- Saudi Arabia Went On Arms Buying Rampage Over Past 2 Years: Study
Despite Saudi Arabia coming under intensified international scrutiny after last year’s brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, a new study shows Riyadh has been on a record-setting weapons buying spree over the past two years.
And who supplies most of these arms? Of course the United States, which has by all indicators done nothing to curtail its perpetual arms pipeline to the Saudis; instead it has grown. According to a new 2019 study published in March from arms transfer monitoring group, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), 70 percent of the Saudi arsenal now comes from the United States.
Prior file photo of Saudi officers take photos during a joint military exercise of 21 Muslim nations (in 2016). Image source: Getty Furthermore, the Saudis have hands down led the world in global weapons purchases for the past two years, and there’s little sign this trend will let up as Riyadh keeps up its merciless bombing campaign over neighboring Yemen, and as its regional ambitions have grown in competition with perceived “Iranian influence” — also given Syria’s Assad emerging victorious in the long-running proxy war in Syria, and as Hezbollah is now considered stronger than ever.
Senior researcher and Middle East specialist with SIPRI, Pieter Wezeman, told PRI the US-Saudi arms trade has continued to grow: “There’s been a very significant growth in arms supplies to Saudi Arabia by the US,” he said.
He detailed the bulk constitutes major weapons systems as follows:
To Saudi Arabia, the US supplies a very wide range of arms. The most important types of arms include combat aircraft, tanks and missiles. It includes very advanced sensors and intelligence gathering equipment, often on planes. In the coming years, it will also include frigates and other ships. So, really, the whole package of weapons which Saudi Arabia wants to have is what the US is willing to supply and already has supplied.
Wezeman also suggested the Saudis are worried about Iranian escalation in Yemen. Saudi officials have long accused Tehran of transferring ballistic missiles to Shia Houthi rebels, in order to strike at targets deep inside Saudi Arabia.
“What would have happened if one of those ballistic missiles would have killed many hundreds or if it would have killed a high-level royal family member?” Wezeman mused in his comments to PRI, reflecting Saudi fears.
He explained further that Saudi motives for its arms buying rampage of the past years remain largely concealed, leaving analysts to speculate on the more obvious geopolitical factors: “We don’t have a nice Saudi Arabian defense whitepaper which clearly explains why they want to have all these arms,” he said. “We have to look at how they behave, statements made here and there by important Saudi Arabian people, in particular, the crown prince.”
Wezeman added: “And it is quite clear that the prime motive of motives for Saudi Arabia are that it wants to be a regional power and that weapons are considered an important tool for becoming that, and that it sees Iran as an important competitor in that struggle for regional power.”
Elsewhere the SIPRI study reported that the United States remains by far the world’s undisputed lead weapons supplier, growing exports by 29% between 2009–2013 and 2014–2018. The report found and the US share of total global exports went from 30% to 36% during the same period of comparison.
Via SIPRI: The trend in international transfers of major weapons, 1979—2018.
More significant is the degree to which the United States is far outpacing Russia in the midst of what some observers have lately dubbed the “new Cold War”.
According to the report:
The gap between the top two arms-exporting states also increased: US exports of major arms were 75 per cent higher than Russia’s in 2014–18, while they were only 12 per cent higher in 2009–13. More than half (52 per cent) of US arms exports went to the Middle East in 2014–18.
‘The USA has further solidified its position as the world’s leading arms supplier,’ says Dr Aude Fleurant, Director of the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Programme. ‘The USA exported arms to at least 98 countries in the past five years; these deliveries often included advanced weapons such as combat aircraft, short-range cruise and ballistic missiles, and large numbers of guided bombs.’
One interesting data point regarding Russia’s lagging behind in global arms sales relates to Venezuela and India: “Arms exports by Russia decreased by 17 per cent between 2009–13 and 2014–18, in particular due to the reduction in arms imports by India and Venezuela,” the report noted.
Image source: Bloomberg Meanwhile US Congress has lately signaled it would try to put greater distance between Washington and Riyadh military cooperation, along with seeking answers to Saudi complicity in the Jamal Khashoggi murder — efforts which the White House has appeared to stonewall at every turn.
Thus for now it appears “business as usual” will remain concerning the decades long US-Saudi arms pipeline.
* * *
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) further found the following other notable developments:
- Between 2009–13 and 2014–18 arms imports decreased by states in the Americas (–36 per cent), in Europe (–13 per cent), and in Africa (–6.5 per cent).
