This deep, penetrating article proved too difficult for me to reformat. I leave as is. Please read and reflect. Unless we recognize just how thoroughly our economy has transmogrified into a militarized corporatocracy, we will not recognize the extreme need to completely transform it. Check out, for example, the Edge Cities surrounding metropolitan areas. It would be interesting to discover just what percentage of the relatively new faceless multistory buildings we see from the massive multi-lane roads ringing our cities are unrecognized infrastructure for the military industrial complex.
Missing Military Industrial Complex Money
February 19, 2014
by James Hall
batr.org, via rumormillnews.
“Many of the same companies that benefited from increased Pentagon and war spending were top contractors for other security related agencies. For example, Lockheed Martin was not only the top contractor for the Pentagon, but it also ranked number one at the Department of Energy; number eight at the Department of Homeland Security (Boeing was number one); number two at the State Department; and number three at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Contracts let by these agencies were only a fraction of the levels awarded by the Pentagon, but they were significant nonetheless. For example, the Department of Homeland Security issued $13.4 billion in contracts in FY2008, NASA $15.9 billion, the State Department $5.5 billion, and the Department of Energy $24.6 billion.”
This dramatic growth in budgets is even more significant, when viewed in the context of world expenditures of other counties. Leaving aside the relative merits of the dangers and risk of external threats, the gigantic enterprise of fostering the biggest military apparatus in history has made select factions rich at the expense of the many.
Jonathan Turley in Pentagon Plugs: New Study Finds Pentagon Has Hidden Trillions In Missing Money And Equipment, references an example on how the overall avoidance of financial accountability, outright fraud and intentional concealment operates.
“A new report has detailed how the military has cooked the books to hide trillions, that’s right trillions, in missing money and equipment. The military calls them “plugs,” a curious term for fraud. These are knowingly fake figures used to hide the fact that there is no accurate record of the money.
The plugs are generally the work of the office of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, the Pentagon’s main accounting agency. Required to complete an audit, the staff simply faked the numbers.”
Reuter’s reports on a Special Report: The Pentagon’s doctored ledgers conceal epic waste.
“Over the past 10 years, the Defense Department has signed contracts for the provision of more than $3 trillion in goods and services. How much of that money is wasted in overpayments to contractors, or was never spent and never remitted to the Treasury, is a mystery. That’s because of a massive backlog of “closeouts” – audits meant to ensure that a contract was fulfilled and the money ended up in the right place.”
Corporatocracy: How the Corporate Welfare State Divides and Conquers is a video by James Corbertt that provides an insightful analysis which establishes a surreal account how the oligarchy operates. The financial shenanigans of corporatists contribute to the interlocking directorates, which run the money pit that keeps the empire operating.
A rational reform of a depraved money laundering arrangement is impossible without a fundamental repudiation of the internationalist foreign policy doctrines that permeates the State Department. Funding advance technological warfare platforms that are unheard of to even congressional oversight is profoundly unconstitutional.
When such practices become routine, the economic incentives breed crooked abuses. The obligations for responsible public policy are methodically destroyed, when transparency is eliminated.
The Washington Blog provides several useful sources that document the extent of the problem in “$8.5 TRILLION In Taxpayer Money Doled Out By Congress To The Pentagon Since 1996 … Has NEVER Been Accounted For” and sums up with a bleak assessment.
“The Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a law that requires annual audits of all government departments. That means that the $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited, has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China’s economic output last year.”
Evidently, the elites that benefit from bilking appropriations and the board members that steer the defense contractors want the con to continue. For all the money directed towards maintaining the war machine, our actual security become less secure.
Banks laundry ill-gotten gain, as prevailing practice, in the normal course of business because the arm merchants are protected players in the trade. The reprehensible circle that the dogs of war unleash the cash flow from their illicit drug sales, through arms sales, allows for the smooth transfer of hidden blood money into number accounts.
Such an organized system of mutual payoffs greases the ever growing industry of fear and destruction. All the missing money is buried in the unknown cashes of subterranean tyranny. Creating false flag threats allows for imaginary scourges to be new enemies. Protection from such manufactured foes is the real business of the military-industrial-complex.
So, when more details surface about the lost and unaccounted military funding money, it is just part of the price of keeping you safe.
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1 thought on “How the Cancerous War Machine Economy Grows . . .and Grows . . .and Grows”
I would really be interested in knowing Dr. Michael Salla’s (Exopolitics.org) current estimate of how much is unaccounted for. I was staggered that he was reporting numbers in the order of magnitude of 2-trillion per year back in the early 90’s. I would expect his estimate to be even larger perhaps an order of magnitude, 10 times larger.