According to the latest disclosures, on February 24, a US lawmaker bought 31 stocks in large quantities, including the "military industry stocks" that have continued to be popular due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Foreign media said that this is another vivid case in which American politicians use events far away from the other side of the earth to make profits.
The protagonist of this news is Oregon Democratic Rep. Earl Brumannell . Financial records show that on February 24, Brumannor's stock account was extremely active, with multiple stocks with a market value of between $31,031 and $465,000 recorded. The most prominent one in the account is Raytheon stock.
When the Russian-Ukrainian conflict broke out, global stock markets plummeted. But not all stocks plunged, Lockheed Martin's share price rose 20%, and Thor's share price rose 11%.
As a US weapons manufacturer and world-renowned military giant Raytheon, using emergency aid funds from the US government to provide Ukraine with a large number of weapons and equipment, including "javelin" and "stinger" portable missiles.
The Ukrainian government said they need 500 javelin missiles and 500 stinger missiles every day
US arms dealers: War = money tree
61 years ago, then-US President Eisenhower issued a warning on the possible impact of military-industrial complex : "We must be vigilant about the unpredictable influence of the military-industrial complex, whether positive or negative."
Making huge profits from the war, look at the salary of previous CEOs of Lockheed Martin to get insight.
From 2004 to 2013, Robert Stevens served as CEO of Lockheed Martin. His annual salary reached $5 million to $7 million when he first took office; by 2006, when Iraq War entered its third year and Afghan War entered its fifth year, Robert's annual salary reached $18 million.
When he left Lockheed Martin in 2013, he received $28 million in compensation.
As the war intensifies, the wallets of arms dealers are getting stronger and stronger. Stevens' successor's annual salary is as high as $34 million.
draws their salary and war trends into a chart, as shown in the figure below ↓↓↓
From this we can see that the income of these arms dealers is obviously related to the war situation, and starting a war is an excellent thing for them.
About 90% of Lockheed Martin’s revenue comes from projects it undertakes as a government contractor, so almost all the money it earns comes from the pockets of American taxpayers.
The close relationship between these arms dealers and Pentagon and American politicians has evolved into a behemoth that only wants endless wars, not peaceful coexistence.
Associate researcher Gong Ting, an associate researcher at the Institute of the American Institute of China Institute of International Studies, said in an interview: "According to research and data from Brown University in the United States, the total spending of the United States in the Afghanistan war has exceeded 14 trillion US dollars. Half of it is contributed to for-profit arms contractors."
"In these expenditures, there are also a lot of corruption and waste."
Politicians manipulated by money can establish connections between arms dealers and politicians with enough money. By "donating" to politicians, lawmakers influence each other by purchasing defense contractor stocks and urging defense spending budgets.
In the past two decades, arms contractors have spent a total of more than $2.5 billion on lobbying American politicians, which means that as long as the contractors give their money in place, they can influence the decisions made by politicians.
For example, last year, Raytheon donated a total of about $15.4 million to lobbying politicians. The phenomenon of
" revolving door " continues to happen to these lobbyists. They shuttled through the institutions that participated in the discussion and decision on the scale and scope of the annual defense budget, such as Congress, the Ministry of Defense, and the National Security Council.
Former U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford Gen. General is a major supporter of Lockheed Martin's troublesome F-35 fighter jets.He joined the Lockheed Martin Board of Directors just four months after his resignation from the military.
At the same time, this "revolving door" can also turn in another direction.
Four of the past five U.S. Secretary of Defense has come from one of the five major arms contractors.
Democratic Senator Gary Peters from Michigan also owns shares in Raytheon, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The military committee is responsible for authorizing the approval of the Pentagon's budget. In March this year, the committee urged President Biden to increase defense spending by 5% in fiscal 2023.
In other words, these MPs are sending more profits into their pockets in a very direct way.
They become super rich and they "work hard" for it. They are well aware of how American "democracy" works.
Collusion between government and business, the world is devastated
American taxpayers have invested a lot in the past 20 years. What results did you get in the end?
is the complete failure of the United States' policy toward Afghanistan over the past 20 years and the deaths of countless civilians.
However, if the real purpose of launching the war is not to "liberate" Afghanistan and to allow the people to "regain freedom", but to turn the money of the American public into the pockets of American weapons manufacturers, then it can be said that the mission is "successfully completed."
The same thing is happening again in Ukraine.
The United States does not want to bring peace to Ukraine. What it wants is actually endless conflict and profits.
Source: Central Committee of the Communist Youth League
