$1.2 Trillion (That's Trillion with a T) Spent on Military While the Rest of Us Fight Over Crumbs

[kpete]

$1.2 Trillion Spent on the Military While the Rest of Us Fight Over Crumbs
So after all that cash is gone, what are we left with? Not a whole heck of a lot for the rest of us.
March 6, 2011 |

...........................

Christopher Hellman at TomDispatch added up all the military-related spending in the budget and came to a startling number: for fiscal year 2012, the actual military budget is something like $1.2 trillion dollars.

Trillion with a T.

Just to put that in perspective for a second, a million seconds is 12 days. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.

So after all that cash is gone, what are we left with? Not a whole heck of a lot for the rest of us. “Discretionary” spending is nearly 40% of the budget, but if Hellman’s numbers are accurate, that $1.2 trillion eats up nearly 90% of discretionary funds, leaving just 10% for the rest of us. (That doesn’t include mandatory spending on things like Social Security and Medicare, which are separate.)

more:
http://www.alternet.org/news/150142/$1.2_trillion_spent_on_the_military_while_the_rest_of_us_fight_over_crumbs?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternet

[Poboy]

1. Recommend!

[Rex]

2. What you fail to realize is that Obama is a master at 5 dimensional chess.

No seriously, WTF!!! Why are we fighting over table scraps while Wall Street eats top sirloin and GETS ANGRY if we even LOOK in their general direction.

How has it come to this?

[TheWraith]

5. Um, you suddenly made the jump from the military to Wall Street.

I think your automatic Obama-blaming program skipped a line. :eyes:

[Rex]

11. Oh right, Wall Street and the MIC are two complete different groups.

I think your ignorance about the nations business is glaring.

[girl gone mad]

8. Wall Street loves war because it literally destroys capital..

and artificially inflates the value of their paper holdings. They get richer while the rest of us grow poorer.

[Rex]

12. There is no difference between the MIC and Wall Street.

Just the uniform they wear, but that is about it.

[underpants]

3. a Trrrrillion dollars

[Thunderstruck]

4. Some perspective: a million seconds is 12 days. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years...

Holy gawd...

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Poboy]

10. Can you imagine one trillion dollars? (6 pics)

http://izismile.com/2009/03/10/can_you_imagine_one_trillion_dollars_6_pics.html

[Vehl]

15. wow! nt

[Thunderstruck]

18. Imagine this: In all of known human civilization from advent of agriculture

through the emergence of Sumeria and then Egypt; through the length of the Roman, Chinese, and Ottoman Empires into the Dark Ages; through the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution to the current post-technological society, ONE TRILLION SECONDS HAVE YET TO PASS!

And here we are, a broken nation, paying this mind-numbingly astronomic amount of money to wreak havoc on and control the world. And that's just for one year? It has to stop.

[stockholmer]

26. to further draw that out,there's over 1000 trillion($1 quadrillion) in global derivative debt

The total derivative notional value totals, updated to July 1st, 2010 new total is $1.017 QUADRILLIO​N dollars US.

BIS (exchange traded derivatives) are now at $583 trillion, down from 615 trilllion

http://www.bis.org/statistics/otcder/dt1920a.pdf


ISDA (non-exchange traded derivatives) are now at $434 trillion, up from $427

http://www.isda.org/statistics/pdf/ISDA-Market-Survey-historical-data.pdf

[OneGrassRoot]

7. Ugh....K&R n/t

[OhioChick]

9. Holy shit.....

K&R

[HysteryDiagnosis]

13. Suddenly I feel 1.2 trillion dollars safer, you? n/t

[ixion]

14. Big k/r

what a horrible, horrible waste.

[ladjf]

16. Greed being supported by lunacy. nt

[Canuckistanian]

17. I think military spending is the REAL third rail of politics

NO-BO-DY wants to propose any meaningful cuts, lest they be accused of wanting to "disarm" America.

Never mind that half of the Pentagon budget probably has nothing to do with actual weapons systems, but rather "research" or "intelligence" black holes where NO inspectors are allowed to snoop.

[tekisui]

19. You got it. Both parties are pro-war. Defense and War are sacred.

Forever and ever amen.

[tekisui]

20. Shame on all the war profiteers, shame on all the masters of war. Both parties.

[soryang]

21. Defense spending is a $70 Trillion unfunded liability

Figure it the same insane way Pete Petersen and his his fascist think tanks frame Social Security and Medicare.

[Versailles]

22. You don't even want to know some of the wasted money I see...

I work on an Air Force base. At the end of each quarter there are routinely "money drops"...basically "excess" money in the budget that is dropped down to lower squadrons. The squadrons then go on 15 minute spending sprees, spending as much of the money as they can before midnight. We literally have 15 touch screen ipods, 3 color laser printers, and a ton of other stuff that is sitting in boxes...and has been for the last year. All funded by you, the taxpayer.

What's worse, none of that excess money can be used for salaries or bonuses for us employees. I have a college degree, 30 credits toward a masters in education, 8 toward a master's in computer science....I was paid 9,000 dollars last year because their isn't enough money for me to get full time rates and benefits while doing a full time cataloging job....not to mention the recent federal pay freeze.

[butterfly77]

23. kick..

[felix_numinous]

24. In return for what?

How is this money actually serving the American people? The MIC fight to protect corporate interests, and these trillions mostly get funneled into corporate coffers in the biggest heists in history.

I hope some day soldiers refuse to fight their wars, and like the police in Madison, side with the common folk.

[stockholmer]

25. I posted this on Thursday, and also included an Mp3 link to interview with Hellman

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=547114&mesg_id=547114

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175361/tomgram%3A_chris... /

"Welcome to the world of the real U.S. national security budget. Normally, in media accounts, you hear about the Pentagon budget and the war-fighting supplementary funds passed by Congress for our conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. That already gets you into a startling price range -- close to $700 billion for 2012 -- but that’s barely more than half of it. If Americans were ever presented with the real bill for the total U.S. national security budget, it would actually add up to more than $1.2 trillion a year.

Take that in for a moment. It’s true; you won’t find that figure in your daily newspaper or on your nightly newscast, but it’s no misprint. It may even be an underestimate. In any case, it’s the real thing when it comes to your tax dollars. The simplest way to grasp just how Americans could pay such a staggering amount annually for “security” is to go through what we know about the U.S. national security budget, step by step, and add it all up."


Mp3

http://dissentradio.com/radio/11_03_01_hellman.mp3

[BeFree]

27. Heh

And the last soldier killed in Afghanistan was paid what... $20g a year?

That's pretty cheap for one life, eh?

[amborin]

28. Mother Jones: Bank Bailout === $14.4 Trillion

[chill_wind]

29. War Resisters League Federal Pie Chart for 2012 is available

http://www.warresisters.org/

Downloadable: http://www.warresisters.org/sites/default/files/FY2012piechart-color.pdf (color)

http://www.warresisters.org/sites/default/files/FY2012piechart-bw.pdf (b&w)

More flyers and brochures:

http://www.warresisters.org/flyers

Start leafleting every event you attend.


K & R.

[provis99]

30. if the military budget is ever cut,

all of the saving will go straight into tax breaks and subsidies for millionaires and billionaires. At least military spending provides jobs for lower income people.

[Poboy]

31. .

[dkofos]

32. But don't we all feel safer.

:sarcasm: