Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Bombs and Bailouts: How the US 'Pissed Away' 14 Trillion Dollars

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

After four years sifting through a morass of US government records, the Brookings Institution reports that the US government has spent $5.1 trillion on the development and manufacture of nuclear weapons, adding that if 'clean up, stockpiling and dismantlement' is included, the cost rises to $5.5 trillion.

US officials have called it: "money well-spent". Having spent trillions threatening the world, the US has recently bailed out the crooked banksters and other robber barons to the tune of $8.5 trillion for the total cost of the bailouts. See the spreadsheet graphic below. Click on it for the complete story.
Since 1945, the United States has manufactured and deployed more than 70,000 nuclear weapons to deter and if necessary fight a nuclear war. Some observers believe the absence of a third world war confirms that these weapons were a prudent and cost-effective response to the uncertainty and fear surrounding the Soviet Union's military and political ambitions during the cold war. As early as 1950, nuclear weapons were considered relatively inexpensive- providing "a bigger bang for a buck"-and were thoroughly integrated into U.S. forces on that basis. Yet this assumption was never validated. Indeed, for more than fifty years scant attention has been paid to the enormous costs of this effort-more than $5 trillion thus far-and its short and long-term consequences for the nation.

--Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940, Brookings Institution

Elsewhere, Brookings reports that even as the Cold War ended, the US continued spending some $35 billion a year [$96 million a day], 14 percent of the defense budget on nuclear weapons and maintenance. Even Brookings concedes '..with the benefit of hindsight and objectivity, the waste, the duplication and occasional foolishness.'

Much is made of an 'atmosphere of tension, ambiguity and fear'! But the fact of the matter is this: much of that 'atmosphere' is traceable directly to the presence of a US nuclear arsenal that threatens the world. Brookings concedes that the moneys were not always well spent but does not go far enough. How many of the starving millions might have been fed with just one percent of some 14 trillion squandered by the US on weaponry and bailouts? How much more goodwill might have been achieved with the investment of just half that amount in peaceful projects that would have benefited all mankind? The US may have blown a golden opportunity forever!
``Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.''

-- Robert Oppenheimer, quoting the Baghavad Gita
That might describe as well the ruinous effects of a wastral US fiscal policy, a bloated bailout for banksters, an impending implosion that will directly result from the US enrichment of just one percent of its population as some 95 percent descend into poverty, illiteracy and hopelessness and all of it a result of the right wing export of US industries, jobs, and hope!

Adendum:
The lead headline, in the upper right-hand corner, said: “U.S. Deficit Rises to $1.4 Trillion; Biggest Since ’45.”

The headline next to it said: “Bailout Helps Revive Banks, And Bonuses.”

We’ve spent the last few decades shoveling money at the rich like there was no tomorrow. We abandoned the poor, put an economic stranglehold on the middle class and all but bankrupted the federal government — while giving the banks and megacorporations and the rest of the swells at the top of the economic pyramid just about everything they’ve wanted.

And we still don’t seem to have learned the proper lessons. We’ve allowed so many people to fall into the terrible abyss of unemployment that no one — not the Obama administration, not the labor unions and most certainly no one in the Republican Party — has a clue about how to put them back to work.

--Bob Herbert, Safety Nets for the Rich


Also see: Published Articles on Buzzflash.net

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6 comments:

David B. Dancy said...

We can always sell more of our bad debt to China...who cares if the dollar has no value? It's sad but our real value as a country or world player has always been our natural resources I cringe at the thought of 'natural' scarcity i.e water, clean air.
I cringe at the thought that we 'own' anything. Our ignorance knows no bounds as you have proven through many posts. At least have an abundance of something.

Unknown said...

David B. Dancy sez...

I cringe at the thought of 'natural' scarcity i.e water, clean air. I cringe at the thought that we 'own' anything. Our ignorance knows no bounds as you have proven through many posts. At least have an abundance of something.

Indeed, David! The US has enough nukes to reduce most nations to rubble several times over. What if the US had spent just HALF the amt spent on death and destruction on world wide programs devoted to peaceful economic progress and education. How much good might have been achieved staggers the imagination.

The US wanted to be loved and, instead, we are hated! So many lost opportunities, so many 'last chances' for peace. With a fraction of the monies that we cannot even account for we might have brought education and opportunities to millions if not billions.

Keep the faith! We may YET overcome!

Anonymous said...

I do believe it is an illusion to think that national policy EVER was to do the right thing.
Whether it was the recognition of labor rights,(look how that has worked out),a miles deep bs story about stopping the spread of communism, (using, particularly in Europe, the left overs of the Nazi organisations which were pardoned and turned into tools of "freedom"),the slow recognition of civil rights for minorities,(those rights are next to worthless if one is excluded from the chance of economic growth),a list which would take pages to enumerate.
The nuclear poisoning is simply another thoughtless profit taking machine, which, once in place, has a force and existence of it's own, nearly beyond the control of the very people responsible for it's creation.
The way out?
I would like to believe that third parties shall rise up and gain support from the populace, replacing the machine which is now so firmly in place.
However, I know better.
Millions of people piss their lives away watching teevee in this benighted nation, and the "news" they watch is breasts and puppies down a well, with a sex murder thrown in once in a while for ratings.
Still, it is a comfort to come here and read some genuine anger, for anger is what is called for in the mindless age of phosphor dot reality.

kcfoodtruckgroupie said...

It is sad that minds have become so warped that there are large numbers of people that equate capitalism with democracy and patriotism. So much so that they bought that crap Bush said, "They hate us for our freedom." That didn't sound logical to me at the time and I couldn't believe anyone bought it. (But we laughed at the plastic and duct tape, too, as if flew off the shelves.)

Upon further investigation, I found that "they" hate us for our foreign policy and "they" hate us for our self-righteous religious superiority and "they" hate us because we exported capitalism to the world and made them serfs. All the while, we can't see what serfs we have become to the greedy out-of-control capitalist system that has intertwined itself like a cancer with our government and is slowly squeezing the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness right out of this great nation.

People aren't necessarily lazy, though some are; they are mostly brainwashed. They don't want to see the truth because of what it would mean.

I don't see the masses rising up either, unless you are talking about the armed Christians that are trying to bring about a theocratic revolution and then armageddon (if you believe in that sort of thing). Unfortunately, most of the people I know are too busy trying to pay their bills and keep their kids fed to worry about what the government is doing. Which, in itself, is by design, isn't it?

Unknown said...

Anonymous sez...

...a miles deep bs story about stopping the spread of communism


You hit the nail on the head. I am hard pressed to find ANY evidence that the US government EVER told the truth except by accident or those rare instances in which it was beneficial to do so. The 'truth' itself means nothing to government and even less when there is no money or power attached to the telling of it. Truth, as a 'value', is not recognized by Machiavellian power mongers for whom EVERYTHING, including truth, is measured against the raw power that may be gained.

ksliberal sez...

People aren't necessarily lazy, though some are; they are mostly brainwashed. They don't want to see the truth because of what it would mean.

It's easy enough to be duped when everyone --especially the media --is lying to you. At some point, however, one MUST assume responsibility for his/her own life and that can ONLY begin when one accepts responsibility for the consequences of those things believed. If harm is done because I believe a lie, I am responsible for that harm.

Bertolt Brecht was more eloquent. He wrote:

"A man who does not know the truth is just an idiot but a man who knows the truth and calls it a lie is a crook!"

Anonymous said...

Al Franken for president.