Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

America’s Biggest Jobs Program — the U.S. Military

Robert Reich lays out some figures for the military jobs programs both in manpower and hardware: America’s biggest — and only major — jobs program is the U.S. military. Over 1,400,000 Americans are now on active duty; another 833,000 are in the reserves, many full time. Another 1,600,000 Americans work in companies that supply the […]

No, Again, To F-35 Alt-Engine

by reader Ilsm “No, Again, To F-35 Alt-Engine: Schwartz”, John Reed, DefenseNews.com August 4, 2010 The U.S. Air Force’s top general reaffirmed his opposition to the GE-Rolls Royce’s alternative engine for the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter this week, saying that spending billions on the backup engine does not make sense in today’s fiscal […]

Misinterpreting History to Sell Eternal Mobilization.

by reader Ilsm Misinterpreting History to Sell Eternal MobilizationWashington Post, July 30, 2010, Pg. 19A Defense Budget Lesson We Never Learn, Max BootMax Boot, Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick seat at Council on Foreign Relations, describes a litany of tragedies rooted in alleged demobilizations including post American Revolution and the War Between the States. Each example is […]

Bleg: James Tobin and Paying for the Viet Nam War

In Conversations with Economists (h/t Kevin Quinn at Econospeak), James Tobin refers to LBJ having made “a mistake” in “raising taxes to pay for the Viet Nam War.” Google Desktop can’t find the line of reasoning behind that in any of Tobin’s papers that have survived my migrating possibly-non-OCR PDFs over about six computers. Anyone […]

A new shopper at the Pentagon

by divorced one like Bush Via Multi Medium comes a link to Boston.com for an article regarding another Obama appointment. President Obama late this afternoon nominated Harvard professor Ashton B. Carter, a leading authority on arms control, to take on a surprising new role, according to top administration officials — as the Pentagon’s chief weapons […]

Reality going to the Dogs

This one is for those concerned about how we spend our tax dollars. It is a robotics project funded by the pentagon performed by Boston Dynamics called the BigDog. I’m not going to comment because I can think of many positives as in the moon shot program and transitors and I can think of many […]