"Fondo
Monetario Internacional. Agencia especializada de las Naciones Unidas creada en
1945 como parte de los acuerdos de Bretton Woods. Su principal propósito es
facilitar la expansión equilibrada del comercio internacional alentando la
estabilidad de las tasas de cambio y la cooperación internacional en materia
monetaria. El FMI, concretamente, otorga préstamos de corto plazo para
equilibrar la balanza de pagos de los países miembros, busca la eliminación de
barreras comerciales y auspicia la convertibilidad de las monedas a tasas
estables.
`Desde el
principio de los años sesenta sus miembros, que llegan al centenar, tienen
una cuota expresada en dólares americanos que determina su poder de voto y
sus derechos como prestatarios y como prestamistas. El Fondo actúa como
banquero entre sus miembros, prestándoles las divisas que necesitan: el
prestatario las compra con su propia moneda, comprometiéndose a utilizarlas
para reducir sus déficits comerciales. En los últimos años el FMI ha
cooperado en la renegociación de la gran deuda externa contraída por muchos
países en desarrollo, otorgando préstamos a largo plazo y facilitando fondos
para la recompra de la deuda por parte de esos países."[1]
Este
organismo estatal funciona a la manera de un gran banco central. Es decir, su
objetivo real (y el que en los hechos ha venido cumpliendo) consiste en
monopolizar la moneda. Los "miembros" de este "banco mundial
de bancos" como se lo ha llamado, son gobiernos y no empresas ni
particulares. Por lo que se opone tanto al liberalismo como al capitalismo,
en tanto estos últimos postulan una moneda libre del control estatal y
político.
"Las
burocracias internacionales como el FMI y el Banco Mundial financian o ayudan
a financiar alegremente a los gobiernos más corruptos del planeta. En
realidad la deuda pública significa la inmoralidad de comprometer
coactivamente los patrimonios de futuras generaciones que ni siquiera han
participado en la elección de los gobiernos que contrajeron la deuda."[2]
Los
préstamos que el FMI otorga a los gobiernos del mundo no son, desde luego,
financiados con dinero de los burócratas que dirigen y controlan al FMI, y
los pagos y cancelaciones que los prestamistas hagan de los mismos tampoco
son abonados con dinero proveniente del patrimonio personal de gobernantes y
su séquito de burócratas. Todo el movimiento financiero entre el FMI y los
gobiernos recipiendarios se hace siempre -y desde 1945- a costa del
patrimonio de los habitantes de los países cuyos gobiernos despilfarran sus
recursos de esa manera, complicando, como se expresa antes, a varias
generaciones posteriores que no intervinieron en las decisiones de terceros
ajenos a ellos que, finalmente, los terminarán perjudicando.
Vemos los
efectos de la actuación real del FMI:
"Cuando
Ferdinand Marcos fue derrocado, dejó a Filipinas con una deuda externa de
26.000 millones de dólares, en gran parte con el Banco Mundial. Una
investigación posterior descubrió que, por lo menos 10.000 millones de éstos
habían sido “desviados” a cuentas bancarias en Suiza, de las cuales
prácticamente nada se recuperó. En 1981, el FMI transfirió 22 millones de
dólares al Tesoro de Haití. Luego descubrieron que habían sido retirados por
el presidente Duvalier para su uso personal."[3]
Naturalmente,
los casos mencionados arriba se multiplican a lo largo y a lo ancho del mundo
entero desde la misma creación del FMI, máxima expresión -a mi juicio- del
socialismo e izquierdismo monetario más absoluto. Cabe señalar que, en los
hechos citados arriba, esos "préstamos" estaban destinados
supuestamente a mejorar las condiciones de vida de los filipinos y haitianos.
Las únicas vidas que efectivamente mejoraron -como observamos- fueron las de
F. Marcos y Duvalier. Pero –insistamos- que estos resultados son los que a
diario también se suceden en los demás países desde la misma creación del
FMI.
