I have been hearing so many friends and relatives who are Trump supporters complain “If Trump doesn’t get in this time ammo prices are going to skyrocket!” Well, he’s not going to actually do anything to fix the problem. Yes, he will prove he is not a Republican by stopping the shipment of arms and ammo to Ukraine. No way he can stop sending it to Israel though. So, at best, it will mask the problem as you see it for only a little while. Not one of you knows what the real problem is or is even looking for it.
MBAs Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Run Anything
Boiled down to a shot glass, that’s the problem. Globalization and worthless management practices known as Six Sigma and LEAN has allowed MBAs to justify becoming reliant on Russia and China for our ammunition supply chain. You know, the two countries we would most likely shoot at. No, you can’t make this shit up. If you want to know why Putin and Xi are so cocky lately it’s because they know we could only shoot at them for a little while. Two other shooting wars have really drained what little supplies we had.
One of the major black powder mills only recently got cleared to begin modernizing and start back up. This was after a “whoopsie!” event. Yes, it feels strange to be talking about black powder in 2024 since everybody mentally associates that with flintlocks but it is a major component of artillary. Cost cutting and short-cuts will always lead to “whoopsie!” MBAs can’t help themselves even when the product is gunpowder. They ought to just smoke on the shop floor!
Not Just a Powder Problem
The reason this post is here and not on Interesting Authors is the connection to OpenVMS. You all know I spent a couple decades on the platform. Even wrote this book which is the training manual for new OpenVMS developers. As such I can tell you that most, if not all, metal mill production in America is run by OpenVMS.
These systems have been horribly neglected by MBAs. When there was downturn and some kiln needed to be idled, stuff wasn’t maintained. You need brass and lead for regular bullets and steel for artillery. Guess where that comes from? That’s right, metal mills. They take in a mix of raw ore and scrap then melt it into new product.
Non-English speakers have been calling me rather profusely. All shopping around on-site contracts for what would have been a good billing rate in 1985. Sucks to be them, because it is 2024. Adding insult to injury they want 24×7 on-call support to go with that absolutely no money billing rate.
I’m pushing 60 and I’m “one of the young guys” in the world of OpenVMS. Colleges don’t teach it. You all are too cheap to buy copies of my book and train them yourself. These positions won’t be filled.
Gets Worse
I actually video conferenced with a few of these firms. They were willing to pay U.S. Citizen billing rates and let someone work remote. Some wanted to migrate to the x86 port of VMS because they had suffered hardware outages. Others wanted to modify their system so they could spin up idled lines.
Nobody else on the phone call was over 45. None had been there when these systems went in. Not one of them had ever worked on VAX (1980s) hardware which is where these systems had been created. One had came in at the tail end of Alpha (1990s) hardware. Rest had only used Itanium (fiasco from 2000s). Without exception this is pretty much how the conversation went with each company.
The Meeting
“So, do you have a valid development environment?”
“Well there has to be one somewhere.”
“Have any of you modified this system, compiled the change, and turned it into production?”
“Well, no.”
“When was the last time the system got modified?”
Everyone should experience your entire Zoom call getting “Deer in Headlights” look just once in their life.
“Are you certain you have the actual source?”
“Oh, I’m sure we have that.”
“Really? Nobody has modified this in your entire career with the company. During the 1980s there were DEC VARs (Value Added Resellers) that sold DEC hardware with custom software. It was available in almost every imaginable market segment. I worked at one of these places. In the late 1980s the DEC Sales Resistance Force pretty much put the ki-bash on VARs so they all went out of business. When the Alpha hardware came out, nobody had source to recompile. DEC created VEST (VAX something Symbolic Translator) which would convert the 32-bit VAX object and executable files to 64-bit Alpha. When the Itanium came out HP said they would never do that, but I’ve spoken to too many people who claim to have used a translator to migrate to Itanium. The bottom line is there are systems all over the world running in production for which no valid source set has existed since the late 1980s.”
Everybody should experience the sound of turds hitting the floor during a Zoom call at least once in their life.
Summary
The reason ammo prices are skyrocketing is the fact we have two shooting wars going on. Thanks to MBAs America has to rely on Russia and China to make ammunition. We do not have the production capacity within our country to make enough ammo for even one shooting war. The two countries we would most likely wish to shoot at can shut off our component supply at any point in time.
DOD wants to upgrade industrial capacity to 100,000 155mm shells per month. Until you fix the metal and gun powder mills that can’t happen. If they somehow fix gun powder well before the metal mills get fixed, you won’t be able to buy a car.
MBAs should not be allowed to run anything. They have short sighted tunnel vision and went to college to ensure that is the furthest they can look.
