The amount of this staggering elite money hoard, which dwarfs the entire United States economy (the world’s largest) was confirmed by the Tax Justice Network (TJN) whose spokesman, John Christensen, told London’s Guardian News Service yesterday:
“In total, 10 million individuals around the world hold assets offshore; but almost half of the minimum estimate of $21tn – $9.8tn – is owned by just 92,000 people. And that does not include the non-financial assets – art, yachts, mansions in Kensington – that many of the world's movers and shakers like to use as homes for their immense riches.”The CEO of General Electric and vice-chairman of the War Production Board, Charles Edward Wilson (1886-1972) warned at the close of World War II that the US must not return to a civilian economy, but must keep to a “permanent war economy” thus creating the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) (aka. “The Iron Triangle”) whereby the collusion between militarism and war profiteering became manifest as a permanently subsidized industry.
Between the years of 1944-1961 the power of this Military-Industrial Complex had became so great that President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1961) in his last address to the American people on 17 January 1961 warned:
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”Upon taking over the leadership of the United States from Eisenhower in 1961, President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) waged a relentless battle against the Military-Industrial Complex refusing to invade Cuba during the Bay of Pigs debacle, refusing to start nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis (even though his military advisors were demanding it), stopped atmospheric nuclear testing and had began the process to withdraw troops from Vietnam.
Upon Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 his successor President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) fully embraced the Military-Industrial Complex guaranteeing the survival of the “permanent war economy”.
Even worse, under Johnson’s Defense Secretary, Robert Strange McNamara (1916-2009) the way the Military-Industrial Complex operated in the “permanent war economy” was changed.
Within the Pentagon that McNamara ruled when Johnson assumed the Presidency, civilian and uniformed officials were in conflict about the procedures for how to determine the costs of weapons to be contracted for manufacturing. On the one side, led by an industrial engineer, the idea was to base costs on the formulation of alternative designs and production methods—a competitive approach that promoted economic growth.
The other side proposed generating costs based on what was previously spent. For the Pentagon, this meant following the “cost-plus” system used during World War II, also known as cost maximizing. In other words, “contractors could take the previous cost of making a product for the Pentagon and simply add on an agreed-upon profit margin.”
McNamara opted for the second option. The result was that by 1980, the cost of producing major weapons systems had grown at an annual rate of 20 percent, meaning, that by 1996, the cost of the B-2 bomber exceeded the value of its weight in gold.
So damaging to the US has their “permanent war economy” become that in March of 2003, New York City put out a request for a proposal to spend between $3 and $4 billion to replace subway cars. Not a single US company bid on the proposal—in part because the nation no longer had the tools it needed to build its own subway trains. It was calculated that if this manufacturing work were done in the United States, it would have generated, directly and indirectly, about 32,000 jobs.
To be noted is that this combination of [economic, political, and military] powers in the same hands has been a feature of statist societies—communist, fascist, and others—where individual rights cannot constrain central rule.
Unlike any US President since Kennedy, however, Obama has been the first American leader since 1963 to take “tentative” steps against the Military-Industrial Complex with this report further stating that upon his reelection he will begin an “all-out assault” to reclaim his economy for civilian use instead of war.
In our previous report, “US Military Reveals Coup Plan To Topple Obama”, we noted how Obama was building up his countries internal police forces to include the militarization of nearly every local police force in the United States, a move, this report suggests, he has undertaken so he, unlike Kennedy, will be prepared when his own military forces turn against him.
To which side the American people will back as this titanic internal struggle intensifies this report doesn’t say. But, and critical to note, as the wealthiest US investors were warned on 9 July to prepare for a “fundamental geopolitical shift”, it would only seem prudent that the masses of other Americans follow their lead.
Sorcha Faal
WhatDoesItMean
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