El
Fondo Monetario Internacional ocasiona conflictos sociales de gran envergadura,
lo que es contrario a un orden liberal/capitalista:
"Si los
alimentos se encarecen mensualmente en un 2%, será muy improbable que estalle
una rebelión. Significa que en 12 meses el aumento asciende a más del 26%.
Pero si el aumento se diera de una sola vez, no se podría imponer sin
protestas ni disturbios.
Ejemplo: muchos
países, como Túnez, Indonesia y Tailandia, tuvieron experiencias con el
aumento radical de los precios de los alimentos básicos por presión del FMI o
del Banco Mundial; una estrategia de pequeños pasos hubiera podido evitar los
disturbios y las luchas."[4]
Debe
recordarse que en un sistema liberal-capitalista (o capitalista-liberal, que
es lo mismo, al fin de cuentas) el precio de los alimentos (o de cualquier
otro bien o servicio) no sube, sino que tiende a permanecer en su nivel, e
inclusive a bajar, por efecto de la mayor oferta que –a su turno- es el
necesario resultado de la libre competencia entre los productores del bien en
cuestión.
"No se
pueden exagerar los efectos del imperialismo occidental, real o supuesto, en
el surgimiento del fundamentalismo. En muchos países del Tercer Mundo, el
comercio internacional y el sector secular del intercambio de conocimientos,
la transferencia de tecnologías, la industria moderna y la actuación del FMI
y del Banco Mundial aparecen como acciones explotadoras, colonialistas de las
potencias occidentales."[5]
El
FMI representa, en efecto, un verdadero fundamentalismo de orden monetario,
de explotación monetaria y crediticia, que el partidario de una sociedad
libre o abierta combate enérgicamente.
El
Fondo Monetario Internacional es instrumento de corrupción:
"Aparentemente
hay un alto riesgo de corrupción... Tal es el caso, por ejemplo,...cuando
aportadores internacionales de fondos (FMI, Banco Mundial, UE, etc.) inician
grandes proyectos de desarrollo"[6]
Es
por eso que ilustres liberales y excelentes pensadores pro-capitalistas han
postulado el cierre definitivo de estos organismos estatales internacionales.
[1] Carlos Sabino, Diccionario de
Economía y Finanzas, Ed. Panapo, Caracas. Venezuela, 1991. Voz
respectiva.
[2]Alberto Benegas Lynch (h) EL LLAMADO “PENSAMIENTO
ÚNICO” pág. 2
[3]Alberto Benegas
Lynch (h) – Martin Krause. En defensa de los más necesitados.
Editorial Atlántida. Buenos Aires, pág. 335
[4]Schröder, Peter. Estrategias políticas. ISBN
0-8270-4733-9. pág. 115
Conforme vengo
notando en los últimos debates en los que he participado en los diversos y
numerosos grupos en los que me encuentro, existe como un reverdecimiento de las
teorías marxistas, incluso -y lo que más me sorprende- crecidamente entre
"profesionales" y no tanto entre los estudiantes.
Lo más preocupante
es, además de la pobreza argumental, el pésimo nivel que esos
"profesionales" poseen a la hora de pretender "objetar" al
capitalismo.
Hace poco, un
abogado, bastante sarcástico e irascible por cierto, me dijo con total
"seriedad" que el capitalismo es "insolidario". Pero más
ridículo que esta falsa "objeción" refutada ad nauseam por no
sólo los intelectuales más brillantes sino también por los menos, fue el
"ejemplo" que eligió. Textualmente dijo que el capitalismo *prohíbe
regalar zapatos*.
Hace tiempo que
vengo leyendo y escuchando criticas grotescas al capitalismo, pero confieso que
la de ese sujeto me pareció batir todos los records de idiotez calificada, y
digo *calificada* porque quien pronunció semejante disparate es un
"profesional" (abogado) y no un estudiante, y menos aun un completo
inculto.
