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http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/23/us/gallery/uss-forrestal/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

So the USS Forrestal just was just sold for scrap......for $1

Now I would think that there was someway for a government to get a little more money than pocket change for a super carrier! Wasteful, irresponsible, stupid government. Military contracting really has just gotten way out of hand! I know in the long run its all pennys, but if you count the pennies they do add up eventually!

 Andrew1975 wrote:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/23/us/gallery/uss-forrestal/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

So the USS Forrestal just was just sold for scrap......for $1

Now I would think that there was someway for a government to get a little more money than pocket change for a super carrier! Wasteful, irresponsible, stupid government. Military contracting really has just gotten way out of hand! I know in the long run its all pennys, but if you count the pennies they do add up eventually!

O.o

There's more to it that that.... it may be that the contractor bidded for that... and hopes to sell the scrap for a profit.

You're neglecting the cost of keeping a useless ship around. It could very well be worth it to give the ship away just to make it someone else's problem, even if nobody is willing to pay for it.

How many people would we have to pay to cut it up to sell it ourselves? Not counting all the EPA headache resulting from that...

 Peregrine wrote:
You're neglecting the cost of keeping a useless ship around. It could very well be worth it to give the ship away just to make it someone else's problem, even if nobody is willing to pay for it.

I'd be curious to know if they at least tried to sell it for scrap previous to this. But I do buy your argument in theory.

I don't reload my own brass because I don't have the equipment or the inclination; so although the guy on the range hoovering up my brass sees me as a moron, I still think I'm making the best call for my situation.

Thanks Obama!

 Ouze wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
You're neglecting the cost of keeping a useless ship around. It could very well be worth it to give the ship away just to make it someone else's problem, even if nobody is willing to pay for it.

I'd be curious to know if they at least tried to sell it for scrap previous to this. But I do buy your argument in theory.

I don't reload my own brass because I don't have the equipment or the inclination; so although the guy on the range hoovering up my brass sees me as a moron, I still think I'm making the best call for my situation.

they did, at least according to Wikipedia.

At one point, they were going to sink it as a reef!

Ha! Nice find.

Selling an asset for a token coin is a way of saying, you take the asset for free but also have all its accumulated debts.

There must be costings to the ship which are offesrt onto the buyer, this is what happens when something substantial is sold of a dollar or pound.

Major companies, multinationals and major banks have been sold for this much, and it always means the same thing, a transfer of financial liability alongside the asset.

 Polonius wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
You're neglecting the cost of keeping a useless ship around. It could very well be worth it to give the ship away just to make it someone else's problem, even if nobody is willing to pay for it.

I'd be curious to know if they at least tried to sell it for scrap previous to this. But I do buy your argument in theory.

I don't reload my own brass because I don't have the equipment or the inclination; so although the guy on the range hoovering up my brass sees me as a moron, I still think I'm making the best call for my situation.

they did, at least according to Wikipedia.

At one point, they were going to sink it as a reef!

Yes, but the reef serves a purpose instead of spending whatever it costs to build the reef, you just sink the ship. Also there was a group that wanted to buy it and turn it into a museum. Now some predatory company with government ties like Halliburton is going to make millions selling it for scrap. The fleecing of America just continues.

I'm sure there are many option besides just selling it for $1.

 Andrew1975 wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
You're neglecting the cost of keeping a useless ship around. It could very well be worth it to give the ship away just to make it someone else's problem, even if nobody is willing to pay for it.

I'd be curious to know if they at least tried to sell it for scrap previous to this. But I do buy your argument in theory.

I don't reload my own brass because I don't have the equipment or the inclination; so although the guy on the range hoovering up my brass sees me as a moron, I still think I'm making the best call for my situation.

they did, at least according to Wikipedia.

At one point, they were going to sink it as a reef!

Yes, but the reef serves a purpose instead of spending whatever it costs to build the reef, you just sink the ship. Also there was a group that wanted to buy it and turn it into a museum. Now some predatory company with government ties like Halliburton is going to make millions selling it for scrap. The fleecing of America just continues.

