via Defense Industry Daily...
The Pentagon lowered the forecast procurement cost 
of the F-35 program by 2 percent today – that’s $7.5 billion in savings over a roughly $400 billion program. The fighters are slated now to cost a mere $159.2 million per copy, if the military does indeed purchase 2,457 of them.
Good news huh? The Pentagon announcement was Friday, but earlier in the week we heard this from DoD Buzz...
The cost to develop and build the Joint Strike Fighter fleet rose 1.88 percent over the past year because of delays in the production line and failures of the engine producer to bring down costs, said Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, F-35 Program Executive Officer.
The cost of the program rose by $7.4 billion to $398.58 billion in 2012-year dollars, according to the Pentagon’s Selected Acquisition Report that is released each year to Congress. The increase in costs means tax payers will end up paying $162 million for each fifth generation fighter jet by the end of the program at the current rate.
Bogdan blamed the increased costs on the decision to push back production of the F-35 and failures by Pratt and Whitney, the company building the fighter jet’s engine. The costs of the JSF engine increased by $4 billion, Bogdan said.
So which one is it? Did the cost go up or is it going down? Do they even know or are we the "human terrain" that is being manipulated, spun, lied to (accounting gimmicks are lies) and deceived?