Por supuesto que
sabemos que el capitalismo no *prohíbe* la solidaridad, lo que por otra parte,
sería imposible, dado que el capitalismo no es un sistema de gobierno y,
que como tal, no posee fuerza legal como para *prohibirle* nada a nadie. Desde
el punto de vista filosófico y económico, el capitalismo no es *insolidario* y
menos aun *anti-solidario*.
Ludwig von Mises,
dijo de él que era un sistema de producción en masa para las masas. De
donde se deriva que su finalidad no es "prohibir" (que por lo demás,
no puede, ni podría hacerlo) sino permitir esa producción en masa
para las masas.
Pero no hace falta
llegar a "las masas" para ser un capitalista. Por ejemplo, el
sencillo taxista de barrio, que luego de ahorrar con mucho sacrificio lo
suficiente, finalmente puede comprarse un automóvil con el objeto de trabajarlo
como taxi, es un capitalista, un típico capitalista, que encuadra
a la perfección en la definición de tal. Ya que el taxímetro es -en su caso- un
*bien de capital*. Todo aquel que posea un bien de capital es un
capitalista. No hace falta ser ni millonario ni multimillonario
para ser capitalista. Es más, muchos ricos no son ni fueron capitalistas.
El ejemplo más práctico de esto último está representado por los ex
gobernantes, actuales gobernantes y futuros gobernantes, quienes -en su
mayoría- salen de los gobiernos al finalizar su mandato portando fortunas
formidables. Estos últimos -pese a sus riquezas- nada tienen que ver con
el capitalismo, ya que pasan por la función pública sin producir absolutamente
nada de nada. Al contrario, la mayoría de las veces, dejando estelas de pobreza
por los países que han tenido la desgracia de padecer sus gobiernos.
El
capitalismo es un sistema en el cual los bienes de producción son propiedad de
particulares. Y la finalidad de todo bien de capital es la de producir un bien
de consumo. Volviendo a nuestro amigo taxista, cumple las condiciones para ser
llamado capitalista.
Veamos:
1. Trabajó.
2. Ahorró lo ganado mediante su
trabajo.
3. Lo invirtió en adquirir propiedad
privada (comprarse un taxi, es decir, su bien de capital)
4. Usa su bien de capital y de su
propiedad privada (taxi) en producir bienes de consumo.
5. ¿Qué bienes de
consumo produce el taxi del taxista? Simple : cada vez que un pasajero sube a
su taxi está consumiendo un viaje (o muchos) que, desde el punto de vista del
pasajero, es su bien de consumo. En este caso, el bien de consumo
adquirido por el pasajero es el de transporte.
Es increíble que
esos marxistas de "las letras" con títulos universitarios, y que
-para peor- pretenden que se los hagan llamar "letrados", no puedan
entender que para poder regalar *un par de zapatos*, viajes en taxi, panes o de
lo que se desee regalar, previamente tiene que existir un zapatero, un taxista
o un panadero que los produzca. Zapatero que, como en el caso del
taxista anteriormente mencionado, también será un capitalista, de momento que
para la producción de zapatos requerirá como mínimo un taller (alquilado o
propio) y herramientas (martillos, clavos, cueros, gamuzas, pegamentos, mesas,
mostradores, banquetas, muebles, etc. Es decir, materia prima) o sea lo que en
economía se resume con la palabra herramientas que serán sus bienes
de capital con los podrá confeccionar sus zapatos. Calzado que no es para
él propio zapatero, sino para sus clientes, el que -una vez adquirido- podrán
usarlo ellos mismos, o regalarlo a quienes les plazca. ¿De dónde sacó el
energúmeno marxista del caso, que el capitalismo "prohíbe" la
solidaridad? Sólo de su deformada mente marxista pudo obtenerlo.
Comentando el Santo
Evangelio según San Mateo, dice el Dr. Mansueti:
"Luego de la parábola de los talentos, que es sobre buenas y malas
inversiones, viene la parte sobre solidaridad e insolidaridad, donde los versos
35 y 36 dicen: “tuve hambre, y me disteis de comer; tuve sed, y me disteis de
beber; fui forastero, y me recogisteis; estuve desnudo, y me cubristeis;
enfermo, y me visitasteis; en la cárcel, y vinisteis a mí.” Las
implicaciones son claras: la solidaridad ha de seguir a la productividad. Sin
producción no hay riqueza, ¿de dónde va a salir el dinero para solidaridad?