- Algeria accounted for 56 per cent of African imports of major arms in 2014–18. Most other states in Africa import very few major arms.
- The top five arms importers in sub-Saharan Africa were Nigeria, Angola, Sudan, Cameroon and Senegal. Together, they accounted for 56 per cent of arms imports to the subregion.
- Between 2009–13 and 2014–18 British arms exports increased by 5.9 per cent. In 2014–18 a total of 59 per cent of British arms exports went to the Middle East, the vast bulk of which was made up of deliveries of combat aircraft to Saudi Arabia and Oman.
- Venezuelan arms imports fell by 83 per cent between 2009–13 and 2014–18.
- China delivered major arms to 53 countries in 2014–18, compared with 41 in 2009–13 and 32 in 2004–2008. Pakistan was the main recipient (37 per cent) in 2014–18, as it has been for all five-year periods since 1991.
- Brexit's Message To The European Union
Authored by Amir Tehari via The Gatestone Institute,
With the Brexit saga’s denouement still uncertain, the European Union would do well to re-examine its performance as a daring experience in socio-political engineering on a grand scale. Even if, as expected, the United Kingdom somehow manages to fudge Brexit and remain tied to the EU, the fact remains that millions of Brits and other Europeans are unhappy with aspects of the experience.
The first problem with the EU is that, though it is called a union, it isn’t really one. To be sure it has a flag, an anthem, a parliament, a council of ministers, and even pseudo-embassies in many countries, but despite such trappings of a state, the EU is essentially an economic club; not a state.
Even then, the EU is basically concerned with two branches of the economy: industry and agriculture, sectors that represent around 32 percent of the combined gross domestic product (GDP) of the 28 member states. In the case of Britain, which is primarily a service-based economy, industry and agriculture account for around 25 percent of GDP.
The EU’s annual budget accounts for around one percent of the total GDP of its 28 members. However, on average, the state in the 28 member countries controls the expenditure of around 50 percent of GDP.
Key aspects of the economy, including taxation, interest rates and, apart from members of the Eurozone, national currencies are not within the EU’s remit.
The EU’s member states represent many different historical memories and experiences.
The British are shaped by two centuries of colonial experience, followed by a brief flirtation with social-democracy morphing into the Thatcherite version of capitalism caricaturized in a single word: greed. The EU’s Nordic members emerge from seven decades of social democracy with “welfare” as the key concept.
Germany and Austria pride themselves in their “social market” economic model, which is regarded with deep suspicion in other European countries.
Italy, and to a lesser extent Greece, Spain and Portugal have a “black-and-white” model in which the unofficial or black economy is almost as big as the official one.
The Benelux three, Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg have lived with what they call “social capitalism” — a system in which the principal role of the state is redistributing the wealth created.
France, depending on the party in power at any given time, has vacillated between the German-Austrian and the Benelux models.
The Central and Eastern European members were all parts of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet-dominated Comecon and used to expecting the state and the party in control, to take all decisions and cater for all needs.
The 28 member states also have different political systems, ranging from traditional monarchies to republics with a revolutionary background and nations emerging from the debris of empires.
They also have long histories of enmities with one another. Leaving aside a long history of wars, some lasting over 100 years, little love is lost between the French and the Germans or the British for that matter. For the Hungarians, the number-one hated people in the world are the Romanians who still rule over four million “captive Hungarians” whose territory they annexed in 1919.
The Irish love the Brits as much as the Dutch love the Germans, that is to say not very much. Italians still remember oppression under the Austrians and the Spanish haven’t forgotten their struggle against Napoleon.
It is a wonder that the EU has managed to bring together so many nations in a region that has the longest and most intense history of national rivalries and enmities compared to any other region in the world. Part of that success was due to fears fomented by the Cold War and hopes risen after the fall of the Soviet Empire.
The Western European nations felt they needed to set aside old enmities to face up to the Communist “beast from the East”. In the post-Soviet era, the Central and Eastern European nations hurried to join the EU and NATO to put as much blue water as possible between themselves and their Russian former oppressors.
Needless to say, the United States encouraged the formation of the original Common Market and supported its morphing into the EU as part of a grand strategy to contain the USSR. In that context, the EU played a major role in ensuring peace and stability in a continent that has witnessed most of the wars that humanity has seen in its history.
The EU has also done a great job with the so-called mise à niveau (bringing up to standard) policy of helping new members achieve some measure of parity with the founding members in key fields of the rule of law, democratic values, economic regulations, and international behavior.
Brexit has highlighted the key challenges that the EU faces. The first challenge concerns a widespread overestimation of the EU’s role. This is due to its perception as a supra-national state which it certainly is not. Local politicians in many member states like to blame the EU for their own failings even in domains that do not concern the union.
The EU is also facing the challenge posed by the return of the nation-state as the most popular model of socio-political organization across the globe. Right now all supra-national and/or international organizations, from the United Nations to NATO, are regarded with suspicion, if not outright hostility, not only in Europe but also throughout the world.
EU leaders and those who support it would do well to offer a more modest and realistic image of the union as an economic club concerned with just certain aspects of its members’ economies and not as a putative “United States of Europe.”
The EU has been pretending to be a machine trying to impose uniformity on nations that have always prided themselves in their specificity. It may survive and even prosper if it works for unity in diversity.
Even if it never actually happens, the message of Brexit to the EU is: Pull down thy vanity!
- The Geography Of The World's 50 Top Billionaires
The business world has undergone considerable change in the last two decades.
While some fortunes are always reliably passed on to their respective heirs and heiresses, Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes that there are also entirely new industries that rise out of nowhere to shape the landscape of global wealth.
As the wealth landscape shifts, so does its geographical distribution.
The 2019 List of Billionaires
Today’s chart uses data from the most recent edition of the Forbes Billionaires List to map the distribution of the world’s richest people, and then compare that to data from 20 years prior.
We’ll start here by looking at the most recent data from 2019:
The most recent billionaires list features Jeff Bezos at the top with $131 billion, although it’s likely his recent divorce announcement will provide an upcoming shakeup to the Bezos Empire.
Bezos is just one of 21 Americans that find themselves in the top 50 list, which means that 42% of the world’s top billionaires hail from the United States.
Billionaire Geography Over Time
If we compare the top 50 list to that from 1999, it’s interesting to see what has changed over time in terms of geographical distribution.
Here’s the distribution of top countries on both lists, compared:
In the last 20 years, Russia and China have stockpiled the most top billionaires, adding five and four to the top 50 list respectively. The United States added three, going from 18 to 21 billionaires over the timeframe.
On the other end of the spectrum, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland have lost the most billionaires from the top 50 ranking.
- "America's Forever Wars Will Go On Without Me" – A US Army Major Says "Goodbye To All That"
Authored by US Army Major Danny Sjursen (ret.) via TomDispatch.com,
“Patriotism, in the trenches, was too remote a sentiment, and at once rejected as fit only for civilians, or prisoners.” — Robert Graves, Goodbye To All That(1929).
I’m one of the lucky ones. Leaving the madness of Army life with a modest pension and all of my limbs intact feels like a genuine escape. Both the Army and I knew it was time for me to go. I’d tired of carrying water for empire and they’d grown weary of dealing with my dissenting articles and footing the bill for my seemingly never-ending PTSD treatments. Now, I’m society’s problem, unleashed into a civilian world I’ve never gazed upon with adult eyes.
I entered West Point in July 2001, a bygone era of (relative) peace, the moment, you might say, before the 9/11 storm broke. I leave an Army that remains remarkably engaged in global war, patrolling an increasingly militarized world.
In a sense, I snuck out of the military at age 35, my early retirement an ignominious end to a once-promising career. Make no mistake, I wanted out. I’d relocated 11 times in 18 years, often enough to war zones, and I simply didn’t have another deployment in me. Still, I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit that I’ll mourn the loss of my career, of the identity inherent in soldiering, of the experience of adulation from a grateful (if ill-informed) society.
Perhaps that’s only natural, no matter how much such a hokey admission embarrasses me. I recognize, at least, that there’s a paradox at work here: the Army and the Global War on Terror (GWOT) made me who I now am, brought a new version of me to life, and gifted me (if that’s the right phrase for something so grim) with the stories, the platform, and the pain that now make my writing possible. Those military deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in particular turned a budding neocon into an unabashed progressive. My experiences there transformed an insecure, aspiring dealer-in-violence into someone who might be as near as a former military man can get to a pacifist. And what the U.S. Army helped me become is someone who, in the end, I don’t mind gazing at in the mirror each morning.
