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To: LarsA who wrote (149245)	4/6/2007 5:25:31 PM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 152472

scratching backs... A time honored tradition....of course, it's equally old companion is an eye for an eye <g>. Curious, how do you think the US should respond if the EU mandates DVB-H? Slacker

To: LarsA who wrote (149245)	4/8/2007 10:46:45 PM
From: Rich Bloem	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Lars, it is true that the Finns purchased F-18's. However, that was a decision obviously based upon their needs not on government mandated decisions or politics. I remember very well (when I was a Corporate Director of Procurement at General Dynamics) making a trip to Vienna in an effort to support our efforts to sell 62 F-16 Fighters to the Austrian Government. Our main competitor was the French Mirage. Forget about the Airframe capabilities. The actual decision came down to dollars and by that I mean American Dollars. Let me explain. In the US we have a law against "Reciprocity" .This basically means that no bribery or buying of contracts are allowed. This puts the US companies at a disadvantage in terms of doing worldwide business because this is the norm in international transactions. In addition, we also have a law that disallows the US Government from participating in any private transaction by subsidizing such a venture. So, we (General Dynamics and I assume all other major defense contractors) have a system called offset. The purpose of that is to try to offset the major US Dollars that have to leave that country in order to make a major purchase by sending as many dollars as possible back into that country by purchasing their goods or technology transfers. Thereby offsetting their major dollar loss. In the case that I am talking about, we basically came up with a proposal that would limit their outflow of US Dollars to 75 cents on the dollar. Meaning for every million dollars of outflow we would offset that by $750K. That offset was entirely private (commercial) money. We lost that bid to the Mirage. Why?? Because the French Government backed up Dessault by guaranteeing 100% offset. Meaning that for every Franc that the Austrians spent on the Mirage, the French would send (out of Government coffers) a like amount back into their treasury. In my mind that is Government Protectionism. A better example is the EU itself. Obviously a method of pooling resources in order to compete. Nothing wrong with that in of itself, but when they start circling the wagons and putting up walls, some of us have a problem with that.