New weapons and funding

i am curious

with all the things thats going on in the world with the economic downtime and so on,

how do countries get the money to maintain their arsenals and spend billions on them?

before anyone says, not directed solely at the US, UK,China and all major players.

The real question should be, why arent all those billions spent on inventions to improve our lives and bring real jobs and industry back on its feet rather than on devices of distruction and death.

Thats all it seems lately, big announcements of new weapons, items of mass distruction, yet nothing in the way of saving lives, improving lives or even sustaining lives.

Its all about distruction. Hooray.

They pretty much spend it any way they see fit. Too bad they dont see where it is needed to be spent the most.




Cheers!!!!

Originally posted by RFBurns
The real question should be, why arent all those billions spent on inventions to improve our lives and bring real jobs and industry back on its feet rather than on devices of distruction and death.

Thats all it seems lately, big announcements of new weapons, items of mass distruction, yet nothing in the way of saving lives, improving lives or even sustaining lives.

Its all about distruction. Hooray.

They pretty much spend it any way they see fit. Too bad they dont see where it is needed to be spent the most.

Cheers!!!!

Because the military industry is a huge industrial sector. Several jobs are created from it.

Additionally, arguably every major invention to date is thanks to the military. The Internet and several other bio-medicines have been created and trickled down into to the public sectors.

When one looks at exo-skeletons, biotechnology, and nanotechnology, the military is a huge driving factor in these technologies being developed. This will all have a HUGE impact on the civi population. AI, various modes of transportation. Computer chips, wireless networks, Software programs, etc.

People, all democratic governments have been infiltrated by Corporate thugs.
Psychopaths.
They care nothing about anyone else but themselves, and don't even realize they are like that.

reply to post by West Coast


Ya you never hear about a military contractor ever going bottom up or crying for a bailout do we?

And as far as creating the jobs? HAH thats a laugh! All of the military jobs are taken up by previous employees from one military contractor to another. Rarely do they hire outside of that little chain. And when they do, its one in a million. So when you got hundreds of thousands out of work, not a single one of those military industrial companies are going to even take on a fraction of those out of work Americans.

And I dont see too many privately owned F-15's or even F-4's flying around. Oh ya there is alot of surplus stuff over that the local surplus store, which IMO is a good thing. But when government is going to rip the people off of 750 billion to bail out rich bank CEO's and bail out auto industries when they lay off hundreds of thousands of workers, I have little enthusiasim over some military industrial contractor's announcement of "hey lookie here we made a new weapon to kill with and it cost you tax payer suckers another 100 million and our investors and CEO's appriciate your patronage....like our new toy?"




Cheers!!!!

[edit on 23-12-2008 by RFBurns]

Well, I partially agree with you, it would be nice if we spent less on war, especially with the huge chunk of the budget that goes to the military. While I agree with you I am going to take a more devil's advocates position.

The advantage of military funding is that the technologies developed in/from it can be applied to other areas. Artificial limbs, new/stronger materials in armor, more efficient/reliable engines for vehicles...etc. etc. can all be used to develop modern products.

Of course I'd totally rather see new technology come from non-warfare usage...the military industrial complex is probably one of the most corrupt industries in the world.