03.22.11
There’s always time for killing jobs and bombing Moe
By way of Pine View Farm:
The classic arguments by the celebrity pundits and serious people arranged like gilt furniture in Washington never mix in what’s going to continue to happen to the the middle class because of more big war adventure.
Instead, one gets example like this — from Adam Serwer –– at the Washington Post:
There are several reasons why the U.S. shouldn’t be seen as taking the lead. For one thing, the U.S. is already occupied with the aftermath of one war in Iraq and attempting to bring a more than decade-long operation in Afghanistan to its conclusion. The U.S. does not have unlimited military resources, and other countries that demanded intervention should take responsibility and offer contributions rather than free-riding off of the United States.
The same idea was taken up by Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC at lunchtime yesterday, including the additional suggestion that others in the “Coalition” ought to eventually issue a check for all the munitions the US military was expending to flatten Moe’s defense.
Everyone who talks like this knows it’s just an exercise in taking up space.
First, it’s immaterial whether or not that America’s military resources are not unlimited. For the sake of what’s gone down in the last decade, they are treated that way. And for practical purposes, the cash sack for war is unlimited.
There’s no political will to change it and the populace, whether or not it supports endless war, has lost all democratic control over it. Serwer contributes stock bathwater, stuff anyone pickled in Beltway culture and dependent upon it to keep the paycheck coming, could write.
Because it’s passed off as wisdom it’s even kind of more contemptible than material, like this, written by Ted Nugent at the WaTimes:
“Africa is an international scab” and “Kill all those people [by flattening the area where Ghadafi lives in Tripoli] and get it over with.”
Nugent, at least, has never been taken as much of a voice for reasonable wisdom. Everyone knows he’s the guy who makes his bread touring rib shacks in the summer, cutting his leg in a chainsaw accident for reality television, and getting his hunting license revoked in California for unsportsmanlike behavior. Nugent, unlike Serwer and the other serious people writing on the war, can’t be passed off as a source of reasonable argument. And there’s more honesty in that, although not by much.
In the Economic Treason series I’ve written of a thought experiment, one that imposed a tax on arms sales made by US companies, that money to be returned to the American people — food stamp recipients — as a dividend check.
For that story, here, the theoretical war tax dividend returned a check for $1,140.88 for everyone on food stamps.
In fifteen minutes over the weekend, the US military burned up well over $100 million in Tomahawks (around $155 million was the high-ball figure), all of which will be replenished by Raytheon, a US arms manufacturer.
We can posit at least a figure of, perhaps, $150 million a week for Odyssey Dawn, which extrapolates to 0.6 billion a month. Of course, it could be more because cost is never an object in the bottomless cash sack for war.
There are a couple variables. If the rebels continue to try and advance on Tripoli and the ‘Coalition’ is forced to provide effective close air support to prevent them from being slaughtered by Moe’s army, the costs go up. If Odyssey Dawn turns into just exercises in observational missions over geography with no air defense and occasional radar and flak suppression, it goes way down.
Add to this 159.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Continuing in the thought exercise, assume Odyssey Dawn continues until the end of the year, for an outlay of 8-9 months equaling at least
$5.4 billion. This seems absurdly low for American war.
In any case, added to Iraq and Afghanistan, it comes to $164.7 billion.
The original war dividend tax was 20 percent.
Clawing back twenty percent, as an example, from any check cut by the US government to Raytheon for replenishment of Tomahawk missiles seems quite reasonable. And this is because war has caused a
continuous boom in arms-manufacturing in this country, growth and financial success not enjoyed by anyone else. (Except Wall St.)
It’s aptly illustrated here by the much used by me illustration from the New York Times:
The war boom: Rewards and monumental profit for arms-manufacturing. The bottom of the barrel for everyone else.
Again, it’s not unreasonable to make the argument that the stressed in the middle class ought to receive something back for the country’s primary business product/export, one its taxes bankroll and grow. A 20 percent war dividend for 2011 might look like this:
20 percent of 247 billion in arms sales = $49 400 000 000
20 percent of 164.7 billion for direct war = $32 940 000 000
Total war dividend clawback = $82 340 000 000
Bonus check cut for 49.3 million people on food stamps, adjustable for increases = $1670.18.
That’s up $529.30 from the last exercise.
Such checks are not insubstantial to people who have just lost their jobs.
And it is clear from the war dividend thought exercise that the tax alone covers the so-called budget cuts in the posted video, cuts which will cost even more jobs. While the arms manufacturing plants get more orders.
The exercise is about bringing fairness to any argument about bombing Moe. And because it’s not considered as anything but delusional outside the halls where very serious upper class people ruling the country reside, it can only be an exercise. Never happen. Instead, it’s time to go ahead with giving everyone not involved in the machine of war hardship or the chop. Because the middle class has absolutely no say in the matter. In the biggest ‘democracy’ in the world.
“And of course, the cost of ‘overseas contingency operations’ will continue to rise, stressing both men (and women) and machines to the breaking point,” writes J. at Armchair Generalist. “The good news being, of course, that this means the US government can’t possibly afford to cut defense funds now.”
J. points out the savings inherent in losing an old $30 million F-15 over Libya as opposed to the $120 million F-22.