`Por
otra parte, la caridad no es la única forma de ser solidarios. Un capitalista
que invierte produce muchos bienes y servicios para el mercado, y crea muchos
empleos. ¿No es solidario? Después de todo, los fabricantes de ropa y calzado,
¿no visten y calzan a los desnudos? Y los productores y vendedores de alimentos
¿no dan de comer a los hambrientos? Las cadenas hoteleras, ¿no dan alojamiento
a los viajeros?"[1]
Es decir: lo que
permite la solidaridad es precisamente el capitalismo. De donde se deriva que
sin capitalismo la solidaridad (ya sea particular o masiva) sería imposible.
[1]Alberto Mansueti. Las
leyes malas (y el camino de salida). Guatemala, octubre de 2009, pág.
Bruce Frasier, an onion and cantaloupe grower, weeds an onion plant field at Dixondale Farms in Carrizo Springs, Tex., in 2011
Phil Becker is still working on his Texas ranch at the age of 83. “I get tired pretty easy,” he admits. And it’s not just him: American farmers and ranchers are old and they’re getting older, a trend that began at least three decades ago and shows few signs of reversing.
The Census of Agriculture, released every five years by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, found that the average age of principal operators—the person most responsible for decision-making on farms and ranches—climbed to 58.3 in 2012 (PDF), up from 57.1 in 2007. Back in 1982, by contrast, the average age was 50.5. Data released last week put the average age in six states at 60 or older, and Arizona farmers and ranchers claim the oldest average age in the nation at 61.1.
Of course, the median age of all American workers, 42.4, is climbing beyond the farm as well. Twenty-five percent of the labor force will be 55 or older by 2020 (PDF).
Still, the broader trend pales next to the graying of farmers. Most surprising, perhaps, is that 10 percent of all farmers and ranchers are now 75 or older. A big reason for the trend is that farming is a tough business for young people to break into, given the sky-high costs of prime farmland and necessary equipment such as combines and tractors. From 2007 to 2012, the number of beginning farmers—those with less than 10 years on the farm—declined 20 percent. Of the nation’s 2.1 million principal operators, less than 120,000 were younger than 35. Just last month the Agriculture Department announced that $19 million will be set aside for a program to help rookie farmers and ranchers.
“The fact of the matter is, it’s very hard work farming and ranching,” says Samuel Womble, an extension agent based in Bandera County, Tex., where the average age of ranchers is 64.7. “There’s a lot of younger people who would like to experience that, but unless they have land that has been in their family, it continues to make it pretty challenging.”
Michael Duffy, a longtime chronicler of farm demographics who retired last week as an economist at Iowa State University, says the agricultural census numbers aren’t as dire as they may sound. Many farms are passed down to spouses, children, or other family members. And many others are absorbed by larger farms, a process of consolidation that has been ongoing for decades. Duffy also notes that fewer farmers are needed because of advances in technology. “We have 48-row planters. We have planters that can do a field in a day,” he says. “When you have that kind of technology, you don’t need people.”
There are also opportunities available for younger farmers, like selling directly to consumers at farmers’ markets. “There’s a lot of young people who are quietly making it, not farming in the way everyone else is,” he says.
Operators of very big farms are, on average, younger than those who tend to smaller ones. The average age of an operator with $1 million or more in sales is 55, while the average age of a farmer with $1,000 or less in sales is 60.1, according to the census data.
Summary: Apple's latest courtroom drama fizzled, with the company winning a verdict against Samsung that didn't even come close to paying its legal bills. Is it time for Apple to end its proxy war against Google's Android?
When the definitive history of Apple is finally written, it will be filled with courtroom scenes. With and without Steve Jobs, Apple has never been afraid to haul its rivals into court and accuse them of stealing its ideas.
