Valid Materialist Theory

Max Sawicky sawicky at epinet.org
Thu Jan 27 20:35:33 PST 2000



>Nukes are cheap. The great cost in the military
>budget is non-nuclear procurement and labor. By
>making nukes less feasible, JFK could have had
>the effect of raising the budget, not lowering it.

DD: Yer thinking too much like a macroeconomist here, MBS. On the absolute dollar cost of the military budget, you may be right. But nobody's going to get rich selling uniforms and soup cans to the Army -- too low margin.

mbs: Charles suggested JFK was whacked because he threatened defense contractor profits by supporting a nuclear test ban. I pointed out that the lack of nukes could expand the defense budget rather than reduce. This would include the high profit- margin R&D component, of which nukes are only a part. It would also include the much larger, low-profit margin procurement to which you allude. Since the numbers for this are classified, my point as to its shakiness as an explanation holds up.



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