Tote That Bale(out)

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Image via WikipediaLast June I started a series of articles on the Skunk-works Blog about understanding environmental issues.  The first article gave examples of how big various numbers were, and it seems particularly relevant today because of the announced bail-out of the financial institutions. Pop over and take a look if you want an idea of just how large some of these numbers that are being tossed around actually are.

Suffice to say, a trillion is a really big number and it seems people might finally be getting that concept.  If it had to be paid today every person in the US, including children, would have to issue a check for around $3700.

It’s good that people are finally  getting it, but it makes me wonder.  The war in Iraq has cost considerably more than that, and people sofar have accepted it as a normal cost of doing business in the world.  That war has been conducted entirely with borrowed money.

That war has been a hole in the financial boat from day one.  Wars always are.  In fact, the long term cost of war has been the cause of the downfall of all the major empires of the past.  Yet, this is the first time, as far as I know, that there has been no effort to address that fact.

The was a show on CNN last week-end where they were talking about America’s deficit and I realized that they were only talking about trade and finance while leaving out the military spending all together.  It was almost as though military matters somehow were kept in a seperate set of books that would be magically paid for somehow.

When there is talk about cutting the deficit, the targets are always health care or education.  But the amounts spent on health care and social security are peanuts compared to the ongoing military expenses.

Right now, people are concerned about the cost of imported oil, and rightly so. But military spending is way higher, especially now that there has been a whole extra layer added in for homeland security and the monitoring of every move of innocent americans.

Money spent on the military is not an investment.  It is just money that is being pissed up against the wall.  Every dollar spent on a new aircraft carrier, for instance, is a dollar that is not being spent to educate kids or rebuild decaying bridges or to build out the internet.

The military is the single biggest consumer of money, hard resources and energy(oil).  And it is one way spending.  It doesn’t bounce and go to build the economy, and the resale value of the equipment is next to nothing.  How much do the 500 pound bombs falling in Iraq cost?  How about those cool little drones flying around with the hell-fire missiles? Forget the cost of the drone, how much does it cost every time the kid controlling the thing back in California presses the fire button?

(Here are the answers to the above.  Each predator drone costs $4.5 million.  The Global Hawk drones cost $15 million apiece.  Every hellfire missile costs $68,000 to fire, whether it hits something or not.  Good article about drones and their costs. Toys are expensive.)
The American economy is almost bankrupt.  The world bank is coming to investigate the national economy.  I don’t think that has ever happened to a major country before.  That kind of an audit usually only happens to countries like Haiti and Uganda.  When those boys come to dinner you know we’ve reached Peter’s Pretty Pass.

I say we even though I’m a Canadian because we are all affected by what goes on in the USA.  The outcome of your election will probably have more consequences for my life than the one taking place here on October 14th, and I don’t even get to vote!

Posted by: swampy | 09-19-2008 | 08:09 PM
Posted in: Uncategorized