America

If you work for the Elite who profit from the military industrial complex, do not expect them to take care of you while in Iraq or Afghanistan. Not unless you work in the private sector and have connections. U.S. soldiers paid with their health while a company related to the Former U.S. Vice President, Dick Cheney made profits. They made money for themselves and their friends by hiring private contractors while treating serving soldiers without due care and respect. A new book claims that a Dick Cheney related company got rich while U.S.

Take a look at this USA Today op-ed from J.D. Vance, a Marine Corps veteran who used to support Trump, no longer does, but says he gets it. Boy, does he get it. Vance said that until last fall, he thought Trump was a stunt candidate for the white working class; he backed Jeb Bush. Until when, in a GOP debate, Jeb defended his brother for “keeping us safe.” That did it. Excerpts:

Last year, virtually all the very “serious people” threw in the towel on global growth and trade.

It’s been apparent for quite some time (like say, a couple of years) that the slump in trade growth has likely become structural and endemic as opposed to transient and cyclical in the post crisis world.

Expanded Version: The US Economy Has Not Recovered And Will Not Recover

Paul Craig Roberts

The US economy died when middle class jobs were offshored and when the financial system was deregulated.

Jobs offshoring benefitted Wall Street, corporate executives, and shareholders, because lower labor and compliance costs resulted in higher profits. These profits flowed through to shareholders in the form of capital gains and to executives in the form of “performance bonuses.” Wall Street benefitted from the bull market generated by higher profits.

The production of plutonium pits—the fissile cores required to detonate the explosion in a nuclear weapon—is said to be the chokepoint of America’s nuclear program: when the pit assembly line shuts down, the clock on the arsenal’s shelf life starts ticking.