Thursday, February 26, 2009

Overkill... 2

A bit more on military spending...

1) Apparently the contract for new Presidential helicopters has gone over budget. The previous budget, was $6.1 billion. For reference, the budget for Iran's ENTIRE MILITARY is $6.3 billion. The current estimate on the project is $11.2 billion, which would put us at #20 on the world list, below Spain and above Taiwan. If the Pentagon bought nothing else and paid no one else, all year.

2) The military did not invent Tang or velcro. If wikipedia is accurate (and when is it not), both were private sector inventions (Tang in the US, velcro in Europe), and both were popularized by NASA. Those who credit military R&D for things in private use usually point to GPS, the internet, Hummers, things like that. Then again, the military didn't invent most of the things we use daily. Imagine what the private sector could do with $500 billion a year. I guess we can find out - that's what the rest of the world will be working on while we're buying more and bigger guns.

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