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War Is a Racket (1933)

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Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#201

Post by anm89 »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #123
anm89 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of a government, especially the US, laundering money doesn't really make any sense. Generally, the point of laundering money is to pay taxes on it so it can enter the financial system. Governments (and especially the US who has the most control of international monetary pipelines like SWIFT) can freely do what they want with their money generally, at least within their own countries. Their money is going to…

Laundering as a term might not be a good fit, but the parent comment's main claim that war is a vehicle for moving public money into private pockets is absolutely correct

Agree but we have other words specifically for that: grift, corruption, kickbacks.

War is definitely a racket but that racket isn't money laundering. The racket isn't about obfuscating the origin of the money but to direct it to certain parties

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#202

Post by onepointsixC »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #182

A POTUS and military man (Eisenhower) called this out years ago. Aka, The Military Industrial Complex. No Virginia, it's not a conspiracy theory. https://m.youtube.com /watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU Said POTUS Obama in his 2016 State of the Union: "The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. It's not even close. We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined." 1) 7 of those 8…

Except Eisenhower made those statements under the specific context of economic situation just after WW2, which revitalized the American economy after the great depression. At the height of WW2 the United States was spending over 40% of its GDP on defense. Given that WW2 did wonders for the American economy, it would be legitimately tempting for contemporaries to think that another war would be a good idea in an economic slump. That is what Eisenhower was warning against.

>Obama in his 2016 State of the Union

The Armed forces he spoke of were a result of decades of investments of previous administrations. Obama's oversaw one of the most draconian defunding of the DoD in decades. The sequestration of the DoD budget cuts was devastating to readiness and has left the United States vulnerable for the 2020s. The PLA has grown at truly incredible speed since then. It now outnumbering the USN in the number of vessels. At the same time, the USN is retiring more ships than it's building. The United States is on track to lose a Taiwan Flashpoint.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#203

Post by tsol »

MrYellowP wrote: post #164
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*some clueless young guys have to go and kill untold numbers of innocent people in another country. It never ceases to amaze me how citizens of the USA place the vast majority of sympathy to their beloved “troops” and barely any on those who actually get invaded.

Why's that amazing? The media dictates what most people talk about, and how they do it. Never noticed how topics switch over time depending on what's in the news? That's what people talk about! News switches the main topic, people switch the main topic. The old topic becomes forgotten and it does so quickly . If you take a closer look, you'll even see that they talk about the thoughts they've read, in the perspective…

Even television and entertainment play a huge part. They introduce and normalize issues, and in that way shift the borders of the overton window. It's strange how much of culture is, in a sense, manufactured. With the internet, at least there are some places where you can go to have open conversations now

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#204

Post by missedthecue »

mikewarot wrote: post #134
missedthecue wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do conventional businesses, of which there are far more than defense contractors, lack lobbying ability of their own?

They don't have a budget from a Trillion dollars per year of revenue at higher than average profit margins to defend.

The military budget is ~$700B and more than half of that is personnel costs going to your recruits and staff. About $300B goes to procurement annually, and not just weapons. There are uniforms, engines, paint, cleaning supplies, food, fuel, etc...

That's less revenue for an entire industry than Apple or Walmart does per year.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#205

Post by onepointsixC »

mikewarot wrote: post #134
missedthecue wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do conventional businesses, of which there are far more than defense contractors, lack lobbying ability of their own?

They don't have a budget from a Trillion dollars per year of revenue at higher than average profit margins to defend.

Defense spending has never been a majority of US GDP, at most representing just over 40% at the high of WW2, reaching at most 12% of GDP again during the Korean war, but remained below 6% over the past 40 years.

So how exactly are you proposing that less than 6% of the economy is directing the other 94%. Because that doesn't make any sense. For that matter, if war is so profitable and defense such a good market, why have so many companies which used to have major defense business exited that business? In WW2 just about every big business was partaking in the war effort. Companies like Ford Motors was producing aircraft and tanks. Ford has long left defense, and what remaining companies are in the sector have been consolidating or dying. Not exactly the sign of a booming industry.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#206

Post by onepointsixC »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #178
mikewarot wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have a budget from a Trillion dollars per year of revenue at higher than average profit margins to defend.

Did the defense industry have this huge budget back in the pre-WW1 days, though? (Genuine question, I honestly have no idea)

The Defense budget today is at a historic low [1], unmatched by just about any time other than before WW2.

[1]: https://foreignpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/dod_cha...

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#207

Post by longone »

Had this been believed by decision makers in the US, we would probably be under Nazi regime right now, or at least most of Europe would be. Of course many aspects of war are profitable and it should be avoided at all cost. But to think that all war is nothing but a money maker for a small group is incorrect. American Isolationism, at least many decades ago, was bad for the rest of the world.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#209

Post by Diesel555 »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #51

I started paying attention to this when I lived close to DC around 2002. Bush was cutting the top tax brackets while ramping up for the Iraq invasion, the defense contractors made record profits (I remember one CEO making around 30 million) and the DC metro was plastered with ads touting the patriotism of the defense contractors. I thought "these guys are making record money, are getting their taxes reduced, try to l…

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.” - John Stuart Mill

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#210

Post by mrjangles »

rixed wrote: post #99
mrjangles wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Remembering when bankers tried to overthrow FDR and install a fascist dictator Ironic considering that FDR's economic reforms were openly modeled on fascist Italy, and FDR was on good terms with Mussolini. He was also in the process of following Mussolini's lead and attempting to overthrow the American institutions that were in his way. He had already gone out of his way to install a KKK member on the Supreme Court,…

This just show that fascism means different things to different people. There are indeed several aspects to it: - suppression of labor unions and other political organisations that go against the interests of the ruling class, using mob violence - a nationalist/religious/wtv ideology portaying anyone discussing orders as a dangerous enemy (dividing the people in the name of unity) - the will to at least temporarily i…

>This just show that fascism means different things to different people.

Fascism is a very specific political ideology, based on Marxism, and involves (what they call a third-way economic policy) transforming the state into an amalgamation of trade unions working together to create a socialist state. It does not have different meanings to different people. It has only one meaning. The problem is just that many people refuse to know what the word means because it is a dirty word and they don't like how similar it is to their own ideology.

>There are indeed several aspects to it: - suppression of labor unions and other political organisations that go against the interests of the ruling class, using mob violence

This is the exact opposite of fascism. Not only were trade unions the center of the fascist state, but it was mandatory for people to be a member of one.

I was going to go over your other points, but they are so vague that I can't really even discuss them.

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