Recently watched the movie 'The Pentagon Wars' which describes the problematic development of the M2 Bradley fighting vehicle which the movie describes as "a troop carrier that can't carry troops, a reconnaissance vehicle that's too conspicuous to perform reconnaissance, and a quasi-tank with less armor than a snow blower but has enough firepower to take out half of downtown Washington." In Senate hearings described in the movie, the US Army spent $14 billion over 17 years developing the Bradley.
The movie is in a semi-documentary style and is insanely hilarious (in a very black comedy way) and is similar to movies such as Dr.Strangelove and Catch-22. The more hilarious the movie gets, the more strongly it makes its point about the ludicrousness of the weapons development process. We see the US Army performing tests that are guaranteed to succeed (missile defense, anyone ?) and career-minded, egotistic, deranged bureaucrats at the Pentagon who put their careers before peoples lives. Some scenes such as the 'Office of Ruminant Procurement' and the use of sheep for "vaporific" testing are just hilarious. The movie is brilliant political satire very skillfully executed.
The movie is based on the book "The Pentagon Wars: Reformers Challenge the Old Guard" by James Burton (chronicling his real life case). I suspect that if we dig just a little deeper into the dense, seemingly impenetrable web of defense programs and weapons procurement, it's down the rabbit hole.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Inclusive Growth ?
If you haven't yet read any of P Sainath's research on India's agrarian crisis and 150,000 farmer suicides from 1997 to 2005, please do so.
Anyway, Sainath often talks about how the Sensex (Stock Index) and the Misery Index of the poor in India are inversely proportional. For example, consider this excerpt from one of his articles
The facts to prove Sainath's point about the twisted inverse proportionality never stop pouring in. On Friday, India’s Finance Minister P. Chidambaram unveiled a so called "populist" budget. It proposes $15 billion to write off debt owed by small farmers to banks. The Sensex reacted in its twisted fashion. India’s stock markets fell on news of the government proposal to waive the debt of small farmers. The Sensex index was 1.4 per cent lower at 17,579 points at the provisional close.
Of course, significant portion of India's population depends on agriculture which is expected to grow at a measly rate (2.6%) compared to the rest of economy (8%)
The "populist" budget also reveals its dark underbelly. Defense spending is up by 10 per cent to 26.4 billion dollars, to fund a mammoth modernisation programme. The usual justification is of course, Security! We need more of it, forever!. India is planning one of its biggest ever arms purchases, a $10 billion deal to buy some 26 fighter jets and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was in India earlier this week to push (pimp ?) American bids for that deal (Military Industrial Complex alert!). India also has plans to spend $30 billion on imports over the next four years to modernise its largely Soviet-era arms (the usual boondoggles). Yes, all this is somehow going to improve security, we're supposed to naively accept. Apparently, dissatisfied defense officials think this increase is "not adequate".
The Financial Times says India’s poor gain from budget
The entire budget speech can be found at Finance Minister P.Chidambaram's Budget Speech 2008-09
References:
Indexing inhumanity, Indian style
India raises defence spending, writes off $15bn farmers’ loans
US, India to study joint missile defence, says Gates
India's defence budget rises, but problems remain
Finance Minister P.Chidambaram's Budget Speech 2008-09
Anyway, Sainath often talks about how the Sensex (Stock Index) and the Misery Index of the poor in India are inversely proportional. For example, consider this excerpt from one of his articles
It all happened around the same time. The day the Sensex crossed 19,000, India clocked in 94th (That's out of 118 countries) in the Global Hunger Index - behind Ethiopia. Both stories did make it to the front page (in one daily at least). But, of course, the GHI ranking was mostly buried inside or not carried at all that day. The joy over the stunning rise of the media's most loved index held on for a bit the next day. The same day, India clocked in as the leading nation in the number of women dying in childbirth. In this list, the second, third and fourth worst countries put together just about matched India's 1.17 lakh deaths of women in childbirth. This story appeared in single column just beneath the Sensex surge.
The facts to prove Sainath's point about the twisted inverse proportionality never stop pouring in. On Friday, India’s Finance Minister P. Chidambaram unveiled a so called "populist" budget. It proposes $15 billion to write off debt owed by small farmers to banks. The Sensex reacted in its twisted fashion. India’s stock markets fell on news of the government proposal to waive the debt of small farmers. The Sensex index was 1.4 per cent lower at 17,579 points at the provisional close.
Of course, significant portion of India's population depends on agriculture which is expected to grow at a measly rate (2.6%) compared to the rest of economy (8%)
The "populist" budget also reveals its dark underbelly. Defense spending is up by 10 per cent to 26.4 billion dollars, to fund a mammoth modernisation programme. The usual justification is of course, Security! We need more of it, forever!. India is planning one of its biggest ever arms purchases, a $10 billion deal to buy some 26 fighter jets and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was in India earlier this week to push (pimp ?) American bids for that deal (Military Industrial Complex alert!). India also has plans to spend $30 billion on imports over the next four years to modernise its largely Soviet-era arms (the usual boondoggles). Yes, all this is somehow going to improve security, we're supposed to naively accept. Apparently, dissatisfied defense officials think this increase is "not adequate".
The Financial Times says India’s poor gain from budget
The entire budget speech can be found at Finance Minister P.Chidambaram's Budget Speech 2008-09
References:
Indexing inhumanity, Indian style
India raises defence spending, writes off $15bn farmers’ loans
US, India to study joint missile defence, says Gates
India's defence budget rises, but problems remain
Finance Minister P.Chidambaram's Budget Speech 2008-09
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