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Military Contracting Last Defense in Bad Economy
It's career day in Charlottesville, Virginia, and for one industry, business is booming. More than 1.6 million Americans work in defense contracting companies that supply the Department of Defense with everything from bombers to forks. And Americans aren't wrong to think a defense job is a good job—even during economic tough times, more than 50% of taxpayer dollars go to the Pentagon. In a bad economy, are defense contractors the last line of defense for the unemployed?
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27 Comments so far
Show AllEternal occupations and wars equals eternal revenue for the miltary industrial media complex.
Daddy Warbucks wins again !
These Merchants of Death are making a real killing.
"Hating" this country seems to overlook the real culprits. I, in turn, love my country, and so much that I am compelled to continue to do what I can to effect change. Despising our working class folks leaves no room to understand the forces that keep us all ignorant and in slavery.
At some point though, people need to accept responsibility for their own ignorance, which all too often is a willful ignorance. Americans don't use their god-given common sense, their basic powers of observation, or their natural critical thinking abilities, even when reality is staring them right in the face. They prefer to be ignorant, because it makes them feel good about themselves, and guarantees that they will be popular and have lots of superficial friends who don't care about the world either. It's much more fun than being a bummer, someone who dwells on the negative, or a boring political-type person. Seriously, fuck this country.
Seriously, somebody needs to support the Big Pharma Companies! if nobody cared we woulbn't need so much in the way of Anti-Depressents! now would they?
Course, you could always stand in the middle of the White House lawn and yell "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!" But I think the guards would probably just shoot you if you tried!
Shit I need anouther pill now!
>^^<
Nineteen bucks an hour on the line assembling hellfire missiles. Nice work if you can get it.
@ 1:52 -- I'm a pacifist but I'm a realist, too. I mean sometimes war is necessary. Just because we want to be peaceful doesn't mean (garbled) want to be peaceful.
$19 an hr!!! shit they charge $2000 a pop for those things! they need a union!
>^^<
War weapons kill humans and other earthlings. Temporary pecuniary increases cannot hide the fact that the only thing really booming is death.
When Bush said, "I don't do nuance", what he, as a valid representative of the MIC like our current corporate tool (Obama) meant is that the MIC has no conscience.
Civilizations without conscience self destruct. ALWAYS. Perhaps the current iteration of fascistt psychopath bullies believe they can avoid this fate through quantum jumping or some other pseudo scientific claptrap. What probably is occurring is that cocaine has completely eliminated the elite's power to think about the repercussions of their murderous behavior. Their dopmine soaked amygdalas are completely sated with chemical bliss. These cocaine addled bastards think decent, humane behavior is unnecessary for species survival.
Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
Defense contractors are very poor financial managers. Every dollar we spend on defense probably buys US thirty cents worth of value. We should turn defense contracting over to oil interests. Oil interests are ruthless financial people. I'm not kidding!
You echo the words of an unlikely ally, at least in this one case. Milton Friedman, yeah that guy, stated almost exactly the same thought decades ago. Money spent on defense is returned to the economy far less than is money spent on infrastructure, social programs and the like.
Madness.
her
It is clear NOW more than ever, we need an other system. Surely by NOW we know what & where is the greatest threat to humanity. It is EXPORTING STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM, horror and inhumanity in the most blatant way.
Welcome to the real word.
No Terror No torture Just truth.
Maybe like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w
It's "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward".
Bi-partisan trickle-down economic stimulus.
Also known as pissing on working people.
Next time you hear some tea partier bitch and moan about "creeping socialism", politely remind him or her that we already have a system of socialism, but instead of producing anything of use, it produces nothing but bullets and bombs and other instruments of death.
The largest employer, wal mart;' the favorite place to eat, mc donalds, most popular entertainment, dancing with the stars; most stable sector of the economy, defense. I know these land mines are bad, but I need to pay the bills, where's the remote? Alas.
Only true believers in American Defence get the contracts.
War is now the only economic game left in the nation.
To stop now will lead to a general collapse.
To keep going, also leads to another national economic relapse.
