In the following excerpt, a writer tries to persuade this supervisor to respond to a government request for proposals (RFP) to build an unmanned surveillance plane for the military. Which aspects of the paragraph undercut the effectiveness of the passage?

I think we are making a serious mistake by not responding. If we don't respond to this proposal, we will lose our competitive edge. At a conference last month, for example, I spoke to a couple of people who said the market for unmanned surveillance aircraft will grow exponentially during the next 10 years. Can we talk about this more at next week's planning meeting?