Kent Misegades emails,

I started my career in 1980 for the German aircraft company Dornier, located on Lake Constance (Bodensee).  Much of my work was funded by the German department of defense.  Before I went to Bonn to report on my results, I was schooled by manager to always end my report with a call for additional funding.  Never admit that the work was 100% finished.  the work revealed the need for more research and we wanted at least the same level of funding, if not more.   Germany had plenty of money back then for weapons and gladly agreed to our requests.  Dornier got fat and happy by bilking taxpayers into paying for all kinds of machinery to kill people.  Those people lived VERY well on the German Riviera.   Those with the deepest pockets managed to relocate to Switzerland before the company collapsed under its own dead weight.  I left out of disgust after only four years.

I am not surprised that Dornier collapsed.

Franklin Sanders of The Moneychanger observes that government money distorts an executive’s ability to accurately determine whether or not his company is profitable.  In other words, the government is paying for something that the private sector is not paying a company to do and calls into question whether to company is an ongoing concern.

About the worst thing a person or company can do is to take government money. Government money makes you weaker and dependent. It distorts accurate thinking.