F-16 is worth....80,000 tons of frozen chicken

[The Straight Story]

In connection with a special report, Reuters has scrubbed WikiLeaks, looking for State Department cables related to diplomatic efforts to help facilitate sales of American weapons systems abroad. The Atlantic Wire highlights a couple of the deals today, including one attention-grabber involving a 2005 effort by the government of Thailand to purchase fighter jets.

The Thais considered Russia's Sukhoi model, Sweden's Saab and Lockheed Martin's F-16. But there was a catch: They didn't want to pay cash, but were willing to give up 80,000 tons of frozen chicken. After some hemming and hawing, according to the leaked cables, Lockheed actually agreed to consider the deal. But it was too late. After a military coup, the Thais ended up going with the Swedish jets.

I wonder if the Thais could have facilitated the Lockheed deal earlier if they would've agreed to throw in some peanut sauce.

http://blogs.govexec.com/fedblog/2011/03/whats_an_f-16_worth_about_8000.php

[onehandle]

1. Yeah, but 80,000 tons of frozen chicken would look a lot less cooler in flight.

[azurnoir]

3. yeah but it would have been fun to watch if they allowed

Adam Savage and Jaime Hyneman to launch them

[PBS Poll-435]

2. Why does Sweden keep freezing chickens?

What if they have children?

[dizbukhapeter]

4. Saab makes some pretty planes

Too bad their cars are shit.

They should have bought the F16 instead, they were already operating that type of aircraft.

[Auggie]

5. No way I see Lockheed's Board considering chicken over money

unless Lockhead makes a fortune on servicing and spare parts, the profit margin on an F-16 is ridiculously high, or they had some other nefarious reason. Really weird.

[ashling]

6. My first thought was

what does Sue Lowden want with an F-16?

[jwirr]

7. Wonder if the chicken is healthy to eat? How do they raise, clean

and process their chickens? They must have heard about our politician last year who wanted to pay for doctors visits with chickens!