Military-Industrial Complex and other bad words
Ike. What an asshole. I doubt anyone has ever started a blog entry that way, but I had to get it out there. At the end of Ike's Presidential Term, he left us with a hauntingly cryptic warning to watch out for the "Military-Industrial Complex". Since then, just about everyone has heard the warning, pictured a dark evil weapons factory, looked around, not seen the evil complex and marked the whole thing up as some looney theory. Well, I think it's about time someone translates the warning into modern English: "Be aware that by creating an investment opportunity which could, with the proper stimulus, make billions of dollars, we have created a self feeding sausage grinder. All that is needed to crank out the cash is a constant and unending need to blow other people into bits. Small investments of capital, spread out in the right areas, ie 3rd world countries and reactionary religious groups, can turn into huge profits. If those profits are then invested back into the the community, well, it's leaders anyway, the possibilities are exponentially increased."
Get it? The warning was about greed, apathy and human nature. We have all three and now, unfortunately, we have the archetype of Ike's fears running the show. Now why did I call him an asshole? Because he was one. No one could have commanded Operation Overlord with it's acceptable loss percentage without being an asshole. I can respect an asshole. What I cannot respect is coward. And that is what we have become as a nation. A whole country full of spineless little pansies who are so scared of the Jyhadist boogie man that they are willing to genocidally wipe out anyone of that pigmentation. And where are we on the Terror Chart today? Fuschia? Better stay in doors and duct tape something. Buildings burn, people die, but a lot of people never try to live. Trust me on this one point: 13 seconds after you die, you ain't gonna care how it happened or anything else. Now back to my point.
Ike should have Nationalized our defense industry. It's too late now, but he had the opportunity. Of course that would be Socialism and Socialism is wrong... Why? Come on Limbaugh you fat junkie (never trust fat junkies!! They are unnatural!) Why? Why is Socialism wrong? And why is adherence to the all or nothing, black and white implementation of political theory not asinine? Just two questions for anyone at fox.
Here's why it should have been nationalized: Take a company, let's call them the Carlysle Group: Now this Company is an investment bank. They make their living investing in products to sell for a profit. Does it seem right to you that this company can buy our defense resources then sell them to us at a mark up while expecting us to use those resources to defend the profits they made off of us? No, that is crap. Conspiracy theory aside, Just basic capitalism. Would you lend your neighbor your lawnmower then pay him for "Equipment" costs when he mows your yard?
More on this topic later. Just a thought though. Do you know what Cost Plus One means in terms of Pentagon Contracts? Cause I just found out and it is the dumbest fuckin thing I have ever heard of. Figures, it's how we pay Halliburton!
1 comment:
OK, that analogy sucked. Here's a better one for what they do: The citizen's of this country pay x amount of $ per year for our nation's defence. The government then spends that amount, x, on equipment, services and troops. We'll simplify things and say that x is enough money to build 1k tanks. That is total cost including sufficient amount to pay everyone involved in this production a healthy wage. So far so good, the nation gets x amount to spend on 1k tanks. For some reason, not a good reason mind you, but for some reason, the government does not go straight to the production company to get the 1k tanks. Instead it tells company b, we'll call them the Carlysle Group, that it has x amount to spend on tanks. The Carlysle group goes out, buys 500 tanks from company a, and sells them to the government for x amount of $. X still being the same amount, why then is the number of tanks 50% of what we had originaly discussed? Well, the Carlysle group marked the price up 50% when they sold them to the government. So a middleman connection with no overhead, no labor, and really nothing of any value to the transaction slipped in, decided that they deserved the same amount of $ for doing nothing as company a recieved for building 500 tanks, and no one seems to have a problem with that. Oh yeah, and that predatorial profit is now sitting in a bank somewhere, more than likely being protected by several of those tanks. So, how does this happen? How does a hammer cost $600 for the Pentagon to purchase. Well, research that yourself. Learn about all that and Cost Plus One No Bid Contracts. It's all out there for keyword search.
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