Arms spending up globally, except in US, Western Europe
Source: AP-Excite
ELSINKI (AP) — World military spending was largely unchanged in 2014 as lower spending in the United States and Western Europe was matched by increases elsewhere, prompted by conflicts in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa, an arms watchdog said Monday.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said total global arms expenditure was down 0.4 percent at $1.8 trillion.
American spending was reduced by 6.5 percent as part of measures to cut the U.S. budget deficit, while the three biggest arms spenders after the U.S. — China, Russia and Saudi Arabia — greatly increased their purchases. Saudi Arabia boosted its military investments the most, by 17 percent, while China's arms spending rose by 9.7 percent to an estimated $216 billion.
SIPRI program director Sam Perlo-Freeman said the conflict in Ukraine has prompted many European countries near Russia to increase military spending, particularly in central Europe, the Baltics and the Nordic countries. On the other hand, the five biggest spenders in western Europe — France, Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain — have all budgeted for further, small cuts this year.
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Exhibit #1: The USS Gerald R Ford.
It is the most expensive aircraft carrier ever built: $13,900,000,000 AND it is UNFINISHED. Yup, $14 billion dollar$ AND we need to spend at least another billion dollar$ to finish it. But the best part?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-07/senators-protest-delay-in-survival-test-for-new-aircraft-carrier
People gather for the christening ceremony of America's newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, at the Newport News Shipyard, November 9, 2013 in Newport News, Virginia.
Senators Protest Delay in Survival Test for New Aircraft Carrier
Anthony Capaccio
Two of the U.S. Senate’s top lawmakers on defense policy are protesting a Navy decision to postpone for as long as seven years survival testing on its new class of aircraft carriers, the costliest warships ever built.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain and ranking Democrat Jack Reed wrote March 31 to complain that delaying shock tests until the second vessel, which isn’t scheduled for delivery until 2022, while skipping them for the first adds “a great deal of risk in this program.”
Subjecting the first ship, the USS Gerald R. Ford, to “full ship shock trials” would generate data “to validate or improve” survivability, “thereby reducing the risk of injury to the crew and damage to or loss of a ship,” the lawmakers, who are both veterans, wrote the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer Frank Kendall.
Deploying the first vessel “and potentially fighting without this testing gives us pause,” the lawmakers wrote.
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These assholes are in such a rush to buy more crap they can't even take to time to see if the crap we are buying works.