I'm sure there are many option besides just selling it for $1.

Is it a local company?

Not sure if that qualifies as a "fleecing".

 Andrew1975 wrote:
Yes, but the reef serves a purpose instead of spending whatever it costs to build the reef, you just sink the ship.

No you don't. Preparing a ship for being sunk as a reef takes a lot of time and money, unless you want to create an underwater toxic waste dump for some reason.

Also there was a group that wanted to buy it and turn it into a museum.

Did they really have a viable plan to buy it and turn it into a museum in the near future, or was it just speculation about "wouldn't it be cool to have a carrier someday"?

Now some predatory company with government ties like Halliburton is going to make millions selling it for scrap.

Or, more likely, the profit margin on the scrapping isn't all that great and nobody would be interested in taking it if they had to pay millions for it.

I'm sure there are many option besides just selling it for $1.

Of course there are. The US government could continue to pay to store the ship indefinitely while shopping around for a buyer until finally they reach a point where even if they manage to sell it for millions they're still losing money on the deal.

Everyone take note. I just agreed with everything Peregrine said.

 djones520 wrote:
Everyone take note. I just agreed with everything Peregrine said.

*sigh* time to reset the counter

 djones520 wrote:
Everyone take note. I just agreed with everything Peregrine said.

Me to!

I think we're all coming down with something....

Actually it says 1 Penny, so not even $1, it's $0.01 woo! And most definitely it had to be a case of get it the hell out of here. We're already cutting up and selling carriers and submarines, with the Enterprise and the Kittyhawk recently being decommissioned, they need space for them. From what I understand it's exactly as Peregrine said. It's being hauled out of Philidelphia to Texas to be cut to pieces. At some point they have to look and realize they can't sell it for what it's worth and if they keep it it's going to keep draining money, and after as long as it's been in dock it's probably a massive investment for safety and most of the metal is probably worthless with all the advances in metallurgy since it's creation. They're probably just going to cut it apart and still have to remelt it down and combine it with new stuff just to make it useable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And apparently it was bought by a scrap company, so they are just going to make money off base value of the metal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Aha, here's the official Navy.Mil website statement

http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=77193

So it's less of a here have this ship and more of a here's a penny to dismantle this ship for us and recycle it based on the overall cost the company will make after it dismantles the ship and sells the scrap. So the company just netted itself multiple years of work with the option to have even more carriers delivered to them over time to continue the process.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So it's not SOLD for a penny, we gave them a penny to take it and do all the work to try and make themselves a profit. Kind of like defense contracts that say we give you x amount of money for x amount of years to supply us with this specific product. But this time we said, here's a penny, cut up all our ships that we can't seem to sell or donate for us.

Side note, I'm active Navy, this is why I'm so interested in this

sounds like we all missed out on one heckuva no limit ebay bid

 Peregrine wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
Yes, but the reef serves a purpose instead of spending whatever it costs to build the reef, you just sink the ship.

No you don't. Preparing a ship for being sunk as a reef takes a lot of time and money, unless you want to create an underwater toxic waste dump for some reason.

Also there was a group that wanted to buy it and turn it into a museum.

Did they really have a viable plan to buy it and turn it into a museum in the near future, or was it just speculation about "wouldn't it be cool to have a carrier someday"?

Now some predatory company with government ties like Halliburton is going to make millions selling it for scrap.

Or, more likely, the profit margin on the scrapping isn't all that great and nobody would be interested in taking it if they had to pay millions for it.

I'm sure there are many option besides just selling it for $1.

Of course there are. The US government could continue to pay to store the ship indefinitely while shopping around for a buyer until finally they reach a point where even if they manage to sell it for millions they're still losing money on the deal.

Pretty much what I was going to say on the subject

More Data!

