OUR NATIONAL DEFENSE (WAR) BUDGET

 A week ago, my posting was:

     NOSTALGIA TUESDAY:  My First Huffington Post Article

I talked about the beginning of the Huffington Post and my first contribution on 29May2008 to, in those early days, still a fledging web newspaper:

     Well, Barack, We have a Problem... 

The problem, I thought, was the horrendous size of our national defense budget, but the opportunity Barrack Obama had to combat peak oil and remediate global warming by transferring funds into these programs.  Better to save humanity by taking care of these problems instead of escalating the potential of war and a nuclear winter. But he first had to beat Hillary for the Democratic nomination, then, as it later turned out, Republican John McCain for the presidency.

Three months later on 10August2008, with the presidential election still about three months away, I followed up with:

Why Do We Spend So Much On National Security?

Let me see now, there is no USSR cold war threat. China spends $45/citizen for defense, while we invest about $2700/person on national security. Iran and North Korea are not global menaces. There are probably fewer than 100,000 terrorists, with a small fraction of them worthy of our concern. There will be no conquering enemy on the horizon for generations to come, if ever again. It was on this note that I submitted my first HuffPost on May 29, 2008 entitled, "Well, Barack, We have a Problem..."

How significant is national security in our Federal budget? Our fiscal 2008 discretionary funding is $941.4 billion. Defense and related accounts amount to $553.8 billion, but a supplemental sum of $306.6 billion needs to be added for our Global War on Terror and related needs. Thus, this year, we will spend $859.9 billion on WAR, much more than double what the Federal Government will expend on everything else! The Department of Energy will get $23.9 billion, of which about a $1 billion will be for renewable energy development, and the Environmental Protection Agency will spend $7.5 billion.

I finished with:

All these numbers and analyses are interesting, maybe, but the whole point is, why are we spending so much money on national security? Is there a better way to gain the peace? We can talk about the military-industrial complex and their hammerlock over the White House and Congress. That's formidable, make no mistake about that. But perhaps the nature of world politics is such that the time has again come for us to mind our own business and invest in our national infrastructure and personnel. Maybe also do something about Peak Oil and Global Warming, too. Our presidential candidates talk about change, and our defense budget is a good place to start, providing the financial resources to actually do some real good. My initial HuffPost on "Well, Barack, We have a Problem..." provides a vision for this scenario.

Next week Tuesday another HuffPo article I wrote will provide an answer to how we might develop world peace.  With each passing decade, our war funds keep exponentially increasing.  To underscore this contention, I repeat what was shown last week. 

Worse, defense spending by the USA now accounts for nearly 40% of all military expenditures by all other countries.  Can you believe that we spend just about a trillion dollars/year on war, which is more than the NEXT NINE COUNTRIES COMBINED?

Defending our country is important.  However, what about this headline?

USA is #1 arms dealer, exporting 43% of world’s weapons: 

7 times more than China, 5x Russia

The above was for the period from 2020 to 2024.  However, Russian war exports declined by 64% during that period, and China's by 5.4%.  USA?  Our exporting of war products grew by 21% from 2020 to 2024.

To summarize (amount spent on war):

1. United States (43% of the world expenditures)
2. France (9.6%)
3. Russia (7.8%)
4. China (5.9%)
5. Germany (5.6%)
6. Italy (4.8%)
7. United Kingdom (3.6%)
8. Israel (3.1%)
9. Spain (3.0%)
10. South Korea (2.2%)

From Netflix Tudum, the top 10 shows and movies.  #1 is Season 1 of Wednesday, which has Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 73/86.  #2 is the new Season 2 at 82/79.

There are two ocean storms of seriousness.  In the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Erin could well become the the first Atlantic hurricane, with a potential to make landfall over the Eastern Seaboard.

Now at 45 MPH, Erin is poised to become a hurricane on Friday, strengthen into a Category 2 on Saturday, and a Category 3 on Sunday.  Then what?

In  the western Pacific, Tropical Storm Podul became a typhoon yesterday, and today will strengthen to 100 MPH and make landfall over Taitung, with the eye passing just north of Kaohsuing.

Read this article for details, which indicates that Podul could get as high as 115 MPH when it reaches Taiwan.

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