The most recent episode in this never-ending courtroom drama is Apple’s victory last week over Samsung. The long-running series of patent infringement suits began in 2011 and shows no sign of ending soon. In the most recent verdict, a jury saw fit to order Samsung to pay Apple $120 million for illegally copying some of Apple’s smartphone technology.
That would be a lot of money for you or me, but it's chump change for Samsung, and the verdict is a profound disappointment for Apple.
Apple-Samsung battle turned out to be a dud. Image: iStockphoto.com
It’s reminiscent of another long-running Apple legal adventure from a different era, but the outcome looks like it will be completely different this time.
More than 20 years ago, after kicking out Steve Jobs, Apple filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit against Microsoft and HP. The company alleged that Windows and HP’s New Wave desktop shell for Windows illegally copied the Mac’s look and feel.
That lawsuit, Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., went on for four years and ended in a convincing defeat for Apple. In a preview of the current dispute, the court ruled, "Apple cannot get patent-like protection for the idea of a graphical user interface, or the idea of a desktop metaphor [under copyright law]..."
That defeat became part of Apple’s DNA. And when Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he made sure the company patented every page of every engineer’s notebook. At the launch of the original iPhone in 2007, Jobs famously showed off the new device’s touchscreen, ending with this pointed remark: “And boy, have we patented it.”
Those patents, and some related ones associated with the iPad, are at the heart of Apple’s case against Samsung.
But there’s one crucial difference between the acrimonious 1990s-era argument with Microsoft and the current battle with Samsung: Microsoft was willing to negotiate.
When Windows 1.0 was released, Apple complained that it was a little too much like the Mac. In response, Bill Gates and Company sat down to negotiate. In 1985, they signed a license agreement with Apple that turned out to be key in the later copyright-infringement cases. (It’s not the first time Bill Gates negotiated a deal that turned out to be even better for Microsoft in the long run than it looked at first blush.)
And in 1997, when Steve Jobs returned to a bloodied and fiscally unsound Apple, the first thing he did was cut a deal with Gates to end all the litigation. The deal put cash on Apple’s balance sheet. It came with a commitment from Microsoft to support the then-struggling Mac with its flagship Office suite. And it included a broad cross-licensing agreement between the two companies that made future lawsuits unlikely.
That deal was accompanied by a rare glimpse at a conciliatory Steve Jobs. When Bill Gates appeared on a giant video screen while Jobs was onstage at the Macworld Expo tradeshow, Jobs told the crowd: "We have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose."
Samsung, on the other hand, pointedly turned down repeated offers to license Apple’s technology, according to an excellent recap of the Apple-Samsung conflict in the latest issue of Vanity Fair.
Samsung’s response was basically, “You want to negotiate? Great. We’ll do it in court. It’ll cost you billions and you’ll wind up losing money in the long run.”
And you know what? They’re right.
These days, lawyers are the only ones who win in patent lawsuits.
Every player in the elite levels of the technology marketplace has loaded up on patents. Some are homegrown, some are acquired. Some are purchased in bulk, like the cache of smartphone patents that Google acquired when it acquired Motorola Mobility and kept when it sold the hardware business to Lenovo last year.
Samsung has its own cache of patents. Lost in the headlines of last week's verdict is the dmall detail that the jury found Apple guilty of infringing a Samsung patent and ordered them to pay $158,000 (that's thousands, not millions) in damages.
Patents are messy and confusing and expensive to defend. Small companies are occasionally able to pull off a David and Goliath victory, like the one Eolas won against Microsoft for a patent that was eventually invalidated.
Non-practicing entities like Nathan Myrhvold’s Intellectual Ventures are also able to work the system, buying up patents and then working out licensing deals with companies that decide it’s easier to pay up than to fight. (Nest, later purchased by Google, is a famous example.) Based on that behavior, Intellectual Ventures and similar companies get branded as “patent trolls.” The characterization is, arguably, spot on.
