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bob

On Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:09:49 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:22:13 -0400, Harryk
wrote:

wrote:
On Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:38:16 -0400, John
wrote:

On Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:41:51 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:36:48 -0400, wrote:

Are you saying that military budget is a waste?

Most of it. We spend more than the whole rest of the planet put
together.
I think the Chinese would like to see us cut it by about 90%.

Keeping China, the Russians and any real "state" at bay is pretty
cheap. A few "boomers" can provide a credible deterrent to a nuclear
attack. We spend most of our money building things we will never use
like the F22 and having counter insurgent wars with guys in sandals.

DoD is a big jobs program, enriching the districts of powerful
congressmen and building products that they do not need to have a
market to sell. We build them, we maintain them for 20-30 years and
we throw them away, virtually unused.

Eisenhower tried to warn us ... but we ignored him.

That's pretty much it. We need to find ways to convert those defense
factories into plowshare factories. It doesn't matter what those
factories make, so long as they provide good jobs and the products are
needed and useful.

The problem is figuring a way you could make those products and sell
them at a profit. When it is DoD, cost is no object. That is why the
toilet seat on a P-3 Orion costs $800.

what people dont seem to realize is that every dollar we spend above
what we need for defense

is a form of foreign aid.