Eisenhower on the Opportunity Cost of Defense Spending
Gen. Eisenhower speaks with soldiers of the 101st Airborne on the eve of D-Day
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
… This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron…
Is there no other way the world may live?
–Dwight David Eisenhower, “The Chance for Peace,” speech given to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Apr. 16, 1953.
The United States continues to lead the world in defense spending, according to a new report released Thursday by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a U.S.-based non-partisan research organization.
In fact, the U.S. outspends Russia, the next highest spender, by more than 800 percent.
In 2008, the most recent year for which figures are available, the U.S. expenditure was 696.3 billion dollars, followed by Russia’s 86 billion and China’s 83.5 billion.
The U.S. defense budget is 15 times that of Japan, 47 times that of Israel, and nearly 73 times that of Iran.
Not only does U.S. spending dwarf that of other nations, but it has also grown in recent years.
Hunters may be surprised by level of Marcellus Shale gas activities
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Credit: DCNR has vowed to limit heavy truck traffic on forest roads during bear season and key days of deer season.
University Park, Pa. — Pennsylvania hunters venturing out this fall may be surprised by the level of disturbance and activity on public lands in the northcentral, northeastern and southwestern regions of the state, according to a wildlife expert in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
Natural-gas exploration and development associated with the Marcellus Shale formation have increased exponentially over the past year.
“As a hunter, you may be shocked by the level of natural-gas drilling and production activity associated with Marcellus Shale on public lands in Pennsylvania,” said Margaret Brittingham, professor of wildlife resources and extension wildlife specialist.
“As of Oct. 1, there were 4,510 active Marcellus permits. Compare this with Oct. 1, 2009, when there were 1,970 permits.”
Accompanying the drilling activity, hunters will find new or modified roads in many areas and may encounter large volumes of truck traffic in areas where active drilling is occurring.
Tom Croft, executive director of the Steel Valley Authority, says state funding to help save manufacturing jobs works out to a cost of $750 per job saved vs. the $25,000 he conservatively estimates a jobless person costs taxpayers in employment taxes, lost taxes and other costs.
Here is Tom Croft’s economic proposition in a nutshell: It costs the government considerably more to lose a job than it costs to save a job.
Mr. Croft, 59, is the executive director of the Steel Valley Authority, an organization founded in the 1980s to resuscitate the region’s crumbling manufacturing industry. After several high-profile rescue attempts, including the failed effort to resurrect LTV’s South Side Works, Mr. Croft started focusing on small and midsize companies where jobs were in jeopardy.
By Dave Johnson Beaver County Blue
via Campaign for America’s Future
Nov 11, 2010
Businesses do not create jobs. In fact, the way our economy is structured the incentive is for businesses to get rid of as many jobs as they can.
Demand Creates Jobs
A job is created when demand for goods or services is greater than the existing ability to provide them. When there is a demand, people will see the need and fill it. Either someone will start filling the demand alone, or form a new business to fill it or an existing provider of the good or service will add employees as needed. (Actually a job can be created by a business, a government, a non-profit organization or just a person doing the job, depending on the nature of the good or service that is required.)
Soon-to-be GOP House Majority Leader Eric Cantor met on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — the same day when the actual U.S. Secretary of State met with Netanyahu — and vowed that he and his GOP colleagues would protect and defend Israeli interests against his own Government. According to a statement proudly issued by Cantor’s own office:
Regarding the midterms, Cantor may have given Netanyahu some reason to stand firm against the American administration.
“Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington,” the readout continued. “He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other.”
Leave aside the absurdity of believing that Israel needs to be protected from the extremely deferential and devoted Obama administration. So extraordinary is Cantor’s pledge that even the Jewish Telegraph Agency‘s Ron Kampeas — himself a reflexive American defender of most things Israel — was astonished, and wrote:
I can’t remember an opposition leader telling a foreign leader, in a personal meeting, that he would side, as a policy, with that leader against the president. Certainly, in statements on one specific issue or another — building in Jerusalem, or somesuch — lawmakers have taken the sides of other nations. But to have-a-face to face and say, in general, we will take your side against the White House — that sounds to me extraordinary. Continue reading Republican Leader Pledges Allegiance to Israeli Interests against the United States Government→
![[Image]](https://i0.wp.com/www.harpers.org/media/image/blogs/misc/eisenhower_d-day.jpg)
Credit: DCNR has vowed to limit heavy truck traffic on forest roads during bear season and key days of deer season.
Businesses Do Not Create Jobs
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 