Should I thank the Army then? Maybe so, no matter the damage that institution did to my psyche and my conscience over the years. It’s hard, though, to thank a war machine that dealt so much death to so many civilians across significant parts of the planet for making me who I am. And no matter how much I told myself I was different, the truth is that I was complicit in so much of that for so long.
In a way, I wonder whether something resembling an apology, rather than a statement of pride in who I’ve become, is the more appropriate way of saying goodbye to all that. Nonetheless, the story is all mine, the burdensome, the beautiful, the banal, and the horrific. War, violence, and bigotry — as I’ve written — are America’s original sins and, looking back, it seems to me that they may be mine as well. In that context, though I’m now officially retired, I think of this as my last piece authored as an active military dissenter — a clearing of the air — before moving on to a life of activism, as well as an unarmed life of words.
What I Won’t Be Missing
It’s time to wave goodbye to a litany of absurdity that I witnessed in the institution to which I dedicated my adult life. Some peers, even friends, may call this heresy — a disgruntled former major airing dirty laundry — and maybe in some way it is. Still, what I observed in various combat units, in conversation with senior officers, and as a horrified voyeur of, and actor in, two dirty wars matters. Of that, I remain convinced.
So here’s my official goodbye to all that, to a military and a nation engaged in an Orwellian set of forever wars and to the professional foot soldiers who made so much of it all possible, while the remainder of the country worked, tweeted, shopped, and slept (in every sense of the word).
Goodbye to the majors who wanted to be colonels and the colonels who wanted to be generals — at any cost. To the sociopaths who rose in the ranks by trampling on the souls of their overburdened troopers, trading lives for minor bumps in statistics and pats on the shoulder from aggressive superiors.
Goodbye to the generals who led like so many lieutenants, the ones who knew the tactics but couldn’t for the life of them think strategically, eternally proving the Peter Principle right with every promotion past their respective levels of incompetence.
So long to the flag officers convinced that what worked at the squad level — physical fitness, esprit de corps, and teamwork — would win victories at the brigade and division level in distant, alien lands.
Farewell to the generals I served under who then shamelessly spun through Washington’s revolving door, trading in their multi-starred uniforms for six- and seven-figure corporate gigs on the boards of weapons manufacturers, aka “the merchants of death” (as they were known once upon a distant time), and so helped feed the unquenchable appetite of the military-industrial beast.
Farewell to the senior generals, so stuck in what they called “their lane” that they were unwilling (or intellectually unable) to advise civilian policymakers about missions that could never be accomplished, so trapped in the GWOT box that they couldn’t say no to a single suggestion from chickenhawk militarists on the Hill or in the Oval Office.
Goodbye to the devotees of American exceptionalism who filled the Army’s ranks, stalwart evangelists of a civic religion that believed there was a secret American inside every Arab or Afghan, ready to burst forth with the slightest poke from Uncle Sam’s benevolent bayonet.
Ciao to staff officers who mistook “measures of performance” (doing lots of stuff) for “measures of effectiveness” (doing the rightstuff). I won’t miss the gaggles of obtuse majors and colonels who demanded measurable “output” — numbers of patrols completed, numbers of houses searched, counts of PowerPoint slides published — from already overtasked captains and the soldiers they led and who will never learn the difference between doing lots and doing well.
Goodbye to battalion and brigade commanders who already had their hands full unsuccessfully “pacifying” entire districts and provinces in alien lands, yet seemed more concerned with the cleanliness of troopers’ uniforms and the two-mile-run times of their units, prioritizing physical fitness over tactical competence, empathy, or ethics.
Godspeed to the often-intolerant conservatism and evangelical Christianity infusing the ranks.
See ya to the generals who lent their voices, while still in uniform, to religious organizations, one of whom even became the superintendent of West Point, and at worst got mere slaps on the wrist for that. (And while we’re at it, here’s a goodbye wave to all those chaplains, supposedly non-denominational supporters of every kind of soldier, who regularly ended their prayers with “in Jesus’s name, amen.” So much for church-state separation.)
Farewell to the still-prevalent cis-gender patriarchy and (strangely erotic) homophobia that infuses the ranks of the U.S. military. Sure, “don’t ask, don’t tell” is a thing of the past, but the Army remains a (straight) boys’ club and no easy place for the openly gay, while the president remains intent on banningtransgender enlistees. And even in 2019, one in four women still reports at least one sexual assault during her military tour of duty. How’s that for social progress?
