WP: Across America, War Means Jobs

Defense Spending Pumps New Life Into Small or Dying Towns

Tuesday, May 11, 2004; Page A01

FAIRFIELD, Ohio -- Along a quiet strip of gray corrugated metal buildings, across the street from a La-Z-Boy distribution center, Gary Allen and his ever-expanding crew are running one of the most urgent operations of the Iraq war.

Around the clock, seven days a week, O'Gara Hess & Eisenhardt churns out heavily armored Humvees, designed for the guerrilla combat and roadside bombs bedeviling U.S. troops. Last August, a back-lot warehouse held excess inventory. Now, after a $1.5 million investment, 30 new workers on two shifts produce 500 sets of three-inch-thick bulletproof glass a week. As many as 10,000 sets are on back order.

(snip)

In six months, employment has more than tripled, to over 600, and 250 more people in this part of southwestern Ohio work as direct suppliers. Production manager Ronnie Carson figured he interviews 15 job applicants every day and hires 10 to 12 of them. Just yesterday, the company's parent corporation, Armor Holdings Inc., announced it received an additional $16.6 million from the Army to ramp up production yet again. The clocks setting the pace on the assembly line were reset, from one vehicle every hour and a half to one every hour and 15 minutes.

"For us, the economy is great," said Allen, senior vice president and general manager of Armor Holdings Inc.'s Mobile Security Division. "It's a sad situation, but . . . " His voice trailed off, then he added, "I don't think anyone here is thinking about it that way."

In this corner of a critical presidential-election battleground state, the economy is surging with the urgency of a boom. But it wasn't President Bush's tax cuts, Federal Reserve interest rate policies or even a general economic turnaround that did the trick. It was war.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15952-2004May10.html

...what crap. The unfettered deficit spending is what is spinning the economy and jobs, but guess what, inflation and shortages are looming very quickly. Voodoo economics, a few will prosper, most of the rest of us will suffer and end up footing the bill and have absolutely nothing to show for it except a BIG MESS!

one great big war machine. That's a comforting thought.

It's how Hitler got Germany out of the great depression.

Hmm. I didn't read or hear about it.

Actually, you don't need to be in a depression to get positive effects from military spending It's a great way to create a temporary illusion of prosperity.

Inflation no doubt "fueled" in part by the ever increasing rise of inflationary gasoline prices.

Hopefully this kicks the alternative energy industries into high gear.

I am still awaiting the hybrid car with a peanut oil fired turbine.

You are required to report for Basic Training at Camp __________ no later than 7:00 a.m. on _____ December, 2004.

Warning lights are flashing down at quality control
Somebody threw a spanner and they threw him in the hole
There’s rumors in the loading bay and anger in the town
Somebody blew the whistle and the walls came down
There’s a meeting in the boardroom they’re trying to trace the smell
There’s leaking in the washroom there’s a sneak in personnel
Somewhere in the corridors someone was heard to sneeze
’goodness me could this be industrial disease?

The caretaker was crucified for sleeping at his post
They’re refusing to be pacified it’s him they blame the most
The watchdog’s got rabies the foreman’s got fleas
And everyone’s concerned about industrial disease
There’s panic on the switchboard tongues are ties in knots
Some come out in sympathy some come out in spots
Some blame the management some the employees
And everybody knows it’s the industrial disease

The work force is disgusted downs tools and walks
Innocence is injured experience just talks
Everyone seeks damages and everyone agrees
That these are ’classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze’
On itv and bbc they talk about the curse
Philosophy is useless theology is worse
History boils over there’s an economics freeze
Sociologists invent words that mean ’industrial disease’

Doctor parkinson declared ’I’m not surprised to see you here
You’ve got smokers cough from smoking, brewer’s droop from drinking beer. I don’t know how you came to get the betty davis knees
But worst of all young man you’ve got industrial disease’
He wrote me a prescription he said ’you are depressed
But I’m glad you came to see me to get this off your chest
Come back and see me later - next patient please
Send in another victim of industrial disease’

I go down to speaker’s corner I’m thunderstruck
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
Two men say they’re jesus one of them must be wrong
There’s a protest singer singing a protest song - he says
’they wanna have a war to keep us on our knees
They wanna have a war to keep their factories
They wanna have a war to stop us buying japanese
They wanna have a war to stop industrial disease
They’re pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind
They wanna sap your energy incarcerate your mind
They give you rule brittania, gassy beer, page three
Two weeks in espana and sunday striptease’
Meanwhile the first jesus says ’I’d cure it soon
Abolish monday mornings and friday afternoons’
The other one’s on a hunger strike he’s dying by degrees
How come jesus gets industrial disease

If a socialist or communist nation is not at war, the capitalist nation will start one with it or in it.

200 billion spent wildly on infrastructure, education and healthcare would add more jobs for an indefinite period. Most of this money is being pissed away overseas building the economy of other nations but not our own.

in this "job creation" we have been hearing about. Eventually some of that money being spent on Iraq would have to find it's way back to these kind of businesses. Are we all going to become dependent on the "Iraq Industry" as this company has become??.