Who profits from war?

Make Me Smart October 30, 2023 Transcript

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Kai Ryssdal 

Okay I’m ready anytime.

Kimberly Adams

Same.

Kai Ryssdal

God Drew, you’re killing me let’s hope Kimberly starts. No. Hey everybody, welcome back to Make Me Smart where we make the day make sense. Me saying I’m ready without actually being ready is not a new thing on this podcast.

Kimberly Adams 

And I’m Kimberly Adams. Welcome everyone it is Monday October the 30th. Halloween eve. Although Halloween is All Hallows Eve so is the day before Halloween actually Halloween eve? All Hallows Eve? Eve anyway,

Kai Ryssdal 

Is it All Hallows Eve eve?

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, yeah. All Hallow’s Eve’s eve. Yeah. Anyway, welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. Hopefully you had a restful weekend, if Saturday and Sunday are the weekend for you. And yeah, let’s do it.

Kai Ryssdal 

So we’ll do the news, some smiles. And as always, it will go in that order news and then smiles. What do you got? You got two things. I see.

Kimberly Adams 

They’re kind of the same. So today, the House GOP. Specifically, the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, released the House GOP new aid package for Israel’s military drive against Hamas, which he has vowed to pass on the floor this week, according to Politico. So you and I have been talking about this for a while that one of the first things that Mike Johnson was going to need to do is pass attempt to pass some sort of aid for Israel and or Ukraine, the Biden administration that has, you know, suggested a supplemental appropriations bill that had funding for Israel funding for Ukraine, border security, because there’s no way the conservatives would would vote for anything without it, along with some humanitarian aid dollars. Now, what is happening is that the Republicans in the House are trying to strip out and do separately the aid for Israel, apart from the aid from Ukraine, which is not making their counterparts in the Senate, including Mitch McConnell, very happy. And also, they are trying to do this by cutting funding to the IRS, which as we discussed last week, with that whole revenue conversation is not necessarily the most, let’s say, evidence backed strategy to save money in the federal government. Is that diplomatic enough?

Kai Ryssdal

That was very good, that was very good.

Kimberly Adams

Thank you. Good. Thank you. Yeah. So anyway, it’s unlikely to pass the Senate for sure. But I’m not even sure if it’s gonna get through the house. But it is the first sort of big initiative by Representative Johnson as Speaker of the House. And that is useful. And one thing I did want to say about, you know, funding for the wars in Israel, as well as Ukraine, this money isn’t just going to these countries, governments, to allow them to spend money to pay their soldiers or whatever, a lot of this money ends up being routed back to the United States, in the form of contracts to defense contractors, those bullets, those missiles, and those resources, drones, even even things like tanks come from somewhere, somewhere, usually the United States, usually US defense contractors, and because the because Congress has not passed their spending bills yet, what the Pentagon has been doing is pulling resources from the US stockpile of weapons and ammunition to send to Ukraine to send to Israel, because they don’t have the authority to spend more money on this stuff. So they’re pulling from our own stockpiles, which means the defense contractors are going to be making more money off the US government as we replenish those stockpiles, and then also potentially making money off of Israel and Ukraine, from their own purchases of weapons and ammunition using United States tax payer funds. And therefore, there’s an article that I have for the show notes in Reuters, about how US defense contractors, I’m just gonna read it here. “US defense contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamic, and others expect the existing orders for hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, hundreds of Patriot missile interceptors, and a surge in orders for armored vehicle vehicles expected in the months ahead, which will underpin their results in the coming quarters.” They’re expecting to be making a lot more revenue in this quarter. So there’s that.

Kai Ryssdal 

It is, it is, look, this is a terrible thing to say war is big business. It’s huge business. Right. It just is.

