The US Military Budget Just Measures Corruption
America's burliest arms dealers pocket 139% of their free cash flow, which flows freely from the US Treasury. When the government gives these genteel goons money, they simply pocket it, then take out loans on the good faith and credit of the US government to pocket some more. It's the perfect crime, since they legalized share buybacks in 1982. As Nicki Minaj said, channeling the id of the military-industrial complex, “Ass fat, yeah, I know. You just got cash? Blow some mo,' Blow some mo', blow some mo', The more you spend it, the faster it go.”
Ain't it so, the more you spend it, the faster it go. As the American government literally shuts down and degenerates, the vultures are liberally chowing down and eviscerating the rump state even more. As the inestimable Stephen Semler estimates,
- From 2017–2020, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon (RTX), General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman spent 76% of their free cash on stock buybacks and dividends ($39 billion).
- From 2021–2024, these top contractors spent 139% of their free cash on buybacks and dividends ($89 billion), paying out $25 billion more to shareholders than they generated in free cash flow ($64 billion).
Stock buybacks (literally a company buying its own stock) were illegal until 1982 because, according to the American Securities and Exchange Commission (via Palladino) “a large volume of stock buybacks would manipulate the market.” Such actions artificially boost a share price and, thus, executive bonuses. This was long acknowledged as corruption but in America, of course, they just legalized corruption.
As FCLT Global said in a report, “The US is by far the leader in buyback activity, and is the only country where money spent on buybacks exceeds dividends.” Stock buybacks as of 2018 were over 3% of total market capitalization, a year when the S&P fell 6%. But as Henry Hill said in Goodfellas, “Business bad? Fuck you, pay me.” The mercantile mob will get their pound of flesh regardless. The sheer size of share buybacks shows you something interesting. A lot of US growth is what used to be called market manipulation most of last century, because that's what it is, quite evidently. They're eating their seed corn and calling it a harvest.
In many ways, America just legalized corruption, and these days they don't even give a shit who sees it. Now the big arms dealers are paying out more than their free cash flow while the US military openly commits genocide with the weapons. And the military-industrial complex can't even deliver, they're running out of artillery in Ukraine, air defense missiles in 'Israel', and can't even think about attacking China without China's supply chain. The whole military-industrial complex has been reduced to a simple shell game. They promise some magical weapons system decades in the future, but the arms dealers pay themselves immediately.
That's why I laugh through my tears when Americans boast about their military spending. It's like someone at the gym pointing at the lump in their neck and saying they're getting swole. That's cancer, bro. As I've said again and again, the American military budget is a measure of corruption not military power. They make no capital investments, haven't had a major equipment overhaul since the 1980s, and haven't developed a new technology that doesn't completely fail (like littoral combat ships) or expensively flail (like the F-35). At some level they know they're cooked and are stealing as much as they can before the whole economy blows. There's probably more money going for bunkers in Bethesda than bunker-busting bombs for Bethlehem.
The US military today is only good for killing children and luxury terrorism. The erstwhile masters of the universe have been reduced to a mercantile mafia. Remember that the USA has been unable to field a citizens army since the 1970s, unable to field their a debt slave army since the 2000s, and now rely on proxies, sabotage, and terrorism. America can still ruin the world but they can't rule it anymore. So the mob that runs the place is doing what the mob does when it's bled a joint dry.
See the end, from 3:40
Bust the joint out. See Goodfellas, its restaurant scene is basically a documentary by analogy. As Henry Hill described the New York mob, they ran up bills on a restaurant's credit, stole money out the back, and then lit a match. In the same way, the military-industrial mafia ran up bills on the good faith and credit of the United States, stole money via share buybacks, and are now lighting a match to the planet. You can see the fires everywhere from Ukraine to Palestine to Venezuela, none of which make any military sense, but it certainly make dollars for somebody. What we're witnessing is a classic bust-out from the mafia-industrial complex. To repeat the Nicki Minaj verse from a song I can't recommend,
Ass fat (Uh, bust it), yeah, I know
You just got cash? (Mm, bust it), blow some mo' (Work)
Blow some mo' (Bust it), blow some mo'
The more you spend it (Yeah, bust it), the faster it go (Yee, yee, go)