I'm an admitted cynic.
When anything says "all natural," I'm cynical.
When a celebrity's daughter makes it to the finals of a dance contest, I'm cynical.
When a weapons manufacturer's stock leaps right before their million-dollar + missiles are used in an unannounced attack on a foreign country, I'm... you guessed it.
If I had any "discretionary" money and no conscience, I would have invested in Raytheon last Friday. Of course, I also would have needed a bit of insider knowledge to guarantee my investment.
That's why I wasn't surprised to see the beginning of some positive movement in Raytheon's stock value by the end of trading last week, shortly after their Tomahawk missiles were exploding in Libya. It will be interesting to see if the price continues to rise this week. Nothing like a near-guaranteed 5% one-day return on your investment with the strong potential of another boost ahead if last-minute speculators follow. Who's making money, and how much of it will enrich the "blind" trusts of American politicians and others?
Ratheon's stock value (RTN) from 3/18 to 3/21
112 of Raytheon's missiles were discharged in the first hours (or minutes) of this latest war. At over $1 million dollars each, that comes to... well, you're not stupid.
To my knowledge, Math is still offered in our schools.
But speaking of schools, what would all that missile money translate to in terms of college scholarships?
If a college education costs $100,000 dollars per year, per student, the money vaporized by those initial 112 missiles could have paid for the entire 4-year tuition of 1,120 American students (with enough left over to pay for their books). But that's not the only money our "financially-strapped" government is spending to bomb Libya. Aside from firing off new rounds of Tomahawks, an entire carrier group positioned not far off the coast of Libya and friendly land bases from which F15s, 16s, 18s and Harriers execute their missions. Additionally, numerous high-tech radar planes precalibrate the location of each explosion.
Imagine for a second the cost of flying just two B2 Stealth bombers from their base in Missouri, refueling them over the Atlantic, then dropping their precision-guided bombs over Tripoli and returning to Missouri. Now, imagine the costs for thousands of personnel, maintenance, ordnance and weapons restocking. If it cost U.S. taxpayers $112 million just for the initial cruise missile hello to Mr. Gaddafi, how much would a week's worth of war cost us; $1 billion? That sounds like a conservative number. And how much will we spend next week in the rare event the "Mission Accomplished" sign isn't raised?
Returning for a moment to our cost comparison to education, at $100,000 dollars a student, $1 billion dollars would pay the entire 4-year college education of 10,000 American kids; or in other terms, probably the lives of 10,000 critically ill Americans currently without health insurance.
To answer Jon Stewart's recent question, I suppose it's possible to fire both teachers and missiles, but are those our only mission choices in America?
Perhaps it's time to focus our attention on corporate dictators, the ones who make policy for their elected stooges. These dictators are literally killing thousands of Americans far from any battle, and destroying the future for millions of others.
It's time we recalibrated our national coordinates.