Air Force as Show Business and Special-Interest Politics

At the end of WW II a task force was assembled to study the role of the Air Force in winning the war.  John Kenneth Galbraith was a member of the team.  It concluded that the Air Force was of limited impact and that it was the infantry that had to do the work.  “Attempts at daylight precision bombing in World War II proved ineffective.  The bombers suffered heavy losses, and the enemy had to be defeated the old-fashion way with massive armies slogging across Europe….” The same battle is going on again.  The Air Force wants new, big and super-fast fighters that cost $1.5 trillion each.  Yet, it was the cheaper, slower and more maneuverable A-10 that provided air support to our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Probably, the speedier fighters account for many of the civilian casualties that the Afghans complain about.  Fast planes and drones lack the necessary field of vision to distinguish friend from foe.  The Air Force is determined to eliminate the A-10.  Harper's reports that “Legislators with A-10 bases in their districts who might ordinarily attempt to save those jobs, were offered special inducements by the Air Force.  Thus Michigan’s Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate’s Armed Services committee, has been guaranteed a squadron of aerial tanker planes that will provide substitute employment.”
    The military-industrial complex is fleecing us again. I wish Levin had asked for high-speed rail lines rather that jets.

Source: Andrew Cockburn, “Tunnel  Vision,” Harper’s, February 2014.

Chemical Spills in West Virginia

It is ironical that Freedom Enterprises stored a chemical that leaked into the Elk River.  Whose freedom did they have in mind?  Not the thousands who can't even take a bath or wash their clothes. 

Austerity

Ireland's Rebound Is European Blarney

By FINTAN O’TOOLEJAN. NYT 10, 2014

O’Toole questions the claimed wonder of fiscal austerity--

“After five years of austerity, it is shocking but hardly surprising that one in four Irish children are growing up in households in which no one at all is in paid employment.”

“The policy of No Bondholder Left Behind, on which the European Central Bank insisted, has been staggeringly expensive. To put it in perspective, the European Union has just agreed to create a fund of $75 billion to deal with all future banking crises in its member states. Tiny Ireland has spent $85 billion bailing out its own banks.”

Why is it that the banks have come out smelling like a rose when it was their lack of wisdom that created the problem in the first place?

Civil Wars

The new year is marked by numerous civil wars (not so civil actually) including Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Indonesia that the U.S. is powerless to contain.  So much for Bush's shock and awe.

The Pope Is Not Fooled

Apartments in a new luxury residential tower off Central Park in New York City sell for $53 million and UP.  Who buys these?  I suspect many buyers grabbed their income from gambling in financial markets.  Some of these are the people who contributed to the financial crisis, and they are doing it again.  Some say we can't tax them because they provide jobs.  Sure for the maids who clean their toilets.  The Pope is not fooled, he does not believe in trickle-down. Rather Francis asks
"How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?"

Train Wreck

A passenger train derailed coming into New York City.  Too fast around the curve, they say.  Why are we not building safe high-speed trans-national trains and road beds?  Can't afford it say the putative wise.  But, we have labor and machines unused, say I.

Youth Unemployment

6.7 million young people who are between the ages of 18 and 24 are out of school and unemployed.  After WW II, the US graduated a higher proportion of teenagers than any other nation. "As of 2011, it ranked eighteenth out of twenty-four wealthy nations." (Harpers, Dec 2013)  This is a tragedy, a waste, and a source of crime and unhappy, unstructured lives.   The lost wealth is in the trillions.
       What could be done?  In 1993, AmeriCorps put youth to work in community service.  YouthBuild provided construction jobs in building affordable housing while the young people completed a GED.  But these programs are being cut back in the name of austerity!
       They should be expanded. Finance them with zero-interest public debt--the Treasury could borrow from the Federal Reserve Bank who now thinks they are stimulating the economy by buying bonds, etc. at the rate of $85 billion per month. No austerity for the rich!