Yahoo Tech Ticker reports:
Too big to fail?
That’s been the key question asked of Wall Street’s biggest banks since the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers, which sent shock waves through the global financial system and led to the worst recession this country has seen since the Great Depression.
But, there is another firm far from the circles of Wall Street for which that same question should be asked, says William Hartung, author of the new book Prophets of War. The subtitle of his book says it all: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex.
With $40 billion in annual revenue, Lockheed Martin is the single largest recipient of U.S. tax dollars. The company receives about $36 billion in government contracts per year. In 2008, $29 billion of that was for U.S. military contracts – a dollar figure 25% higher than its competitors Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman.
What does that mean for you, the U.S. taxpayer? According to Hartung, each taxpaying household contributes $260 to Lockheed’s coffers each year!
Paul, the video you posted just says “Sorry but this Video is no longer available”. What a shame.
Must be something wrong with your browser, Ian. I can get it on my XP and Firefox outfit.
The military industrial complex is so deeply entrenched in American life that it is unassailable. The war profiteers own as much of Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, Visa and Mastercard — plus all the media conglomerates — as those corporations own of them. There aren’t even any foxes left to pretend to guard the henhouses — all the animals are foxhens.
yes, that’s it! Why should we pay our tax dollars to this company? we do not want those war planes, those unmanned aircrafts killing innocent people all over the world. Why the government is hiding such an desastrous activity? Why do we steal the oil of Iraq? Why dowe steal the gaz in Afghanistan? Why do we bomb and kill with the Lookhead Martin aircrafts, that we are paying so much? We want a good health service, a good educational system which shows us the way for living better in community with all the people of our planet. We think it is time to show these mad men in our government that we intend to bring them to the next psychiatric hospital for their dangerous madness and close Lookhead Martin for the making of Frankenstein Instruments.
I wrote on another story here, about the Business complex doing work for the Government, up grading the file keeping systems, read that “computers”, Lockheed Martin being one of them. They also do State Governments too. As I wrote earlier, the failures that the F.B.I. has experienced, spills over into the state systems as well. The use of old, outmoded equipment, one of a kind, is available to anyone who cares to partake of due diligence in the quest of knowledge, curiosity, what ever. There again, the Government is at the mercy of these companies as well as the procurement officers of the different agencies. The idea that any Business that uses a computer system to run their affairs is safe from outside eyes, regardless of how much money is spent on security or how good that security is suppose to be, is the biggest fallacy ever perpetrated upon mankind. There is no system that can’t be hacked, bar none. Even the so called secure N.S.A.’s huge windowless monolith.