Kimberly Adams 

Very profitable. And I have to say it’s always struck me how literally as soon as we got out of Afghanistan, as soon as we got out of Afghanistan, because I was like man, what are all the defense contractors are going to do now that was their cash cow for 20 years, and then immediately to Ukraine and immediately now to Israel. So, always business,

Kai Ryssdal 

Right, it is a business opportunity, which is just horrible, but it just is. Sort of related, actually, JP Morgan is out with a with a an estimate of the hit to the Israeli economy that this war is going to do 11% annualized in the last three months of this year, which is a lot. 11% is a big drop. To be clear, they’re only talking about October through December. Overall, the Israeli economy is still expensive to grow 2% this year, maybe two and a half. But this is going to be a big hit. And it’s been a big hit in the stock market is down 11% The shekel is at 13 year lows, 12 year lows. And the longer this drags out, the worse it gets. And with all of this will come at the valuation of the shekle, as I said it’s going to come some inflation as well. So the Israeli economy, which is very tech, heavy, very advanced, could be maybe not doing so great for a while as this war drags on. And as Netanyahu said, I think today tonight in Israel, this will be a long war. I mean, he said it before, but yeah, yeah, it’s just it’s not gonna be great.

Kimberly Adams 

It’s kind of astonishing, though, when you think about it, that that is the only hit, right? Because a lot of it, a lot of Israel’s economy is just chugging along, as you know, Gaza is being leveled, right. And I was listening on NPR this morning, you know, these thousands and thousands of people killed by the airstrikes and the communications cut off. And it’s so strange, this dichotomy of these two economies right next to each other that are so different. And the fact that the hit to Israel is only going to be and I’m not saying 11% is not a big hit. It’s huge. If you’re talking about just like a regular economy, but an economy at war, and then an economy that’s basically going away.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, I was just that’s exactly what I was gonna go. I don’t think you can say there’s a Gaza economy right now. Right. I think it has been been pulverized, I think unemployment is within a percentage point or two of 100%. And that’s their reality there. And it’s, it’s I mean, all of this is horrible. But the the idea that there’s a Palestinian economy in Gaza right now is is not grounded, in fact, for sure. For sure. Anyway, shall we?

Kimberly Adams 

We really need those smiles. I never tire of reading articles about the War of the Worlds radio broadcast. And, you know, I’ve listened to it several times over the years. It’s, it’s always great. But you know, there’s this BBC article, and just, I’m just gonna read the sort of blurb at the top, “On October 30. 85 years ago, the population of the US was -according to Orson Welles- overwhelmed by mass panic, terrified by the all too real broadcast of his alien invasion drama, The War of the Worlds. The director recounts his version of invent of events in an interview, excuse me from the BBC archive.” A couple of things from that interview that I didn’t actually know. And I’m kind of embarrassed about it. I didn’t realize it was a retelling of an older story by HG Wells, the War of the Worlds I didn’t know that I thought that was always I guess, because they’re both wells, I just kind of blurred together in my brain. But that was an 1898. Story by HG Wells. Also, in this BBC article, they’re saying that Orson Welles as well as newspapers at the time, had an incentive to make it seem like the panic was more widespread than it actually was. And a lot of researchers who look back at this we’re like, yeah, most people knew it was an act. They weren’t all that freaked out. There may have been some people and enough people calling in to bother like to fill up radio lines and deploy the cops because the cops did end up in the studio, like, stop what you’re doing. But apparently, newspapers at the time viewed radio as a medium as such a threat that they wanted to demonstrate that this was an example of how irresponsible radio was and like see, look, you can’t trust radio, because they had all these people believing that we were invaded by aliens and newspapers with never to such a thing. Cough yellow journalism. Anyway, your video went away Kai. Oh, there you are. Right. So, yeah, sorry. So anyway, I thought that was a really interesting story. And I think I’m gonna go back and listen to it again, just just for fun. It’s It’s so cool. Oh, and Welles liked the drama as well because it meant more attention for him. And you know, who doesn’t like to be a celebrity? Many of us don’t. But he did. Yeah, what’s your smile?

