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SCOOP! Putin Is A Paid Lobbyist For Big U.S. Defense Contractors.
SHORT TAKES: Going Where The Money Is; Child Labor Is Still A Thing; $15-An-Hour Is Still Poverty; Delgado, The Empty-Suited Coward
| Jonathan Tasini | May 12 |
LONG TAKE
Ok, so, I’m kidding. After all, Vlad is already a billionaire, having siphoned off a nice hunk of Russia’s national treasure through his secret deals with his oligarchs (in the U.S., oligarchs like Jeff Bezos have it much easier—they just buy off politicians and use the tax code to plunder the country). Putin doesn’t need a few million bucks extra sent over from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics or Raytheon as payment for launching a war that has CEOs at U.S. defense contractors salivating over a torrent of money that will cascade onto already fattened bottom lines.
But, therein lies a truth: right before our eyes, and long before the Ukraine war began, we are witnessing one of the greatest recent expansions of the military-industrial complex, an expansion that will drain more money from the common good and almost guarantee more wars.
This isn’t a deep state secret. If you put the pieces together and see the pattern, it’s happening out in the open—but largely without much attention or criticism largely because the shoveling of hundreds of billions of dollars to defense contractors— immediately and committed into the future—is part of a renewed wave of bi-partisan jingoism, flag-waving and the building up of the specter of new enemies, and the media, as usual, is just a clueless and/or willing partner (cable news Pentagon “reporters”—think CNN’s Barbara Starr as the best example—put Tokyo Rose to shame by just regurgitating Pentagon press releases as if they are on the defense industry’s payroll).
About a year ago, I flagged in this piece here a key element of what will translate into huge profits for the Pentagon’s suppliers: the relentless, bi-partisan “red scare” push to paint China as the new menace to “national security”.
Indeed, the defense industry’s feeding at the U.S. Treasury trough was opened long before a single Russian soldier headed towards Kyiv—the news was coming regularly, such as the below, and reflected lobbyists pounding the pavement for many months stretching back years:
Northrop Grumman Corp. will see a surge of as much as $59 billion in research and procurement spending over six years for its two top defense programs -- a new bomber and an intercontinental ballistic missile -- if the U.S. Air Force’s new spending plan is realized.
Northrop is one of the biggest winners in President Joe Biden’s proposed $773 billion defense budget for fiscal 2023 that was sent to Congress on Monday and also in the Air Force’s five-year projection of spending for the years that follow, which was provided to Bloomberg News. [emphasis added]
The bluster around China is embedded in everything from the defense bill (which authorized $25 billion more than Biden asked for…):
China and Indo-Pacific: The bill authorizes $7.1 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, meant to beef up U.S. posture in the region and deter China, a roughly $2 billion increase Biden’s request. [the plain bold emphasis is in the original, the bold italicized emphasis is added]
…To a big whale-of-a-bill that will dole out billions to hugely profitable semi-conductor companies under the guise of “economic competition” with China:
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday moved to begin formal legislative talks on a long-stalled bill to pay for $52 billion in semiconductor chips manufacturing subsidies and boost U.S. competitiveness with China.
Which, to be clear, a semi-conductor industry windfall is military in nature for two reasons. First, semi-conductor development is a key part of the research and development needed for advanced weapons systems. Second, pouring fuel on the fire of “economic competition” with China will inevitably, then, evoke a response, which, in turn, will find defense contractor lobbyists running to Congress for yet more funding to counter the China “threat”. Guaranteed.
I always make this point about China: you can understand that China is an authoritarian regime where workers labor in slave-like conditions (for example, the government forces Uyghurs into labor camps to produce mountains of products for global brands) AND that, at heart, the economic competition between China and the U.S., or for that matter any competition framed as between two nations, is simply a dance of global corporations pitting each country against the other, usually to find the place where wages are lowest—not some high-minded fight over values a la “communism versus democracy”.
Then, came the war in Ukraine. You can have a multi-layered view here even if, to some, it seems contradictory: Putin is an utter pig—but he has been one for a very long time, including all those years when NATO countries were happy to do business with him, partly to get access to Russian oil and gas. He’s also a war criminal, blasting cities with no regard to casualties among women, children and old people in his crazed pursuit of his “Nazi” enemies—no different a crazed and immoral pursuit that underpins the war crimes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who torched Iraqi cities and towns after ginning up false pretenses to go to war. I mean, folks, if you want to have some consistency in righteous condemnation, at least be consistent—or admit you aren’t.
So, with the Ukraine war in the full spotlight of the entire world, now comes the inevitable global propaganda crying out for the opening up of the public till for the defense industry.
