U.S. Government Has Spent More Than Half the Public’s Treasure on Past, Current and Future Military Operations

March 30th, 2007

Free trade. The invisible hand of the market. Capitalism.

Would you like an order of Freedom Fries with that?

Via: Common Dreams:

In the words of the great economist and engineer Seymour Melman, we live in a “permanent war economy.” Since the end of World War II, the federal government has spent more than half its tax dollars on past, current and future military operations. It is the largest single sustaining activity of the government. Melman pointed out 25 years ago that, at the time, the Pentagon was paying for 37,000 industrial firms, which oversaw over 100,000 subcontractors. Then and now, Pentagon contracts come with 1) guaranteed profits (because the products are typically sold before they are produced); 2) institutionalized cost-escalation (cost overruns are business-as-usual); and 3) products that are neither goods nor services the citizenry produces and consumes. Balance sheet calculations are not relevant to weapons manufacturers and military corporations. The Pentagon is not playing by the economic rules of producing goods, selling them for a profit, then using the profit for further investment and production. The managers at the Pentagon know their financial capital – American’s taxes – is a cash cow waiting to be milked.

Or should we say bilked? American’s hand over their hard-earned dollars to the deciders in Washington who protect the permanent war economy. The military industrial complex has tentacle that spread throughout the Congressional districts in the country. Military installations, private contractors and weapons manufacturers employ people to build cluster bombs, unnecessary war planes, naval destroyers, the next generation of nuclear weapons, “kill vehicles” for space missiles, and more efficient spy satellites. Congress continues to appropriate funds to create weapons systems that range from being obsolete, to those having no hope of ever functioning, to those promising to kill more efficiently, to those promising to allow the U.S. to be the “Masters of Space” through military domination by space-based weapons.

This work often provides union jobs and health benefits (both of which are “endangered species” in America) and the false hope of job security. Local communities defend the jobs (if not the corporations) when there is a threat of loss, knowing that America has few other industrial jobs, and the service sector doesn’t provide the same standard of living.

Meanwhile, military contractors’ CEO compensation is unregulated and obscene.[1] The door revolves between the halls of Congress and the military industrial complex’s “private sector” boardrooms. [Question: If a CEO’s compensation comes primarily from the taxpayers of America, can it still be stated that he works for the “private” sector?] It’s a sweet deal as long as Americans stay afraid of an enemy, there is minimal oversight of cost overruns or failed weapons systems, and questions of ethics, morality, and effective foreign policy are ignored.

Research Credit: Life After the Oil Crash

2 Responses to “U.S. Government Has Spent More Than Half the Public’s Treasure on Past, Current and Future Military Operations”

  1. NoFixedAbode says:

    I’m not sure why you associate ‘free market’ with an industry that survives on government expenditures.

    Government perverts the free market as much as it perverts virtually all human activity with which it comes in contact.

  2. Kevin says:

    @ nofixedabode:

    I don’t. Either you’re new, or you don’t understand my style of sarcasm yet. Get comfortable:

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1B2GGGL_enNZ177&q=site%3Acryptogon.com+%22free+market%22+OR+capitalism&btnG=Search

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