Sunday, September 4, 2011

193,000 Jobs: The True Cost Of The Wasted $60bn In Iraq And Afghanistan

Robert Greenwald and Derrick Crowe


193,000 jobs. That's what we could have created, at minimum, for the money that war contractors wasted in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that “as $60 billion in U.S. funds has been lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade through lax oversight of contractors, poor planning and payoffs to warlords and insurgents, an independent panel investigating U.S. wartime spending estimates.”

To put that in perspective, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. economy added zero jobs in August 2011 and only added 85,000 jobs in July 2011. Now consider that the U.S. spends 59 percent of its discretionary budget on "defense," or $726 billion. If the deficit commission wants to cut the budget in a way that creates jobs, they should start at the Pentagon.

6 comments:

  1. If we were to bring home the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, at least 50% being National guard and Reserve. Most of them would be coming home with no jobs and going onto the unemployment rolls. Doing so would drive unemployment up even higher. Keeping them there creates money here in the states but at a coast the tax payer. Bring up unemployment will spook people even more. So the question is, do we bring them home and put them on the welfare lanes, or do we keep them there where they are still coasting us? either is a loss to the tax payer.

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  2. 5:37 I got a bright Idea ! Why don't we bring them home and put them to work policing our borders ?

    I figure we could use an easy 15,000 to cover our ports; 10,000 to cover our airports and
    10,000 at the cnadian border and 40,000 at the mexican border.

    Oh shit ! I forgot ! Sorry man ----

    That makes too much sense

    ReplyDelete
  3. 5:37
    We can just bring the soldiers home and blow our own cities up then have the soldiers rebuilt the place. This is called broken mirror economic.

    You are not giving the soldiers any credit. You think they are as just stupid robots. You know they can work for private sector. They can open their own business. Americans are very open minded and resourceful. The government can help the soldiers with jobs by providing low cost loan to open businesses, decrease tax and remove stupid regulations. I am a small business owner and I can tell you the government is a barrier to job creation and small business. I have to fill so much paper and it costs a lot too.

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  4. How about we adopt the Constitution and watch as 95% of the Federal parasite shrivel up?

    The soldiers unfortunately are not sworn to protect anything except the Federal Territory (The oath is essentially "I do solemnly swear to protect and defend the Body (Constitution) *OF* the United States, so help me God.") *OF* not *FOR* Words have meaning. Of indicates territorial boundaries, FOR would be referring to a written document.

    Each and every war since 1787 has been illegitimate. Yes, even "The last *good* war" WWII. What was good about creating our enemy so we could fight them? Hitler was nothing but a gassed loon who drank a lot in Beerhalls, it took Wall Street funding and a lot of very strenuous political maneuvering to build Germany into the credible threat it became.

    Goals of WWII: Creation of the state of Israel
    Creation of the UN
    Creation of a "perpetual threat"
    (The Soviet Union) to allow the
    Military/Industrial Complex
    to reap massive dividends
    over nearly 60 years.

    Nobody was defending anybody from anything. All the belligerents (political heads) were Socialists, and equally evil, they were just fighting to see who would get to run the show over the next 60 years. The Slow Socialists won. And here we are.

    Adopt the Constitution. Or, just let things continue on as they have for the last 224 years. Don't be shocked if you really don't like the outcome.

    SEDM.org

    edrivera.com

    Winston Shrout

    HJR 192

    Doug Riddle A4V

    jimstonefreelance.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. FIRST OF ALL, HAPPY SREF DAY! 10:01 I LIKE WHAT YOU SAY. HOWEVER, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE COLAPSE, AND HOPE PEOPLE LIKE RON PAUL,PATRIOTS LIKE YOURSELF ARE THERE TO PICK UP THE PIECES. WE DON'T CREATE WARS FOR "JOBS"!
    IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE CONSTITUTION, YOU ARE DOOMED TO FAIL! IF YOU LISTEN TO A SONG OF THE 60's "UNIVERSAL SOLDIER" by DONOVAN, IT TELLS IT ALL! GO IN PEACE!

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  6. I thank you 8:13. Happy Serf Day to you to!

    Learned the Constitution with my mother's milk, the biggest shock of my life was discovering it had never applied- was formally never adopted. I always wondered about HOW the Gov. could keep infringing on things that were "shall not be infringed," how they could keep blatantly ignoring the LIMITS that the Constitution imposed. Logically, it could not happen.

    When I discovered the fact that we have never had the written Constitution adopted back in 1787, it all snapped into place. Felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. PLEASE look at the evidence, don't just take my word. Read section VI in particular (oath to support *THIS* Constitution), get yourself a copy of the US Code (download) and read the 4 Organic Laws. Read the elligibility requirements of the Office of President (14 years a resident of the US).

    If even one person gets benefit from these comments, I will be happy. Took me 8 years to get all the pieces of the puzzle together, but google all the stuff below and see if it helps.

    The Collapse is *in progress* and there are lots of good people such as yourself 8:13. Many on this and other sites. We can only hope it is enough. The trick is for us to peel off the illusions and assumptions PRIOR to the last pieces of the collapse hitting the ground, so we can have the correct goal in mind before the chaos hits. Electing Ron Paul would be a good start, we need to see which oath he is going to take, and encourage him to take the article VI oath, not the article I oath.

    Wars are to keep the Pee-ons in line, distracted, and hating the people "over there" so they don't realize the Owners are all laughing and stealing their wealth right here.

    Great song BTW. Yes, it is all there.

    Namaste.

    *ADOPT THE CONSTITUTION!*
    ***GIVE BIRTH TO THE REPUBLIC***

    *RON PAUL FOR OFFICE OF PREDIDENT*

    SEDM.org

    edrivera.com

    jimstonefreelance.com

    Winston Shrout

    HJR 192

    Doug Riddle A4V

    Yahoogroups A4V

    ReplyDelete

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