So for those of you looking at overall costs I've found through the Rand Corporation an overall estimate of costs in regards to the entire process and all the options for disposal of ships. at the time of the publication it accounts for 358 Navy ships in total being scheduled for dismantling, this number as only grown as we can't afford to dismantle the ships we've been decommissioning to make way for new ships. It puts forth a lot of good data! Including rough estimates for a 20 year disposal program using 4 contractors and easily soars past 2 Billion in costs for various methods.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1377.html\

Chapter 3 is quite interesting as it applies more to using contractors for scrap and recycling, including pointing out the cost for reef recycling which would soar to over 9 Billion dollars. It also includes the budget of a ship being dismantled at the time to show actual events and costs. I especially like the point of the average price of 200 Thousand to tow a ship 955 miles.

Anywho, I think the Navy has overall saved the government a lot of money with this move, and I wish the scrap yard the best of luck in making a profit off of this.

See? No controversy.

I think the city of Detroit needs to do the same thing on those abandoned city blocks/warehouse/factories.

 whembly wrote:
See? No controversy.

I think the city of Detroit needs to do the same thing on those abandoned city blocks/warehouse/factories.

I thought that's what they were trying to do with those hundred dollar houses? Of course with those, you don't just get the house, but all sorts of other problems too.

Yeah, you buy a $100 house and its probably got 500k in debt that comes along with it.

 whembly wrote:
See? No controversy.

I think the city of Detroit needs to do the same thing on those abandoned city blocks/warehouse/factories.

On the west coast in farm country, when the government buys land for highways. It has been know to sell for a dollor, with the agreement you move the building somewhere else.

Same thing with the ship, basically they buy law must get some payment for it, but really just want it out of there hair.

Pff, $100 homes in Detroit. What do you think this is 2011? You can get them for $1 now.

They don't usually come with bank-related debt per se - the banks have generally cut their losses years ago - but they come with significant infrastructure issues (the copper piping will probably be missing, the house will need to be re-wired). and so on. You won't even have to pay property taxes on these houses.

The real catch is not the problems inherent with the house, but that you have to live in Detroit, with all the problems that entails.

Yeah... if you buy those houses, you'd better insulate them with Kevlar. And make sure you electrify your new copper piping.

 djones520 wrote:
Yeah... if you buy those houses, you'd better insulate them with Kevlar. And make sure you electrify your new copper piping.

Also, sentry guns.

Sometimes you'll get an item with some assets in it, but in a form that is very costly to access. So you might have a lot high grade steel in a mine that's just been closed, but it's in the middle of nowhere and so the costs in getting a team out to the mine to cut it up, and then transport the metal back (and dispose of the degraded parts) will cost millions. So to the mining company they've just got a liability that's going to cost more to dispose of than the raw materials can offset, likely to the tune of millions. On the other hand a scrap company will have more expertise and be able to do the same job at a profit. So a deal is made, and the $1 price tag is just there so both parties have some consideration and a formal contract recognised.

Perhaps, theoretically, the mining company above (or the government selling the carrier) might sit there and assess the value of the asset to the scrapping company and look to demand a higher price... but how many hours do you want government to sit there hashing out a deal with a scapping company to drive the price up to $50 grand or whatever? For such a piddly amount of money do you want to risk the deal falling through and being left with an old boat that continues to degrade and soak up money and maintenance hours?

So instead they just get rid of it... and someone else gets to try and make some kind of money on the thing.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
Yes, but the reef serves a purpose instead of spending whatever it costs to build the reef, you just sink the ship. Also there was a group that wanted to buy it and turn it into a museum. Now some predatory company with government ties like Halliburton is going to make millions selling it for scrap. The fleecing of America just continues.

I'm sure there are many option besides just selling it for $1.

You really need to speculate a lot less.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Forrestal_(CV-59)

The fire of 29 July 1967 is still used for training purposes in US Navy boot camp to this day:




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire

The chief with the Purple K extinguisher was Chief Aviation Boatswain's Mate Gerald W. Farrier. Due to his bravery in this incident, the Navy named the Fire Fighting School Learning Site in Norfolk after him to honor his sacrifice on this day.

If you want to read a more detailed book regarding this disaster, might I suggest the book by Gregory A Freeman "Sailors to the End: The Deadly Fire on the USS Forrestal and the Heroes Who Fought It."