This is no more obvious than a long piece in the current issue of The Economist, entitled “Because of Ukraine, America’s arsenal of democracy is depleting”. It is simultaneously hand-wringing, as the subtitle conveys, “The war raises worries about America’s ability to arm its friends” but, more important, the overall piece is a thinly disguised demand to shower billions more on defense contractors.
First, the “play”—and, yes, I am using the terminology from one of my favorite flicks, The Sting, because we are definitely the “marks” since our tax dollars are eyed by the sticky fingers of the salivating weapons makers:
Most of these weapons have come from stockpiles. Factories may not be able to raise production quickly. Take the Javelin. America does not release details of its stock of weapons. But according to budget documents, its army has bought around 34,500 Javelins since they went into service in 1996. Mark Cancian of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, another think-tank, reckons that it has used 12,500-17,500 for training and testing. That would leave 17,000-22,000 in stock at the end of 2021. So the 7,000 Javelins given to Ukraine may account for a third or more of the army’s stock (see chart). His calculation excludes about 2,400 Javelins bought by the marines, and perhaps 5,000 expended in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And:
The production of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles is tighter still. They entered service in 1981, and America bought its last batch in 2003. The production line closed last year, but reopened for a foreign customer (thought to be Taiwan). Its maker, Raytheon, says it has only a limited stock of parts. “Some of the components are no longer commercially available,” Raytheon’s boss, Gregory Hayes, told investors. “And so we’re going to have to go out and redesign some of the electronics in the missile seeker head, and that’s going to take us a little bit of time.”
Oh, my god—”we will run out! Hurry, hurry, the shelves are emptying! Stock up now!”
And, then, comes the “sting”:
Ideas for improving defence production abound. Bigger stockpiles, diversifying suppliers, modular weapons designs that allow components to be swapped, common standards among allies and joint acquisition. But much of this is hard, given that procurement is slow and national industries tend to be protected. Ms Hicks says the Pentagon must give industry “a strong, enduring market signal”, an assurance that if they hire workers and expand factories “the work is going to be there”.
For America, the war in Ukraine is still a limited commitment. But if its industry is under strain now, could it cope with a big war—say against China over Taiwan? “In world war two, one reason industry could rapidly make the shift was because we had a massive amount of unused industrial capacity after the Depression,” says Mr Martin. “Right now the arsenal of democracy is not capable of responding to the demand of long-term high-intensity conflict.” [emphasis added]
This is propaganda but propaganda with a very high price tag. The message of an “enduring, strong market signal” and “bigger stockpiles” is simple: build up and lock-in more money to go for weapons so the war machine is never left wanting for everything it needs at any moment to prosecute a war—no matter how long the war may last. It’s propaganda for more wars and wars without end.
In case the message was too subtle, The Economist detailed this promise:
For all that, Ukrainian gunners have reason to feel confident that their cupboard will not go bare. On April 19th John Kirby, the Pentagon’s spokesman, suggested that America would keep Ukraine’s new howitzers supplied for as long as necessary. “I think you can assume that should there be additional need in the future for more 155[mm] artillery rounds,” he promised, “the United States will be right at the front of the line doing what we can to help get them there.” [emphasis added]
Here’s is something I can assure everyone who is worried about “partisanship” in Congress: child care, womens’ health care, national health care, infrastructure, student debt cancellation and anything people need will always die on the sword of the filibuster but, fear not, the ravenous appetite of the military-industrial complex will always, always be preserved, celebrated and lifted up by a rapturous chorus of bi-partisanship.
SHORT TAKES
Going Where The Money Is
At the end of March, the Biden Administration put out its budget plan, which included a whole bunch of tax proposals. To my eye, a plan that is way too easy on the wealthy and corporations compared to, for example, wealth tax proposals by Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. It’s a start, I guess.
Here is a handy chart summarizing the proposals from the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy:
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You can read more in-depth analysis by ITEP here.
Child Labor Is Still A Thing
Forcing children to work ranks at the highest level of despicable acts by greedy employers. My guess is that you’ve seen the images of kids who have been thrown on to a factory assembly line or roadside commerce, often because their family has no choice—if the choice is between keeping a roof over their head or just having enough food to eat.
You probably associate those images with poor, destitute people in far-away lands because child labor in the U.S. was outlawed, at least officially, more than eight decades ago. Well, child labor is a thing here in the U.S.—kept alive and humming by truly loathsome, depraved people.
To wit:
A federal judge has upheld an assessment by the U.S. Department of Labor of $1,964,450 in civil money penalties against Paragon Contractors Corp. and its owner Brian Jessop.
