Iraq Contractor Taxes
The Wonder Of How We Finally Hit The Nail
For nearly thirty years I have watched in some amazement as we elected and empowered people who wanted nothing more than to prove the power of the government was fumbling, feckless and FUBARed (F’d Up Beyond All Recall for those of you who skipped your military service). I noticed warning signs that they were blithely fulfilling the words of their own prophecies long before Katrina blew all of that away.
If you really want to go back far enough it was the Reagan proposition that government was the problem that was the first warning sign. We were soon headed down a path that destroyed effective government action. We still spent ever more money enriching those private parties who could gain access to the public till. Privatization meant more money to contractors for less effective service. There are thousands of examples of the wastefulness of this policy direction. Look under Halliburton in Iraq if you want a prime example.
We didn’t really take a hiatus in the Clinton years. Privatization continued on its perverse path. By then everyone knew government was the only real problem with our system. All it was good for was taxing and spending money. Markets worked better every time and even better without regulation. Money became the only issue that government could solve. Clinton abandoned reinvestment in basic social infrastructure after his failure to sell universal healthcare but he balanced the budget. Earnings from work still lagged compared to income from investments.
No oil tax increases to reduce consumption or real answers to our need to increase exports and reduce imports were tried. A little investment in the future via tax credits for R&D was attempted. It usually was too short term to have a solid impact on our household income base. Virtually unlimited policy support for moving jobs out of the country resulted in lowered incomes here. So average household incomes declined or at best remained steady. This trend continued through boom and bust years alike for close to thirty years.
Now it seems likely that someone else besides me must have noticed that household incomes are the only real basis for personal consumption. But we continued blithely on, loosening credit to keep the debt based economy moving and inflating bubbles even through the years of W’s ascension. Still, even after 911 issued its wakeup call, we continued the move to contractors to provide basic governmental services. No one wanted to hear the fact that we were on the wrong path to either good government or prosperous households. Clearly if we wanted to increase household wealth we needed to pay higher wages. Productivity boomed and incomes from wages still declined.
So here we are and here we will remain unless and until we get back on the path of capitalizing not just banks but households and government owned infrastructure. We need to increase incomes and build capital in our middle class and lower income groups. The only problem is that capital is now very hard to access for even the people with the best credit ratings in the world. If you want to drive a nail you might need to buy a hammer and a nail.
In the W Bush II era we quickly degenerated into hitting the public policy thumbnail nearly one hundred percent of the time with the privatization tool. It hurts when you hit that thumbnail over and over and over again. The answer is to look at the nail, not the thumbnail, and hold the hammer just tightly enough to keep its path under control. Self preservation eventually takes care of the rest. Unfortunately government still has no way to detect pain impulses, except losing elections.
Republican control of government and antagonism to governmental controls self destructed. It did so by establishing privatization as the goal and not the means. It also ignored history and promoted unfettered markets as the answer to every problem. The demolishing of governmental agency power was not measured by the success of whatever replaced it. Privatization and deregulation became the ends and not the means to create success in governance.
Obama saw that and took it as a pathway into office. He rode into town on the proposition that government needs to be the answer some of the time. Now he is going to have to define precisely what that means. A lot of the press is still reflexively dedicated to the idea that government is a problem everywhere every time.
A major basis for hope is his pragmatic approach to closing the wounds of recent years. No Ideologues are going to ransack his policy cupboard. He is prepared to do whatever works and to take whatever advice he thinks will solve problems. He is not a creature of the right or the left. He is a man of his word and a believer in solving problems through conflict resolution not conflict creation.
It is a good time for us to all approach the future with some pragmatism for a change. That will be a major change if he can hold that line. I, for one, am betting on his integrity and honesty and pragmatism to prevail. Wouldn’t that be the most refreshing change to hit Washington for a long time? A leader driven by goals and not ideology, measuring policies by their success or failure not the principle hidden somewhere far behind them. A real human leader complete with ethics and morals and conscience, oh my, how will Washington ever survive?
About the Author
Henri Reynard is an Author, Armchair Economist, Serial Entrepreneur, Science Buff and Political Junkie. Henri was born just before the beginning of this nation’s entry into WWII. He is politically to the right of Genghis Kahn and socially far to the left of Mao. His center is on the other side of the political circle from the people who are partisan by reflex. He has also claimed that he was raised by Foxes in the wild and now runs with Wolverines in preference to politicians. These facts are self evident in his writing.
If 3000+ American soldiers killed in Iraq split Lockheed Martin’s profits…How much would they collect each
Hint:
The Lockheed Martin Corporation, the world’s largest military contractor, said second-quarter profit more than doubled on increased sales of aircraft like the C-130J transport plane and because of a tax credit. Net income rose to $339 million, or 75 cents a share, from $144 million, or 33 cents a share, a year earlier. Sales increased to $6.29 billion from $5.7 billion, the company said. Sales at Lockheed’s Space Systems unit, which makes and launches commercial and government satellites, fell 1 percent, to $1.78 billion. Sales at Lockheed’s aeronautics business rose 46 percent, helped by an increase in deliveries of C-130J’s, as well as work on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and F-22 combat aircraft programs.
The point? How much are Cheney’s buds making off the lives of these young men and women?
Yeah just a handfull of kids, 660 Billion spent so far, no big deal, and look at how much they made.
Not as much as the 50,000 killed in ‘Nam or the 52,000 killed in Korea or the 100,000 killed in WWII.What’s the point?Just anti-capitalist rhetoric?
Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers trailer
In by gone days all a contractor had to do was give the customer good quality and good service and he/she would be set. Then set back and let your customers do your selling for you. They would tell a friend and then that friend would tell a friend. Your phone would be ringing off the hook. I remember as an Architectural designer some days I would have up to four people wanting to schedule appointments for designs. Those days are long gone! But Fear Not! Click Here For Help
