With debate picking up for the US to pass another major emergency stimulus package for coronavirus, the Pentagon is lining up this time with the expectation that they will be included. The money would be going to well-connected US arms makers, already some of the world’s most heavily subsidized companies as it is.
Undersecretary of Defense Ellen Lord says the pandemic is effecting ship-building, aviation, and space-launch companies, and that the Pentagon is going for a major pay-day for these groups, adding “we’re talking billions and billions on that one.”
Talk of small space launch firms having to shut doors because of the pandemic wrongly gives the impression that we are not talking talking about the same handful of huge companies constantly lining up for large amounts of subsidy.
The big winners are expected to be Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and Boeing was already expected to get some money out of the airliner bailout that was already coming. The money is either going to their subsidies, or to suppliers heavily beholden to those companies for their business.
Tellingly, the undersecretary could not single out any particular programs that might actually be impacted by the virus, rather saying that notapproving the billions of dollars could lead to “inefficiencies and so forth.”
That’s probably more than the Pentagon expected to have to offer in way of explanation, since generally when billions are being doled out, those arms makers will be getting a large slice as a matter of course. That the coronavirus isn’t meant to be a defense bill seems very much beside the point.
It’s not clear how eager Congress will be to make this new bill about the military, though the Pentagon seems to be betting, to the tune of billions of dollars, that they will.
The Pentagon can stand in line behind everyone else needing funds…
All those record budgets and their contractors still want more?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-20/most-small-firms-report-not-yet-getting-money-from-virus-funds
Jes wait Brock…they gonna show how an f-35 can fly in, undetected, and take out a covid cell.
It is not the Pentagon that wants more. It is the producers of war materiel that want more and thy have the Pentagon by you know what.
These defense contractors are exactly like every other corporation or wealthy individual in the country – they’re obsessed with money. Money, money, money, the defense industry is just a means to an end. The more bombs they can lobby (aka, bribe lawmakers into pressuring) the Pentagon into buying, the more money they make. What passes for modern-day capitalism is the problem, not the defense industry.
Yeah, but it makes no difference. There are more important businesses than defense contractors that need cash.
The mass privatization of the U.S. military is no secret.
https://www.newsweek.com/creeping-privatization-americas-forces-616347
If they cared one bit about efficiency they’d have fully audited how they spend money, at least once, ever.
But who would address the “lost” trillions …?
cali, I believe the “lost” trillions$ went into dark projects to emulate the tech of some crashed UFO’s recovered by the military of the USA. The end product could be the famed Nimitz “Tic Tac’s”.
Another thing of interest is that the all powerful, and it truly is, USS Roosevelt is beached like a big whale in Guam by a tiny virus from Wuhan China, with not one shot fired. The CCP must be laughing their azzes off! 🙁
Why would they invest the money in R&D? Today’s capitalists want MONEY NOW, not money ten years down the road, they want capital invested in projects which will pay off THIS QUARTER. Occam’s Razor suggests that it’s much more likely that the money was stolen by greedy capitalists, as is the norm, rather than invested in dark project research.
Blank,,My extensive research leads me to believe that is very possible I am right, but I am not, at this time,,100% sure of it.
Here is a fascinating look at the real COVID-19 infection rate from a recent study at Stanford University:
https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-actual-prevalence-of-covid-19.html
The initial calculations from this study suggests that the fatality rate of COVID-19 may be no worse than seasonal influenza.
“Initial calculations” being the operative phrase here. Why do we have so many more fatalities from this disease in a much smaller time frame than seasonal influenza?
Purge the M.I.C.!!
we can’t.
antar,,Don’t wave the white flag of surrender so easily!
How would you go about doing that? Seriously. Can you present any kind of scheme or idea which would lead to that? You’d have to nationalize defense industries for a start.
Why not get while the getting is good? The taxpayers have an endless amount of cash to dispense.
Exactly, these billionaires can’t go without a positive cash flow every single day, or they might have to worry about their great-great-great-great-great grandkids actually having to get a real job.
“His great pleasure was to contrast the hidden motive with the public pretext of transactions” – Disraeli.
If we really want to keep the troops safe, let’s bring them all home. Also, by doing this, the tax payer is spared by giving the Pentagon a bailout.
Hell, the Pentagon can’t pass an audit and can’t account for over $6 Trillion dollars. The nerve of them! I thought Trump was supposed to be such a sharp businessman always looking to cut expenses. Well, he needs to start cutting expenses in the military. Won’t happen though. He loves his military.