costly episodes of financial distress that affects banks' employment of capital. ; The existence of financial-distress costs implies that many banks are likely to take actions, such as holding additional capital, that increase bank safety at the expense of short-run returns. While such a strategy may reduce average returns in the short run, it may maximize the market value of the bank by protecting charter value and protecting against regulatory interventions. On the other hand, some banks whose charter values are low may have an incentive to follow a higher risk strategy, one that increases average return at the expense of greater risk of financial distress and regulatory intervention. ; This paper examines how banks' employment of capital in their production plans affects their "market value" efficiency. The authors develop a market-based measure of production efficiency and implement it on a sample of publicly traded bank holding companies. Our evidence indicates that banks' efficiency and, hence, the market value of their assets are influenced by the level and allocation of capital. However, even controlling for the effect of size, we find that the influence of equity capital differs markedly between banks with higher capital-to-assets ratios and those with lower ratios. For inefficient banks with higher capital-to-assets ratios, marginal increases in capitalization and asset quality boost their market-value efficiency. For inefficient banks with lower levels of capitalization, the signs of these effects are reversed. Controlling for asset size, it appears that less capitalized banks cannot afford to mimic the investment strategy of more capitalized banks, which may be using this greater capitalization to signal their safety to financial markets.Bank capital

Reconciling diverse lacustrine and terrestrial system response to penultimate deglacial warming in southern Europe

Unlike the most recent deglaciation, the regional expression of climate changes during the penultimate deglaciation remains understudied, even though it led into a period of excess warmth with estimates of global average temperature 1–2 °C, and sea level ∼6 m, above pre-industrial values. We present the first complete high-resolution southern European diatom record capturing the penultimate glacial-interglacial transition, from Lake Ioannina (northwest Greece). It forms part of a suite of proxies selected to assess the character and phase relationships of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem response to rapid climate warming, and to resolve apparent conflicts in proxy evidence for regional paleohydrology. The diatom data suggest a complex penultimate deglaciation driven primarily by multiple oscillations in lake level, and provide firm evidence for the regional influence of abrupt changes in North Atlantic conditions. There is diachroneity in lake and terrestrial ecosystem response to warming at the onset of the last interglacial, with an abrupt increase in lake level occurring ∼2.7 k.y. prior to sustained forest expansion with peak precipitation. We identify the potentially important role of direct input of snow melt and glacial meltwater transfer to the subterranean karst system in response to warming, which would cause rising regional groundwater levels. This explanation, and the greater sensitivity of diatoms to subtle changes in temperature, reconciles the divergent lacustrine and terrestrial proxy evidence and highlights the sensitivity of lakes situated in mountainous karstic environments to past climate warming

Structure-based discovery of fiber-binding compounds that reduce the cytotoxicity of amyloid beta.

Amyloid protein aggregates are associated with dozens of devastating diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS, and diabetes type 2. While structure-based discovery of compounds has been effective in combating numerous infectious and metabolic diseases, ignorance of amyloid structure has hindered similar approaches to amyloid disease. Here we show that knowledge of the atomic structure of one of the adhesive, steric-zipper segments of the amyloid-beta (Aβ) protein of Alzheimer's disease, when coupled with computational methods, identifies eight diverse but mainly flat compounds and three compound derivatives that reduce Aβ cytotoxicity against mammalian cells by up to 90%. Although these compounds bind to Aβ fibers, they do not reduce fiber formation of Aβ. Structure-activity relationship studies of the fiber-binding compounds and their derivatives suggest that compound binding increases fiber stability and decreases fiber toxicity, perhaps by shifting the equilibrium of Aβ from oligomers to fibers. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00857.001

Do Bankers Sacrifice Value to Build Empires? Managerial Incentives, Industry Consolidation and Financial Performance

Bank consolidation is a global phenomenon that may enhance stakeholders' value if managers do not sacrifice value to build empires. We find strong evidence of managerial entrenchment at U.S. bank holding companies that have higher levels of managerial ownership, better growth opportunities, poorer financial performance, and smaller asset size. At banks without entrenched management, both asset acquisitions and sales are associated with improved performance. At banks with entrenched management, sales are related to smaller improvements while acquisitions are associated with worse performance. Consistent with scale economies, an increase in assets by internal growth is associated with better performance at most banks. Key Words: consolidation, acquisitions, managerial incentives, efficiency, agency problems, corporate control, stochastic frontier