So long to the adrenaline junkies and power-obsessed freaks atop so many combat units, folks who lived for the violence, the rush of nighttime raids without a thought for their often counterproductive and bloody consequences. It’s a relief to leave them behind as they continue — prisoners of counterinsurgency, or COIN, math — to feed the insurgencies the U.S. fights far faster than they kill “terrorists.”
Goodbye to officers, especially generals, who place “duty” above ethics.
Sayonara to those who canonize “martyrs” like former commander James “Mad Dog” Mattis, a hero for resigning as defense secretary rather than implement (gasp!) modest troop withdrawals from our endless wars in Syria and Afghanistan. (As for a Pentagon-backed war in Yemen that starved to death at least 85,000 kids, he was apparently fine with that.)
Toodle-oo to the vacuous, “thanks-for-your-service” compliments from civilians who otherwise ignore soldiers’ issues, foreign policy, and our forever wars, who never give a thought to placing the country’s disastrous conflicts up there with healthcare on anyone’s election-year priorities list.
Parting is such sweet sorrow when it comes to the neo-Confederate backgrounds and cheerleading of far too many troopers and officers, to a military academy that still has a Robert E. Lee Road on which you drive from a Lee Housing Area to a Lee Barracks, part of an Army that has named at least 10 of its stateside bases after Confederate generals.
Farewell to rampant Islamophobia in the ranks and the leaders who do so little to counter it, to the ubiquitous slurs about Arabs and Afghans, including “hajis,” “rag-heads,” “camel jockies,” or simply “sand niggers.” What a way to win Muslim “hearts and minds!”
Ta-ta to the paradox of hyper-capitalism and Ayn Randian fiscal conservatism among the officers of the nation’s most socialist institution, the military. Count me in as sick of the faux intellectuals reading books by economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman in Iraq or their less sophisticated peers toting around Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, or Glenn Beck volumes, all the while enjoying their publicly-financed, co-pay-less government healthcare.
Adieu to a military justice system that boots out soldiers who commit “alcohol-related” offenses or “piss hot” for marijuana while rarely investigating the Army’s role as a catalyst for their addictions — and so long as well to a discipline-over-treatment model for dealing with substance abuse that’s only now beginning to change.
Goodbye to infighting among the Army, Navy, and Air Force over funds and equipment and to those “Pentagon Wars” that prioritize loyalty to your service branch over fealty to the nation or the Constitution.
See you later, when it comes to the predictable opinions of a legion of semi-retired generals on 24-hour cable news who count on their public stature to sell Americans yet more guns and militarism.
So long to the faux-intellectualism of men like former “surge” general David Petraeus and his sycophantic army of “warrior monks” and COINdinistaswho have never seen a problem to which slightly improved counterinsurgency tactics wasn’t the answer and are incapable of questioning the efficacy of force, intervention, and occupation as ways to alter complex societies for the better.
Farewell to the pride and value military leaders place on superficial decorations — patches and badges and medals — rather than true mission-accomplished moments. (Don’t hold your breath waiting for even a single senior commander to ever admit that his forces wasted their time, or worse, during their year-long deployment in one of America’s distant war zones.)
Cheerio to the prevailing consensus among U.S. officers that our NATO allies are “worthless” or “weak” because they aren’t aggressive enough in taking on certain missions or types of patrols, while fighting and sometimes dying for Uncle Sam’s global priorities. (This is the nonsense that led to French fries being banned and “freedom fries” served in the congressional cafeteria after France had the gall to oppose Washington’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.)
Goodbye to the colonels and generals who speak at the funeral ceremonies of soldiers they hardly know in order to “rededicate” the mourning survivors to the never-ending mission at hand.
Farewell to the soldiers and officers who regularly complained that the Army’s Rules of Engagement were too strict — as if more brutality, bombing, and firepower (with less concern for civilians) would have brought victory — as well as to the assumption behind such complaints that Americans have some sort of inherent right to wage wars of choice overseas.
So long to the chauvinism in the senior ranks that asserts some sort of messianic American right and mission to police the globe, dot it with bases, and give its military men license to strut around the villages and alleyways of sovereign states as if they were their own.
