Regarding the last of series of large layoffs I remember being affected by, it was around the end of Viet Nam - please don't imply that my memory is faulty or my dad was not a good engineer. It's not and he is. More than likely if you've flown within the last 35 years, you rode on aircraft made with tooling he designed or whose production he led. So, at least, you better hope he wasn't a crappy engineer.
I was what I call an aerospace brat. Washington, Georgia, San Diego, LA, almost went to St. Louis. If you know anything about the aircraft industry, you know those cities. We were also affected by previous layoffs on Bomark, Boeing SST, C-5, and the Hughes light attack helicopter (Cayuse).
Thankfully, for you, you missed those 'blips'... When Boeing lost the SST they had already built an engineering team to do it. When the project was canned due to environmental concerns about the effects of exhaust in the stratospheric ozone layer, he was out of work for a year in Washington state. Housing dropped by 30% I remember vacant houses for sale everywhere. One even caught fire 3 doors down.
I think, again, you missed the point of the post. Those were all government funded, i.e., socialized expenditures into what was known as the Military-Industrial complex. Go back and look at the context of what I was saying. Making artificial distinctions between "military" and "government" is nonsensical in our our system of government where Congress has the power of the purse. Military has no budget that elected Congress doesn't approve. And everyone knows that we wanted to send a "free American citizen" into space to show those military fascist bastard Commies. Don't think it didn't piss off the seven Mercury astronauts - oops, they were all military, weren't they. They had all the hours and experience. |
