Comment by deusofnull | Hacker News Reader

Comment by deusofnull | Hacker News Reader

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And if a company (or set of companies) of a given industry is operating in a single industry city, they hold all the cards in that city. That is advantageous for these companies. It was in the past and it is now, even considering the push of big companies back into cities.

A lot of corporations moved out of cities and into small municipalities / smaller states in the second half of the 20th century. They were given the gold-star treatment with tax breaks, infrastructure projects to support their corporate campuses, etc. I know a town in New Jersey where Lokheed Martin employs probably more than half of the home owners in the town. Who do you think runs that town?

Lockheed Martin is actually incredible in the scope that it influences government. The reason the F-35 continued to have such strong support even after numerous reports of design flaws and massive cost overruns: Lockheed spread the development of the F-35 over 46 states, so almost any Congressman who acts against the F-35 program acts against jobs in his or her own state.

http://www.businessinsider.com/this-map-explains-the-f-35-fi...

I always had a suspicion the 787 was just a thinly veiled union-busting activity but your description of LM's shenanigans makes me wonder if Boeing was trying to learn some new tricks from Lockheed...

> Lockheed Martin is actually incredible in the scope that it influences government. The reason the F-35 continued to have such strong support even after numerous reports of design flaws and massive cost overruns: Lockheed spread the development of the F-35 over 46 states, so almost any Congressman who acts against the F-35 program acts against jobs in his or her own state.

That's not something special about the F-35, except maybe in execution details; the strategy has been well-known and frequently practiced by many defense contractors (and commented on by critics of defense procurement) for many years before the F-35 project.

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