America’s servicemen have taken to believing in their own myth: that they really do constitute a special caste above all you measly civilians — and now, of course, me, too. In this way, military men actually reflect a toxic society’s values. Few ask why there aren’t teachers, nurses, and social workers honoredlike U.S. military personnel in America’s vaunted sports stadiums. True servants — as we soldiers, in my years of service, were so fond of dubbing ourselves — should stick to humility and recognize that there are other, far nobler ways to spend one’s life.
And here, finally, is what I can’t say goodbye to: a society that’s come to value its warriors above all others.
A Farewell Coda
So what should this now-retired Army major make of it all? The inconvenient truth is perhaps very little. It’s unlikely that anything I’ll write will change many minds or affect policy in any way. In the decade following World War I, when Major General Smedley Butler, the most decorated Marine of his time, took up the pen to expose the ills of American-style corporate warfare, he (unlike me) made a true splash. As today, however, the American intervention machine just rolled on. So what chance does a former Army major have of moving the needle on U.S. militarism?
I’m active now in what little there is of an antiwar movement in this country. That was part of the genius of President Richard Nixon’s cynical decision in 1973, following years of large-scale antiwar activity in this country and in the U.S. military itself during the Vietnam era, to end the draft. He replaced a citizen’s army with an all-volunteer force. By turning the military into a professional caste, a kind of homegrown foreign legion, rather than a responsibility of every citizen, by transforming its officers into an isolated, fawned-upon caste, he effectively ensured that the public would look elsewhere and that antiwar movements would largely become things of the past.
Maybe it’s hopeless to fight such a beast. Still, as the child of a blue-collar, outer-borough New York City family, I was raised on the romance of lost causes. So I hope to play a small role in my version of a lost cause — as a (lonely) response to the pervasive stereotypes of modern American soldiers, of the officer corps, of West Point. I plan on being there whenever the militarists insist that Army types are all politically conservative, all model patriots, all devout “moral” Christians, all… you name it and I’ll be there as an inconvenient counterpoint to a system that demands compliance.
And here’s the truth of it: no matter what you may think, I’m not alone. There are a precious few other public voices from the forever wars speaking out and — as various supportive texts and emails to me have made clear — more silent dissenters in the ranks than you might imagine.
So count on this: I’ll be hoping that more serving officers as well as troops gather the courage to speak out and tell the American public the score when it comes to our brutal, hopeless, never-ending wars. Sure, it’s just a dream for now, but what would those at the top of that war system do if the troops, officers, and commanders they’ve so consciously placed on a pedestal begin doubting, then questioning, then dissenting? That would be a problem for a war machine that, even in the age of AI and drones, still needs its obedient foot soldiers to hump a ruck and patrol a block.
I was, until recently, one of them, the obsequious grunt at the pointy end of the spear fashioned by a warlike government ruling over an apathetic citizenry. But no longer. I’m only 35 and maybe it won’t make a difference, but I must admit that I’m looking forward to my second act. So think of this goodbye to all that as a hello to all that as well.
* * *
Danny Sjursen, a TomDispatch regular, is a retired U.S. Army major and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written a memoir of the Iraq War, Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet and check out his podcast “Fortress on a Hill,” co-hosted with fellow vet Chris ‘Henri’ Henriksen.
- The State Of NASA's Budget As Pence Seeks New Moon Landing
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has declared that the Trump administration wants to send humans back to the moon by 2024. That is four years earlier than NASA’s previous target of 2028. Apart from changing rockets and switching between contractors, Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes that Pence did not provide any information as to how NASA will achieve another moon landing by 2024.
For starters, the agency will need a much bigger budget. NASA’s budget for FY 2019 is $21.5 billion, representing 0.49 percent of the federal budget.
The following infographic provides a long term overview going back to the late 1950s.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Apollo 17 was the final mission of NASA’s Apollo program and it marks the last time humans walked on the moon. The budget for space exploration was much higher that year, accounting for 1.48 percent of the total federal budget. The share reached its highest point in 1966 at 4.41 percent.
- Bannon: "Trump Is Going To Go Full-Animal On His Opponents Now That The Mueller Investigation Is Over"
Submitted by Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management
“I have a better education than them, I’m smarter than them, I went to the best schools; they didn’t. Much more beautiful house, much more beautiful apartment. Much more beautiful everything. And I’m president and they’re not,” declared Trump at his Michigan MAGA rally, refusing to take profit on the trade.
You see, Mueller found him innocent of Russian collusion. And while the report stopped short of exonerating him for obstruction, Mueller’s overall ruling was an enormous windfall.