The ruling by the department’s Office of Administrative Law Judges is the latest action in long-standing litigation by the department’s Office of the Solicitor against the employers, prompted by their lengthy history of child labor violations. The judge also held Paragon’s successor in interest, Par 2 Contractors LLC, liable for the penalty amount.
In 2012, investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division found Paragon, Jessop, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and others had employed more than 200 children – including more than 100 under the age of 12 – to harvest pecans on a ranch in Utah during school hours, in violation of child labor provisions in the Fair Labor Standard Act. In past litigation, the department has successfully obtained contempt orders and back wages and other relief totaling more than $1 million. [emphasis added]
This abuse happens every day. And, as I often note regularly, what seem like boring administrative government actions that rarely get attention tells us why elections matter. In the hands of people who aren’t totally in the pockets of corporations (note the emphasis on “totally”), the Labor Department (as one example) can do things that make *some* difference to plenty of people today.
Does that mean the system is good? No. Criticism of the whole system is valid—and it is duly noted how corrupt the *system* is, and has to be overturned, if this violation of humanity was discovered a decade ago and it took this long to be adjudicated to its conclusion.
But, there is not a contradiction to support deploying the tools one can use today to make sure people get paid (because wage theft is rampant) and are not abused (child labor is just one example of workplace abuse), while, at the same time, working long-term to get to a better, humane system.
I could not help note that among the miscreants is an institution of religion—you know, the same kind of institution that cares so deeply about the rights of a clutch of cells but will fight tooth-and-nail to stop child care for those who are born or, worse, exploit children—actual human beings—for greed.
$15-An-Hour Is Still Poverty
I make this point each time: It is a real marker of how much the system—CEOs, Bezos-like billionaires and bought-off politicians—has stolen from workers that the public cry to raise the federal minimum wage is framed around the goal of reaching $15-an-hour. To be sure, raising that standard from the absolutely immoral current federal minimum wage rate of $7.25-an-hour would be a stark improvement.
But, let’s *always* put that in this context:
If you worked 52 weeks a year, 40 hours every week, with not a single day off and no health care coverage or pension (ha! pension…) and earned $15-an-hour, then, you would make a grand total gross income of $31,200. Long before the current inflation rate, that total amount would mean that a family of five would be below the 2022 federal poverty rate guidelines. Guidelines that, by the way, understate, what it costs to make ends meet.
If you look at productivity over the past 40 years, the federal minimum wage should be somewhere between $22-$25-an hour.
In other words, even at $15-an-hour, workers are still being robbed out of about 50 percent of a basic fair beginning pay.
Which leads me to highlight this effort by Raise Up NY to demand that the state minimum wage reach $20.45 by 2025 in New York City, and slightly lower outside the city (under the theory that it’s cheaper to live…a theory I don’t ascribe to). Worth checking out.
Delgado, The Empty-Suited Coward
I couldn’t let this slide because it’s a lesson in the stupidity of the Democratic Party and the craven nature of so many of the people who are elected to office under its banner—and why people are just done with the party.
You might have caught the news of yet another politician who apparently was doing some naughty stuff—as in taking bribes. That would be the now-former Lt. Governor of New York, Brian Benjamin who was indicted by a federal grand jury in mid-April and resigned his position.
I care less about Benjamin here—who, as one must say, is innocent until proven guilty—than I do about the soulless character who was parachuted into his position: Anthony Delgado. In 2018, Delgado ran for the first time in a Democratic primary to represent the 19th Congressional District in New York—a district that is north of New York City, roughly covering the Hudson Valley. He won.
From the get-go, the guy struck me as an empty suit. He had very little connection to the district other than his wife grew was raised there years ago.
But, the bigger part of the problem: running for Congress was mostly about a nice thing to add to his resume. He had no vision. Zero. None.
Here’s how you know that, from the piece describing his selection:
In Congress, Mr. Delgado has largely avoided the kind of partisan fights that dominate cable news and rarely, if ever, speaks with reporters. He has served on the agriculture, small business and transportation committees and has one of the most moderate voting records of any House Democrat.
Here’s why he’s a coward, a person who cares only about personal ambition and not even about the party: partly because of the current environment, he was facing a challenging re-election fight in a district that is always contested. Rather than take on that fight—every incumbent running has a slightly better chance to win—he cut and ran for a job that has zero power, and is simply a perch from which he can get paid to bide his time to run for something else. It’s all about him.
And he will serve a governor, Kathy Hochul—assuming she wins the job on her own accord after serving in the basically ceremonial post of Lt. Gov. until she slipped into the top job when some guy named Cuomo resigned—who has already proven to be of the same resume-building mold, and a captive of big donors, when she agreed to dole out a billion dollars in taxpayer money to build a damn football stadium.
It’s pathetic. But, quite instructive about the political class.
