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    The Khaki Elephant No One Wants To Touch

    By cmaukonen on Mon, 06/13/2011 - 5:43pm |

     

    I was having a discussion with my mother the other day concerning military spending and when it really began to explode. She thought WWI. I was no so sure since it was low until FDR was in office and I know he increased it considerably prior to our entry into WWII.  From just before WWII until the present military IE defense spending has been one of the biggest parts - if not THE biggest part of the budget.




    I'm sure you have seen these chart before but I'll bet you have not really looked at which companies get this governmental largesse. Well here is a site that shows the top 100 defense contractors and how much they get. I put together a list of the top 10.

    CompanyDefense RevenueCivilian RevenueEmployees
    Lockheed Martin Corp.$11,903,592,828.00$4,796,995,501.00136,000
    Northrop Grumman Corp.$9,324,359,858.00$1,821,173,639.00120,000
    Boeing Co.$8,188,884,907.00$2,273,741,289.00157,100
    Raytheon Co. $6,186,922,361.00$540,310,194.0075,000
    General Dynamics Corp.$4,729,812,847.00$702,070,138.0091,200
    KBR Inc.$4,545,379,747.00$61,077.0050,000
    Science App Intl.$4,107,508,779.00$1,366,973,804.0045,000
    L-3 Communications Corp$3,656,361,430.00$520,263,253.0066,000
    Booz Allen Hamilton$545,907.00$3,352,298,432.0022,000
    Computer Sciences Corp.$2,220,715,093.00$1,072,563,293.0094,000


    Now we see why the defense budget is such a sacred cow. Or rather the khaki elephant in the bedroom. Eliminate their cushy contracts and a number of these companies would be in deep financial trouble. And here is another site that adds even more perspective in this situation. So no, I do not think Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security has as much to do with our economic problems as this does. Yet it's become like having a tiger by the tail. Can't hold on and can't let go.

    Comments

    You might be wondering with all the military contract spending we are still doing, how come we don't have the employment we had from WWII through the 1970s. Well we are not spending it on items that are people intensive like we were.

    Ships and destroyers and aircraft carriers and fighters and bombers and missals are all very people intensive to build and we were building them like crazy.

    The high tech items that are being contracted now are not nearly as people intensive to build. Add to that all the support personnel that was necessary for the military basses that have been closed.


    by cmaukonen on Mon, 06/13/2011 - 7:38pm