The
US spends more than $600 billion a year on war while 15 million of
its children go hungry.
Metaphor:
Terrorists drove a car loaded with explosives past checkpoint where
it was 'screened' by Iraqi police using a what was supposed to be a
bomb detector but was in fact a “novelty golf ball finder”. The
£15 toy was one of some 7,000 that war profiteer James McCormick
sold to Iraq as bomb detectors for thousands of pounds each, netting him £53 million and 10 years in a British
prison. Over 4,000 Iraqis have been killed or maimed through this bit
of capitalism at its finest, including 149 killed in Baghdad Sunday.
Go team.
Political
Purity: The
Supremes have abolished corruption,just
in time for the July 4th
orgy of hypocritical pride..
Bad
News Good News:
Rail traffic in the US continues to fall and now is below levels
reached during the Great Recession, partly as a result of our slowing
economy and partly because coal is losing some of its share of US
electrical generation – as reflected in the
huge drop in market cap for the nation's largest coal miners.
Murray Energy, the largest
privately held US coal miner is threatening to lay off 80% of its
workers “because
of weak coal markets.”
Clean
Sweep: Three
Barclays employees were found guilty of rigging Libor between 2005
and 2007, two others got away with it and not a single supervisor,manager or executive knew anything about it. Before 2005 and since
2008 there was no manipulation of interest rates.
Opportunity
Knocks:
Chancellor George
Osborn says that Brexit presents a great opportunity for him to lower
Britain's corporate tax rates and slash welfare spending by another
67.3% and raffle off the NHS.
Speed
Bump:
June's auto sales were down 4.6% from May, “much worse than
expected.”
Essay
Question:
“Is
the post-1945 order imposed on the world by the United States and its
allies unraveling?”
A
Parting Shot:
5 comments:
(sarcasm)I can't put into words how relieved I am that corruption has finally been outlawed! What do you suppose took them so long?
While corruption amidst us peons has been illegal forever, I wonder if the 'above the law' crowd got the memo? Probably not, it's that above the law thing and the ability to ignore/reword legislation to your liking, as needed...
But it makes you wonder, did the Supremes use the same 'shape-shifting' power to outlaw corruption? [of course they did!]
How fortunate are we to live in a country that has a 'magical' legal system where only the guilty [read poor] are punished?
But that aside, thank you for reminding us that capitalism still works for the ruthless that places profits above people [thanks to our 'magical' legal system that excels in 'protecting the guilty' via it's 'Buyer Beware' bias.] (/sarcasm)
Um, Don't suppose spelling out that 600 Billion is the same thing as saying 600 'thousand million' would drive home the idea that those 15 million kids (and their families) would be quite well off if we didn't squander the money on what is largely a taxpayer funded 'jobs program' that only keeps them and us 'nominally safe?'
Did I mention our civilization (or what passes for it) is terriblly mis-managed? [By the college educated...something to keep in mind the next time a politician swears 'more education' will solve everything...]
It's enough to make you weep.
Essay Question:
I wonder what kept the words from sliding off the page in the Times article. I remember a message from some reading "None so blind as those who WILL NOT see."
As always, Thank you for this space.
"The US spends more than $600 billion a year on war while 15 million of its children go hungry."
CKM…the figure is over one trillion dollars when expenditures by NASA to launch DOD satellites (half NASAs budget) and expenditures by DOE (about half that budget too) maintaining readiness of nuclear stockpiles and other costs like this are included.
for many years the wars in iraq and afghanistan were of budget.
and of course homeland security esp national security / intel spending, covert ops etc by the spooks is omitted.
and then there is the DOD portion of the annual debt spending that goes on with all discretionary budgets
their share of the interest payment on this debt is well over 50 billion.
and other hidden expenses as our country maintains somewhere between 500 and 1000 military bases around the world.
we are like ancient rome and may well pass their way having chosen the per suits of empire over educating our children and creating a vibrant economy where all have opportunity to do well.
here are a couple of references
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/02/the-real-defense-budget/253327/
I was surprised and pleased to see active content in this space the other day when I restored an old set of book marks. Were you gone long?
TT: Oh, yeah. I was gone for at least a long weekend... addiction runs both ways.
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