The Looming Crisis at the Pentagon

[wkmac]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/engelhardt/engelhardt373.html

 

[Babagounj]

The funds to pay for the social programs that O will be giving to all those non-americans has to come from somewhere.

 

[wkmac]

The funds to pay for the social programs that O will be giving to all those non-americans has to come from somewhere.

You seem in some sense to be echoing the ideas of one Robert Kagan in Washington Post op-ed:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/02/AR2009020202618.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

But then we get a different take from Glenn Greenwald at Salon on this issue:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/03/kagan/index.html

Republicans and Conservatives screamed bloody murder and rightly so when democrats/liberals used the same creative math as Kagan when it concern budget items like Social Security and other public assiatance plans that democrats claimed republicans were cutting. Now the very thing the once majority condemned, now a minority they seem to be resorting to the same math trickery. The once victim now becomes the assailant!

Or is it just plain our deceptive dishonesty?


Where, Oh where have the principles gone.
Oh Where Oh Where can they be?

Sung to the tune of where has the dog gone!


BTW: Read my post #14 on the Economic Stimulus thread and give some more thought to your comments. As to my remarks on our children and grandchildren saddled with public debt, consider this. This is the graph from 1940' to 2080' and this just pertains to entitlements alone.

This chart doesn't factor in all the extra goodies of recent months that Uncle George and now Uncle Barrack have given away to both corp. and public welfare queens so the picture of the graph is in fact now much worse! How does anyone anymore trust either side to do the right thing and start turning this whole mess around?

Bob Higgs nailed it on the title of this piece!
http://www.lewrockwell.com/higgs/higgs104.html

 

[wkmac]

Hey Baba,

The news for Obama's "military cutting" just got a bit worse as according to experts, the Iraq/Afghanistan cost through 2019' will approach $900 billion.

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60486

This cost is on top of the budgeted monies for defense I'm sure as so far these theaters are paid for with emergency and special appropiations of congress.

Some have expressed concerns of wages cuts in the future for UPS union covered employees in light of the recent announcement about other UPSers and their wage cuts if the economic problems continue and or worsen. I do think those concerns in light of the de-flationary effects we see now should be considered. However, based on the above article along with the many other aspects of the so-called "Stimulus package" my guess the biggest threat to your cut in pay will in fact come from the empire you support as it moves to support itself in the form of higher taxes for all.

Welfare and Warfare are the health of the State!

 

[wkmac]

From GlobalSecurity.org, the listing by country of annual world wide military expenditures

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm

Here's the United States according to this list and then some other nation players that we might find of interest.

United States $623billion FY08 budget
China $65billion 2004
Russia $50billion CIA & SIPRI provide no estimates
Canada $9.8billion 2003
North Korea $5billion FY02
Iran $4.3billion 2003 est.
Venezuela $1.6billion 2005 est.

Don't quote me but I think these numbers are budgeted items only and in the case of the United states, don't include special allocations and additions like the extra funding expenditures passed annually for Iraq, Afghanistan and other aspects of the global war on terror.

 

[wkmac]

Just saw this about Russia's military spending and wanted to add to the mix. The story itself is a feed from the Reuter newswire.

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/02/11/russia-cuts-military-spending-chief-of-staff/

 

[wkmac]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/28891.html

 

[wkmac]

Just saw this about Russia's military spending and wanted to add to the mix. The story itself is a feed from the Reuter newswire.

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/02/11/russia-cuts-military-spending-chief-of-staff/

It's amazing that a bunch of former statist/communist who are true believers in big overblown costly gov't are in fact doing the responsible thing and acting as true fiscal conservatives and cutting down the cost of gov't when faced with tough economic times. It's amazing these guys learned the lessons of statist communism after being laid economically wasted in their own Afghanistan adventures. Not to be outdone ourselves, it's monkey see, monkey do. Funny how Osama bin Laden can spot a monkey from an Al Qaeda mile away!

I guess we've become the communist utopia now as our "principled idoit-logues" drive us into the poor house of economic destruction. That idealogy is the welfare warfare ideal of red state conservatism now followed ever so close by the blue staters!

 

[wkmac]

Oh I forgot to post this at the end of my post!

no I didn't!