But in the elite circles of tech — the ones inhabited by Apple and Google and Microsoft and Amazon — these suits rarely result in a knockout punch. Microsoft and IBM long ago settled on a defensive strategy for patents, one that involves broad cross-licensing agreements with their rivals aimed at specifically avoiding this sort of courtroom drama.
Indeed, many of the accusations leveled at Samsung in the latest trial should really be aimed at Google’s Android, which has freely cloned features from Apple, so far with impunity. Google even paid some of Samsung’s legal bills in the current round of trials, suggesting it’s well aware of its behind-the scenes role.
Before his death, Steve Jobs infamously told his biographer, Walter Isaacson, of his loathing for Android. In another of Apple’s many lawsuits, this one against Motorola Mobility, which had recently been purchased by Google, the judge allowed Motorola Mobility’s lawyers to use his angry words in court.
In the biography, Jobs is quoted as saying, "Google, you f***ing ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off." And he promised, "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."
Four years later, Apple has even more billions in the bank, but so does Google. And all-out war between the two companies isn’t likely to result in destroying Android, even if it does succeed in transferring some dollars from a bank in Cupertino to one in Mountain View.
If that lawsuit does come to pass, it will probably make for high drama, but once again the lawyers will be the only winners.
Update: For those who are curious about the amount of legal fees in the battle between Apple and Samsung, Kurt Eichenwald in his thorough piece for Vanity Fair estimates that the two sides have spent a total of more than $1 billion so far. And the war is far from over.
Colleges’ spring terms are winding down, which means thousands of newly minted graduates of four-year colleges will soon be entering the workforce, encumbered by more than $29,000 in student loan debt, per average debtor. At the same time, there’s wide debate about how well college prepares students to compete for the kinds of jobs that would help them pay off their debts.
This disconnect at the top of the academic pyramid is being exploited by community colleges and online educational institutions, often to students’ advantage. What they lack in ivy and clock towers, these places make up for by understanding how to cater to busy working adults and their employers.
Today in Washington, the disruption of higher ed will take another step with the announcement of the first nationally available $10,000 bachelor’s degree. That’s $10,000 for the whole degree, not per year. It will be offered by College for America, an online operation of Southern New Hampshire University. The college keeps its costs down by offering classes online. Unlike other online schools, it operates through employers. Companies such as McDonald’s (MCD) and Partners HealthCare, a hospital operator that’s the biggest private employer in Massachusetts, will offer College for America as an employee benefit and as a way to upgrade the quality of their workforces.
College for America doesn’t teach courses with credit hours. It teaches competencies, and it tests them using projects that resemble work that employees would be called on to do in their real lives. The first bachelor’s degrees to be offered are in health-care management and communications. College for America soft-launched last year with various associate’s degrees.
College-bound high schoolers may not find any of this particularly exciting, which is deliberate. Paul LeBlanc, the president of Southern New Hampshire University, told me the program is designed for adult learners who don’t want the “bubble,” with quads and clubs, that traditional college-age students do. “They’re chomping down a meal in the parking lot, racing home to see their kids before they get to sleep.” They’re all about acquiring and demonstrating mastery of new skills, and getting paid for them.
College for America “recognizes the knowledge and skills that our folks already have, so they’re not sitting through an Introduction to Business course that they could probably teach,” says Lisa Schumacher, director of education strategies at McDonald’s. Mary Jane Ryan, workforce development director at Partners, told me the pilot project with College for America is going “fabulously well.”
The school’s online degree won’t solve the problem of college costs for everyone, but the trend toward teaching practical skills may well trickle up. Says LeBlanc: “There are a lot of these programs coming. There are already a fair number of competency-based programs in existence, thirtyish. There are 130 in development and hundreds being discussed. This is a wave. This is coming.”
