Saturday, September 5, 2015

It's Not the War, It's the Jobs

First off, there is no war and hasn't been one since WWII.  That's the technical aspect and it will have some bearing as this goes along.

The percentage of the budget for military spending is about fifty percent and that's important in this context for a perspective on the size of the workforce it supports to build all those submarines, aircraft carriers, jet fighters and bombers, etc, etc.  In short, if you stop making those things and collapse that workforce, America will eat itself down to bedrock in a month.

The problem isn't that America builds those things but rather it doesn't know how to build anything else.  An immense workforce of highly-talented, high brain-weight, motivated individuals is focused entirely on building destructive things.  There are sometimes civilian benefits in things invented for that purpose but nothing like at a level which makes the expenditure a value.

They keep saying more aircraft carriers will make me safer.  I have never felt safe and I don't feel safe now.  When there are three thousand live nukes in the world, the concept of safety is vacuous nonsense.


The reason it's significant no war has been declared is it means many have come as a result of Presidential whim (i.e. executive authority / privilege).  This, in addition to influence peddling in Washington, is how the corruption gets into it to sustain conflict simply for the purpose of keeping the jobs alive and the money flowing.  Oil has never had all that much to do with it.


The theme isn't so much to stop war but rather to find jobs as doing this will inevitably stop the wars because the country will substantially reduce the inventory of equipment to fight them.  Invasion isn't even a credible concept in modern times in which, more than likely, the last thing any country on the planet wants is more people.  Maybe Greece.  The population there is eleven million for the entire country.  Maybe they would like to invade somewhere.


Maintaining an enormous military at all times is not necessary as was proven in WWII.  As the threat increased, America ramped up production of military equipment and, as we saw, if you pick a fight with the country and what you did was bad enough then it will come after you and it will burn your country to the ground if you do not surrender first and it can do it.  Therefore, keeping such a huge inventory running all the time is only expensive overhead since American has already proven it can respond faster and in greater volume than anywhere else in the world should the need arise.


Thus the biggest problem is not the constant conflicts but rather the constant need for jobs to build the equipment to sustain the conflicts.  There must be jobs for all of them or the economy collapses.  They're such a large workforce that the economy could not take the loss of the jobs.  However, they are high-talent people and should be readily re-educable toward other projects and systems.

Beyond the problem of the jobs is that of imagination.  What would you have them do if they were not doing that.  They cost half the budget so this is not a suggestion to dream big but rather a demand.  Surely you can imagine some better application for one of the most powerful design and construction teams on the planet.

Leadership is always by example so what will you do.  It's half the budget.  Don't suck.

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