A typical trader would take at least some profit, selling into the euphoria, rising above it all, extending a hand to broaden his base.
“Trump is going to go full-animal on his political opponents now that he’s no longer in the shadow of Mueller’s investigation,” predicted Bannon, the President’s former Chief Strategist. Steve’s usually right.
And as Trump ordered OPEC to lower oil prices, his economic advisor Larry Kudlow and Federal Reserve nominee Stephen Moore called for an immediate 50bp interest rate cut from the Fed – desperate to fire up the economy heading into 2020.
“The Democrats have to now decide whether they will continue defrauding the public with ridiculous bullshit, partisan investigations or whether they will apologize to the American people and join us to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and bring down the cost of health care and prescription drugs,” taunted Trump.
And as his MAGA crowd went wild, replacing “Lock Her Up” with “AOC Sucks”, Democrats entered the five stages of grief: denial comes first, followed by anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. And naturally, it would be so much easier if the Dems could just take a loss.
But in today’s internecine conflict, with tribes fighting for absolute victory or utter defeat, no one seems willing to extend a hand, take a profit or a loss and move onward, upward, as The United States of America.
- Dick's Firearms Ban Makes $150 Million Dent In Sales As Billionaire CEO Opines On "The System"
Dick’s Sporting Goods – once a major seller of firearms, has lost around $150 million in sales after CEO Ed Stack announced last February that he would begin restricting gun sales at the country’s largest sports retailer, according to Bloomberg. What’s more, guns drove the sale of many soft goods, including hats, jackets and boots.
The dent in sales, around 1.7% of annual revenue, is worth it according to Stack – a billionaire who was born into wealth and probably hasn’t had to deal with too many home invaders in his sprawling Pennsylvania mansion, or his estate in Jupiter Island, FL, where the overall crime rate is 64% lower than the national average and there hasn’t been a murder in at least 14 years.
“The system does not work,” says Stack, adding. “It’s important that when you know there’s something that’s not working, and it’s to the detriment of the public, you have to stand up,”
Stack – once a Republican donor who turned his father’s bait-and-tackle shop into the country’s largest sports retailer – decided to oppose the Second Amendment after the 2018 Parkland school shooting in which gunman Nikolas Cruz purchased a shotgun from Dick’s. The next day, Vermont police arrested a teenager with similar plans who had legally purchased a shotgun from Dick’s.
Two weeks after those arrests, Stack announced he was pulling assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines out of all Dick’s stores. He vowed he’d never sell another firearm to anyone under 21. –Bloomberg
Going even further, Stack announced during a March earnings call that the sporting goods retailer would no longer carry firearms at 125 locations – roughly 17% of US stores. The company will replace the firearms sections with other categories such as clothing and shoes.
The company also hired three gun control lobbyists, and announced that it would destroy all of the weapons it had stopped selling.
In response to the 2018 corporate decision, gunmakers Springfield Armory and O.F. Mossberg stopped doing business with Dick’s.
The response was predictable. The National Rifle Association criticized his “strange business model.” The National Shooting Sports Foundation expelled Dick’s from its membership. Gun manufacturers like Mossberg refused to do business with him at all, and some shoppers followed suit.
Some people applauded the CEO’s decision and promised to show their appreciation with their business—a phenomenon called “buycotting”—but those people didn’t stick around. “Love is fleeting. Hate is forever,” Stack said. –Bloomberg
And while net income fell to $102.6 million vs. $116 million y/y according to Marketwatch, and adjusted same store sales fell 3.1% y/y for the 12 month period ending Feb 2, shares of Dick’s have remained resilient – climbing 14% in the 13 months since Stack announced the restrictions on firearms sales.
Field & Stream, Dick’s top-selling private brand, has been hurt the most by the decision. As Bloomberg notes, “the company faces a potentially larger decision about its 35 Field & Stream stores, located mostly in the south and Northeast.”
“Can they shift it to play more towards active outdoors versus bloodsport,” asks Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Sam Poser.
“They’re big spaces, and the majority of those leases are long-term. They’ll have some decisions to make, and I think they can figure it out.”
To be fair, guns were a shrinking part of Dick’s business before Stack changed the company policy. And annual firearm sales nationwide have dropped almost 17 percent since 2016, according to research firm Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting. Parts of Dick’s policy have been matched by others, including Walmart and Kroger-owned Fred Meyer, neither of which faced similar outcry or anger. –Bloomberg
Meanwhile, Stack isn’t stopping there. Last month Stack was one of four CEOs to sign a letter supporting a universal gun control bill that recently passed in the house. He also recently joined the business council for Everytown Gun Safety – a nonprofit founded by Michael Bloomberg.