Kai Ryssdal 

All right, so mine is one of those smile but not a real smile thing. So a story in The New York Times today, the headline of which reads “How Trump’s verbal slips could weaken his attacks on Biden Biden’s age.” And this made me smile legit smile, because and I am on the record on this podcast about how I feel about the former president and his respect for democracy and the threat he poses to the Republic. But this is the first in my memory piece in which the New York Times the newspaper of record, the butthurt emails newspaper, the newspaper that ran a story about six weeks ago about how Biden was slipping and falling, and that could be a problem for his election prospects. This is the first time I think that the paper has pointed out that Donald Trump rambles, incoherently and says non sequitur things. So, yay, that that they’re finally getting on board with, you know the truth. But then you read the headline, and you read the subhead. And I’ll read it to you how Trump’s verbal slips could weaken his attacks on Biden’s age. Verbal slips, really? Is that we’re going to call them? In the subhead, “Donald Trump, 77, has relentlessly attacked President Biden, 80, as too old for office.” Fine so far, but it goes on, “the former President himself has had a series of gaffes gaffes that go beyond his usual freewheeling style.” Well, hmm. Okay. gaffes? I don’t think so. Free wheeling style. I don’t think so. Anyway, I just it’s good that they’re finally doing it. But holy cow, could we not euphemized and soft pedal? And oh, my goodness, it’s killing me. That’s it.

Kimberly Adams 

What do you think they should have said?

Kai Ryssdal 

I think they should have said lies. Right. And they could have said things like, instead of bombast, they or sorry, “usual freewheeling style”. They act, they literally should have said incoherent style, right? Because if you watch videotape of the guy who said Obama was gonna get us into World War II, think about that. I don’t know what else to say. Just watch the videotape. I just think it’s soft petals are a really relevant part of the political discussion right now. Look, Joe Biden is too old for the office. Yes, he’s smart. Yes, he sharp, yes. All of those things. But there is more to the office of the president United States than being able to have a serious debate. Right. He’s just, it’s come on. And Donald Trump has his problems too. And if the paper is going to call out Biden for slipping, I think they ought to say not gaffes, but actual lies. That’s it, you know? Okay, please write in at makemesmart@marketplace.org. Let me know what you think of my blather. They could have said that, he blathers.

Kimberly Adams 

You do not blather Kai you make cogent points. But those are all of the points for today. So those are the points. Yes, those are all the points for today. No more points. But you can join us tomorrow for our weekly deep dive. Because we want to go somewhere else. We’re gonna continue our series on climate solutions, because the rest of this stuff is I mean, that is also grim. But at least we’re going to talk about solutions to climate change or not to climate change, at least how we can adapt to it. Anyway, solutions to climate change. Our next topic is hydrogen. You may have heard reporting on Marketplace and elsewhere about these hydrogen hubs that were announced all over the country, was it last week, week before? And so hydrogen is something that burns without producing CO2 in the process of producing energy or you don’t get CO2 emissions, you may get CO2 in the process of getting the hydrogen but that’s exciting. Anyway, we’re gonna get into why the Biden administration is putting a lot of money towards the technology and why some experts are pretty hesitant to call it clean energy.

Kai Ryssdal 

Until then and as always keep the questions and the comments coming in. You can reach us at makemesmart@marketplace.org. 508-U-B-SMART is the way you can dial the phone. That’s 508-U-B-SMART. Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Today’s program was engineered by Drew Jostad. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Our intern is Niloufar Shahbandi.

Kimberly Adams 

Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts and Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital. By the way, what happened all your Costco boxes?

Kai Ryssdal 

They’re still there. Alright, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. I’m just gonna do this because Bridget asked the same thing last week. Sorry, I’m just entering full screen.

Kimberly Adams 

I do love your fluffy backrest though.

Kai Ryssdal 

Alright so the Costco boxes. I’ll just give it the full tour video. Okay, so there’s the Costco boxes on top of 30-year-old dining room chairs that we use when we have people over. Bookshelf. The fluffy thing there’s the big Degas painting that my wife and I got in 1994 at The Met in New York. There’s the little you know, bunker that Skullr built me that I never used. We shouldn’t show Skullr this. There’s there’s the paper, there’s the plastic bag covering the equipment because we have a leak in the roof of the shed. Yeah can you see it? There’s a bucket under the leaky roof. You know, like it’s a shed people. It’s a shed. It’s a shed.