Funny Quote at http://fcw.com/Articles/2014/05/27/Deltek-contractor-survey.aspx?Page=2.

As the growth of the federal budget shrinks, the federal market is increasingly dominated by incumbent players, who are forced to compete on price.

If growth is velocity (speed), then "shrinking growth" would be de-accelerating (slowing down). But what if growth is actually acceleration on the velocity/speed of the federal budget (with distance being the size of the national debt), how do you "de-accelerate" your acceleration (i.e. slow down your speeding up)? Does anyone want to draw a vector diagram?

As we see the budgets start to climb back again, I think you'll see companies and agencies being smarter about the decisions they're making, and the competition over price not being quite so acute.

The article concludes on a hopeful note for federal budgets that "growth" will stop shrinking and start growing. But how does this help companies and agencies be "smarter" about decisions? Who defines the concept of smart? Is it relative? If the whole system one day crashes and burns, who will be smart enough to determine the cause of the crash?

Poorly written article for those who don't do calculus and who don't understand derivatives.

Which group includes me too, just to be clear.

H2H

Yes, I can relate. I took algebra-based physics and not calculus-based physics. I don't remember very much beyond basic algebra from high school.

I wonder how much of the problem is how the article was written versus the subject that the article was discussing. When people talk about cutting the deficit, they may or may not be talking about current spending levels. They may actually be talking about reducing how much future spending levels are greater than current spending levels (i.e. shrinking the "growth" in the budget.)

Although, if the article (and the subject it is describing) was only talking about reducing how much future spending levels increase, I am not sure why defense contractors would be, "forced to compete on price." If current spending is steady, and future spending will be increased (just not as much as some would like), how would that force contractors (more than before) to now compete on price?