How the Private Sector Supports Authoritarians in the Arab World

 siriuss wrote:
 
Sure, but don't forget to fold twice before...

 R_P wrote:
 
But butt but can I still wipe with my newspaper /

Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that asbestos lurked in its Baby Powder

Trump reverses course, tells Pentagon to boost budget request to $750 billion
The president had previously called for a cut in defense spending.

We appreciate the government’s proactive action and partnership to maintain supply chain stability, reduce costs and ensure deliveries remain on track to meet growing demand around the globe

Amazon HQ2 Will Cost Taxpayers at Least $4.6 Billion, More Than Twice What the Company Claimed, New Study Shows

Amazon’s announcement this week that it will open its new headquarters in New York City and northern Virginia came with the mind-boggling revelation that the corporate giant will rake in $2.1 billion in local government subsidies. But an analysis by the nation’s leading tracker of corporate subsidies finds that the government handouts will actually amount to at least $4.6 billion.

Crisis actors?
Actors were paid to support Entergy’s power plant at New Orleans City Council meetings

Teenagers Defeat Trump’s Move to Kill Climate Change Lawsuit

A group of 21 youths who accuse the U.S. government of failing for decades to properly address climate change defeated the Trump administration’s attempt to keep the dispute out of court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled Wednesday that a novel and sweeping case, which the Obama administration first tried to extinguish in 2016, can proceed toward a trial. Trump’s Justice Department is expected to ask the Supreme Court to shut it down.

The group of mostly teenagers in Oregon alleged in a 2015 complaint that government policies have exacerbated global warming in violation of their rights — and those of future generations — under the U.S. Constitution.

They claim that for more than 50 years, the office of the president and eight federal agencies promoted regulations to support the U.S. energy industry’s proliferation of fossil fuels, accounting for a quarter of the world’s carbon emissions. They asked the court to force the government to formulate a formal plan to change course. (...)

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
what we need to bring folks around 

a) some real media coverage (see the death and destruction)

b) a war tax (have to stroke a check for it)

hey, it's my hallucination...

 miamizsun wrote: 
Exactly. It's all about money and jobs.

 R_P wrote: 

it's almost like we could put anyone in the white house and the wars never miss a beat

Afghanistan Surge v3.0

Trump to Announce $350 Billion Arms Deal During Saudi Arabia Visit
White House Will Present Sale as Targeting Iran

Over the past few weeks there’ve been multiple reports of President Trump planning to unveil a massive arms sale to Saudi Arabia during his Riyadh visit, and the figures have kept rising. What was $100 billion earlier this week is now, according to the most recent reports $350 billion.

That would make it one of the largest arms deals in US history, and realistically in world history, and indications are that President Trump intends to present this as part of the push for the creation of “Arab NATO,” and by extension make it about Sunni Arabs confronting Iran.

This single deal would dwarf President Obama’s arms deals throughout his entire term in office, which are estimated at $200 billion, and are themselves the biggest amount of arms sales by any administration in the post war era. Saudi Arabia was a large buyer then, as well.

With Saudi Arabia locked in a seemingly endless war in Yemen, they’re going to continue to throw money at more costly US munitions and weaponry in hopes of winning what they thought would be a simple war, and all indications are that the current administration will be just as eager as the last one to sign off on them.

Contractor Whose Business Model Is Price Gouging the Pentagon Has Powerful Wall St. Backers

On March 21, first-term Congressman Ro Khanna sent a letter asking the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate TransDigm, an aerospace supplier he accused of cornering the market on proprietary parts for military aircraft and then jacking up the prices.

The California Democrat charged that TransDigm operates as a “hidden monopolist,” to “enrich a few individual financiers who stand to benefit at the expense of our troops and weapons systems.”

The letter rebounded across Washington and Wall Street. TransDigm stock dropped over 10 percent in two days. The business press highlighted the story; The Huffington Post called TransDigm “The Martin Shkreli of defense contracting.”

In a nation that once saw a senator become president in part because of his investigation of war profiteering — and where memories of the Pentagon buying $640 toilet seats still linger — the story of a greedy corporation ripping off the military seemed to have legs.

But by April 11, TransDigm stock was back up to $236.48, virtually the same level it was at the day before Khanna’s letter. Investors had shrugged off the bad publicity, and the potentially damaging investigation.

It appears that the hedge funds, Wall Street banks, and highly paid executives cashing in on the scheme are confident that they can use the power and influence that comes with big money to prevent public outrage or government investigations from ruining their party. (...)

Syria Airstrikes Instantly Added Nearly $5 Billion to Missile-Makers’ Stock Value

(...) The Tomahawk missile used in the strike is made by Raytheon (rtn, +1.47%), whose stock opened 2.5% higher Friday, adding more than $1 billion to the defense contractor's market capitalization.

The shares of other missile and weapons manufacturers, including Boeing (ba, +0.83%), Lockheed Martin (lmt, +1.17%), Northrop Grumman (noc, +0.90%) and General Dynamics (gd, +0.93%), each rose as much as 1%, collectively gaining nearly $5 billion in market value as soon as they began trading, even as the broader market fell.

(All major U.S. stock market indexes dropped slightly in morning trading after the release of the weakest monthly jobs report in almost a year, which increased doubts about the strength of the American economy.)

The technology and equipment of the defense companies, which all have lucrative contracts with the U.S. government, was likely also used in Trump's airstrikes on Syria. Lockheed Martin, for example, makes the Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System, one part of a three-pronged system needed to launch the missile; the product calculates the trajectory from a ship to the target. General Dynamics also makes technology used to fire Tomahawk missiles.

Boeing, meanwhile, makes other types of cruise missiles.

Defense contractor stocks have risen in the months since Trump was elected, spurred by his promises of a "historic" increase in U.S. military spending. The budget Trump proposed last month includes an additional $52 billion for the Department of Defense. Boeing stock has gained nearly 21% since the election, while General Dynamics stock is up 14% over the same period. (The S&P 500 has risen roughly 11% since election day.)

"The spoils of war"

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776):

In great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them, scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in time of peace. They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory from a longer continuance of the war.

 Steely_D wrote: 
Government jobs don't count. 

Notice that Obama didn't get any credit for reducing the size of government when he radically reduced the number of public sector jobs.  

Changes at EPA mean that it will immediately lose 3000 workers.

So, the President promising to create jobs has just unemployed thousands of people. That seems backwards, unless these folks are all immediately hired onto to Superfund clean up crews.

 miamizsun wrote: 
And bu$ine$$ trumps people.