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POPSRussian Military Spending: $50 Billion New York Times story adds that certain U.S. military officials are "unimpressed" by Russia's plans. One told the times that “these programs have long been in the works. They are not new plans.” As we noted here, http://www.forbes.com/beltway/2008/09/30/aerospace-defense-washington-biz-wash-cz_atg_0930beltway.html , President Bush recently signed a defense appropriations bill totaling $488 billion.
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POPSReport: Military Should Use Less Private Security Government Executive story, by Robert Brodsky, points to more pressure on President-elect Obama to scale back on use of private contractors. Pair this story with another interesting one from the Washington Post today: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/16/AR2008111601841.html
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POPSHow Much Spy Work Gets Farmed Out? This AP clip, via GovExec.com, underscores a trend we've been watching: congressional concern that federal workforce is too dependent on contractors. The clip goes on to note a significant annual cost discrepancy between the average intelligence contractor ($207,000) and a federal employee ($125,000).
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POPSThe U.S. Army's Facebook Government Executive's Gautham Nagesh takes a look at the success of the U.S. Army's online social networking. "I like to say we were Web 2.0 before Web 2.0 was defined," says one Army official in the story.
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POPSU.S. Department of Energy: Six Solar Bets Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy gave the nod to six solar companies working on advanced photovoltaic tech. The companies chosen hail from California, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Among them: 1366 Technologies, a company we profiled recently here: http://www.forbes.com/businessinthebeltway/2008/08/19/beltway-solar-vanmierlo-biz-wash-cz_atg_0820beltway.html The dollar amounts here are a long way from staggering, and, as the DOE's press release notes, they are "subject to annual appropriations." At the very least, the win fits 1366's explicit strategy of working with public sector.
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POPSAir Force and Renewables This is a nice read on the role of government's involvement in energy tech. It's also interesting to see SunPower (nasdaq: SPWR) here. That stock is off 40% from a 52-week high but still sells for 5.6 times sales.
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POPSMcCain and Michigan In its "Insiders Poll" this week, the National Journal asks 77 Republican luminaries (pollsters, lobbyists, strategists, and so on) which states McCain has the best chance of picking up. At the top of of the list is Michigan. A handful of Democrats, polled on the same question, put New Hampshire at the top of the list and Michigan second. The clip delves into the political dynamics at work in Michigan.
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POPSThe Hill: Soros Floats Bailout Plan with Dems Story, by The Hill's Alexander Bolton, picks up on George Soros' opinion piece in the Financial Times today http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d68e10cc-8f45-11dd-946c-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1 The Hill story speculates that Soros "could jumpstart congressional negotiations in a new direction, especially now that some strategists believe the Paulson-based plan that failed Monday will be difficult to revive." Here's more on George Soros: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/10/billionaires08_George-Soros_L9II.html
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POPSPols Taking Stock Hits Note: Let's hope Mrs. Kerry still has a nice chunk of H.J. Heinz. That stock is up 7% year to date, versus a 15 point drop for the S&P 500.
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POPSMilitary Spending: Not ‘Recession Proof’ The New York Times' Thom Shanker and Christopher Drew survey the outlook for U.S. military spending. From the equities standpoint, U.S. aerospace and defense stocks are down 33.2% year to date, versus a drop of 33.9% broadly for U.S. equities.
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POPSPot Advocates Fired Up by Hill Salute to Legal Booze This item, penned by Roll Call's Emily Heil and Elizabeth Brotherton, has a lighthearted tone, but it underscores that alcohol distributors, as we noted here http://www.forbes.com/businessinthebeltway/2006/05/08/beer-tradegroup-lobby-cx_atg_0509beer.html a few years back, are a serious force inside the Beltway. The legislation passed last week lauds legal liquor's generation of "billions of dollars in Federal and Sales tax revenues" annually. With the red ink flood in Washington, maybe legal pot will get a harder look from Congress.
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POPSVeins! Via Government Computer News http://www.gcn.com/
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POPSHouse Leadership Battle to Watch Dan Friedman and Richard Cohen of National Journal's CongressDaily report. Implications here could be big, especially on the matter of climate change. For more on that topic, see this recent story: http://www.forbes.com/businessinthebeltway/2008/10/22/energy-green-congress-biz-beltway-cx_jz_1023climate.html
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POPSAnti-kidnap Implants Via HS Daily Wire (www.hsdailywire.com). Company featured in the story, Xega, is planning to expand throughout Latin America.
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POPSConservative Bloggers Poised to Progress The Republican Party may still be licking its wounds, but conservative bloggers, pointing to recent history of their counterparts on the left, are licking their chops. As Democrats entered the political wilderness earlier this century, liberal sites like www.dailykos.com and others thrived. “I suspect within the next four years," says Erick Erickson of www.redstate.com, "the left is going to be surprised at how well the right progresses and develops online.”
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POPS$480 Billion isn't Enough? The story points out a warning in June from the Government Accountability Office that the Department of Defense's "portfolio of weapons systems far exceeds its resources." Food for thought for defense investors, particularly as November elections approach.
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POPSSAIC Conflict Case Another story playing up the government's vulnerability as contractors gain clout. Pair this together with last week's reports (http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/cbo-iraq-contracts-close-to-hitting-100-billion-mark-2008-08-12.html) on the military's startling reliance on contractors in Iraq (190,000 there now). An equity analyst (ex-military) I spoke to last week on the topic mentioned that, even if political pressure mounts to rein in contractors, it would be very difficult and expensive for the government to do so.
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POPSCarbon Dioxide Emissions Outpacing Projections Pair this Washington Post story together with the item, clipped last night by my colleague Rebecca Ruiz, on impact of carbon overload on coral reefs. Further down in the Post story, James L. Connaughton, who chairs the White House Council on Environmental Quality, stresses the "need for a broader and more aggressive effort by the major economies to come together."
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POPSDefense Contractors Get Jitters Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics all get mentions in this Washington Post story. Pair the story with our item earlier this month on an aerospace trade group's approach to the budget: http://www.forbes.com/beltway/2008/09/30/aerospace-defense-washington-biz-wash-cz_atg_0930beltway.html
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POPSSmall Company in the big Airwaves Fight The Post profiles a small Virginia company, Shared Spectrum, addressing the matter of unused airwaves. Other big players here: the National Association of Broadcasters and Google.
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POPS$500 Billion Federal Budget Deficit On the front page of today's Washington Post, another sobering view of the U.S. government's fiscal situation. Note: eight years ago, with the federal budget in the black, the Post also aired fiscal worries in several stories. This September 2000 story (link unavailable), "Spending Floodgates Open on Hill," had this quote from Senator John McCain: "The deficit used to have some modest braking influence, but now that that's not there, it's just a free-for-all," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) "They're all equal opportunity pork-barrelers . . . This is the worst ever."
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POPSRadiation Detection at Ports? $3.1 Billion According to the clip, via National Journal's Earlybird news digest, the Department of Homeland Security says GAO's estimate is misleadingly high "because it includes operation and maintenance costs." Unless I'm missing something, that strikes me as an unusually lame response. Why wouldn't you consider maintenance costs for something like a system to detect nukes?
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