There’s unquestionably a market for education that’s tightly focused on employers’ needs. In the last few weeks, I’ve heard inspiring stories from schools such as Des Moines Area Community College in Iowa, Seattle Colleges (formerly known as Seattle Community Colleges), and City Colleges of Chicago. I spoke to students like Janet Murumba, 33, a Kenyan immigrant and mother who received a certificate in industrial manufacturing. Her Seattle Colleges program blends academics with hands-on skills to the benefit of both. Her aspiration: to build airplane wings atBoeing (BA). “In class,” she told me, “I could drill for the first time, and it was like, ‘Oh God, it’s happening, it’s real.’”
Coy is Bloomberg Businessweek's economics editor. His Twitter handle is @petercoy.
On Saturday, May 3, the most exciting two minutes in sports was displayed on the biggest 4K screen in the world. TechRepublic visited Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky during Derby week to see the screen and fan reactions.
The First Call to Post in the giant billboard:
Close-ups of the race for all fans to see
The Big Board has a 170 degree view around the track
SpaceX, the rocket and space exploration company founded by entrepreneur Elon Musk, filed a protest against the U.S. Air Force this week, saying that the military has unfairly prevented it from competing for space satellite launches.
The following day, Russia’s deputy prime minister, Dmitry Rogozin, who is targeted by U.S. sanctions over Ukraine, suggested that America may need to find a largetrampoline to continue NASA’s access to the International Space Station. Since the space shuttle’s retirement, the U.S. pays Russia about $71 million per seat to fly U.S. astronauts to the station. The current ISS mission, Expedition 39 (pdf), has two Americans among the six-person crew.
Musk knows a PR opportunity when he sees one. On Tuesday night, he tweeted:
In May 2012, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket successfully sent the company’s Dragon spacecraft into orbit to dock with the International Space Station, which has been followed by subsequent trips to carry cargo to and from the ISS. The ISS crew will send cargo back to earth on May 18 aboard the Dragon. SpaceX plans its first Dragon test flight with humans as early as 2015. The final design is expected to carry seven astronauts to and from the ISS.
Musk, also the founder of electric car maker Tesla Motors (TSLA), established SpaceX in 2002 as part of his broader mission to make other planets habitable by humans—a long-term goal, to say the least. But to fund its research into rockets and other technologies, the company relies largely on NASA for contracts to serve the ISS. The Pentagon’s routine launch of military satellites is another potential source of income and a catalyst for SpaceX’s recent legal action.
In its bid protest, filed April 28 at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, SpaceX contends that the Air Force’s contract to purchase 35 rockets from the United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture, did not allow other bidders. SpaceX says each ULA space launch costs taxpayers $400 million, four times the price of its own launches and twice what other nations spend to launch their missions. “This legal action seeks to shine a spotlight on an issue that has gone unchecked since 2006, when the ULA monopoly was formed—the lack of competition in the national security launch market,” SpaceX said Tuesday in a blog posting.
United Launch Alliance says its “block buy” contract with the Air Force saved taxpayers $4 billion and that it has successfully launched 81 consecutive missions for customers, including the Air Force, NASA, and the National Reconnaissance Office. The Centennial (Colo.) company said the launch contract involves “hundreds of suppliers” and would cost billions to cancel.
SpaceX also raised the current U.S.-Russian contretemps over Crimea as a potential further reason (pdf) the Air Force should reconsider its contract with the Boeing(BA)-Lockheed Martin (LMT) unit. From its website:
“The contract is made even more egregious in light of deteriorating US relations with Russia. The majority of EELV launches are performed by ULA’s Atlas family of launch vehicles, which use the RD-180 rocket engine. The RD-180 is made in Russia by NPO Energomash, which is owned and controlled by the Russian government. The Russian space and defense industries are led by Dmitry Rogozin, the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia. Rogozin is on the United States’ sanctions list as a result of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea. As the U.S. contemplates additional sanctions against the Russian defense sector, it is incongruous and damaging that ULA continues to send millions of dollars to Russian controlled entities to support U.S. national security. Given international events, this seems like the wrong time to send hundreds of millions of dollars to the Kremlin—especially considering there are domestic alternatives available and qualified to compete today that do not rely on components from countries that pose a national security risk.”
Musk appears ready to do his part for the new Chilly War.