The money flows from treasury into the Pentagon and Wall Street.
Then the Pentagon takes more money from Wall Street.
The contractors spread around the dough.
and vote for wars so as to keep up a money flow.
How is the USA going to feed its own people with guns?
Is it going to be just like Iraq, Bahrain or Pakistan?
Or more like Libya, with missiles and planes?
Or troops in the streets shooting protesters and shop looters?
Because orders to kill occur after soon social welfare is cut,
when the rioters can no longer be still and compliant.
B3nign___Think Mexico for starters,,, then Haiti.
Great to see there are jobs available... Is military hardware all we have?
Meanwhile just one example of stupidity, the housing industry is still in big trouble with no end in sight. New homes are not being constructed as needed, older homes are not selling, the forclosure disaster continues at thousands per week. Millions of construction workers are idle with little or no income.
Less new homes snowballs into other business. Less sales of appliances, heating and air conditioning systems, hardware, lumber, piping, sinks, toilets, bathtubs and electrical supplies, landscaping, paint, roofing and flooring materials, new home owners not buying furniture, the real estate and mortage comanie's employees laid off or little income, transportaion of goods slowed, etc, etc, etc.
It all boils down to we have outsourced so much of our industry to foreign countries so that the owners and stock holders of the companies earn more and millins are out of work and are not buying homes or anything else. The owners or controllers are stupidly killing their own goose.
Add all of that to our spending trillion$ of our treasury on illegal wars. Trillion$ which have been (borrowed) from other countries... Insanity, very much like the fall of the Roman Empire. How much longer do we have?
Well, you can't buy a home without a job! The military don't pay well enough to buy a house! becides homes are built by illegals anyway! Don't buy a home, cause if you buy a home you won't have enough to eat. If you can't find a job that pays enough to buy a home, you shouldn't buy a home. it's just keeps on spinning!
So re-enlist, theres always another war! praise Obomber!
>^^<
With the American, offense war racket, industry; nothing changes: ENDLESS ENEMIES; FOR ENDLESS WARS; FOR ENDLESS PROFITS!
Problem is the profits are not endless. MIC will experience some form of gravity sooner than later. Government revenue is down and cannot support the extraordinarily inefficient MIC indefinitely. The national credit card is maxed out. The Treasury, buyer of last resort for T-Bills, will stop buying back government notes in June. Let's see how the free market values our debt!
GE, Exxon, etc...., the Walton Family, every Gomer tea bagger and Bill, Warren and friends expect someone else to pay their taxes. The working peoples' cupboard is bare. Capitalism itself cannot defy the rules of gravity indefinitely. And the band plays on..... while China grows stronger every day.
"Problem is the profits are not endless". Well they have been endless for well over 100 years! I would hope you are correct, of course! But I do not see the profits ending in our lifetimes.
One man's profit is another man's pain. As the people lose more and more to MIC, oil, pharma, etc... profits, that big rubber band, holding all of capitalism together, (with a whole lot of $600 dollar per roll Mil-spec duct tape), will break, in the form of violence here at home. (The MIC uses Mil-spec rubber bands also.)
W-2d employees are the only ones paying for the rubber bands and duck tape anymore. Social programs can be cut just so far. When the rubber band breaks it will be like the mighty miss barreling down on all of US.
They have the Patriot Act, security forces, ATF, massive surveillance programs, prison camps ready and waiting, drones, high tech weaponry, and control of the media. The people will be on the right side of history. Goliath has been defeated before.
Hi Paul Revere, may we assume that you are in your mid or late 90s?
I foresee a depression at any time during the next year or two. Then the fit will hit the shan and profits will cease.
Also one major reason we have not already experienced a depression is so many are retired and most have decent incomes with a retirement paycheck and SS, about double that for elderly married couples. They are buying and helping to keep the economy afloat, even if most of our merchandise purchased is (made in China).
If and when a depression hits, those retirement checks will cease... The smokers who pay near $3 bucks an ounce federal tax for tobacco help too.
My personal "theory" of economics.