We’re sure law-abiding citizens in high-crime areas who want to protect their families can relate.
- The Implications Of Fusing 5G And Blockchain
Authored by Ben Whittle via CoinTelegraph.com,
Analysts have been anticipating the implications of the Internet of Things (IoT) for several years. However, there have been two main impediments to its success: capacity and security.
But now, the introduction of a new technology could change that. This year, major carriers like AT&T and Verizon will be introducing 5G, the latest generation of cellular mobile communications. The 5G platform brings a high data rate, reduced latency, energy savings, cost reduction, higher system capacity and massive device connectivity, according to analysts.
image courtesy of CoinTelegraph
The combination of 5G and blockchain technology has the potential to unleash a surge of economic value. In order to understand this connection between 5G and blockchain, one must think of the relationship as multifold. The power of 5G coverage through its reduced latency, high speeds and capacity allows for IoT devices to become widely used. Simultaneously, these devices can leverage the security, decentralization, immutability and consensus arbitration of blockchains as foundational layers.
That means smart cities, driverless vehicles, smart homes and other sensor-driven enhancements will finally have a technology that can handle their needs.
As foundational layers, blockchains can provide consensus and security while the majority of IoT transactions and contracts occur on second-layer networks, with the opportunity to settle payment channels and transaction disputes on-chain. The network capacity of IoT, however, will be enabled by the power of 5G coverage.
Furthermore, 5G will directly assist blockchains by increasing node participation and decentralization, as well as allowing for shorter block times, driving forward on-chain scalability — all of which, in turn, further supports the IoT economy.
Here is a first look at how 5G is rolling out and when real usage might be seen.
The rollout of 5G
Network providers have started rolling out 5G within select United States cities, while global coverage is expected to come online in 2020.
Verizon will start delivering its coverage in Chicago and Minneapolis from April 11, with services moving to 30 cities throughout the remainder of 2019.
On the vendor side, Samsung is expected to release its 5G-compatible Galaxy S10 model next month. Other companies, such as Huawei and LG, have announced models of their own that are expected soon.
In terms of modems, we are still waiting to see one that supports both 5G and LTE. Qualcomm is expected to release such a product, the X55, in either Q3 or Q4 of this year.
Apple consumers will have to hold off until 2020 before seeing a 5G-compatible iPhone, though, with the company apparently still evaluating market conditions.
Waking up the Internet of Things
The benefits of 5G are its high speeds, capacity, low latency and ability to connect with vast numbers of devices. Latency refers to the time between when a signal is sent and received. In blockchain terms, latency is the time between a transaction being broadcast and it being received by nodes. However, for IoT, whether it be applied to smart homes or autonomous vehicles, achieving low latency is critical if devices are going to communicate with each other without experiencing long lag times.
This reduction could unlock another concept, the Internet of Skills (IoS). This is the process by which specialists conduct their work remotely through virtual reality headsets. For instance, a dentist would be able to perform procedures remotely. If latency cannot be minimized, then the specialist will not be responsive enough, endangering the patient and undermining the entire function.
It is these new applications that are driving the projections for the economic impact of 5G. A study from Qualcomm showed that 5G could lead to $12.3 trillion in additional global GDP by 2035.
Importantly, 5G — with speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second — is an improvement to current home broadband services, as well as cellular networks. To put this in perspective, the average global, nonmobile internet speed stands at just 7.2 megabits per second. As such, 5G could well become the de facto internet network worldwide.
The effects of 5G on IoT and related concepts are going to be further augmented by multi-access edge computing. This is a form of networking whereby service is disseminated from centralized nodes to peripheral ones, resulting in an even greater increase to speeds while also reducing latency.
IoT will rely on this capacity and ability for tremendous numbers of devices to connect with each other. It has been estimated that there could be as many as 100 billion IoT connections by 2025, according to research from Huawei, with growth likely turning exponential after that.
Ramping up automation
When talking about automation, it is typical to think in terms of robots replacing paid jobs currently done by humans. However, in reality, the scope of automation may eventually be far broader than this, including the replacement of chores and unpaid mundane tasks.
This can already be seen in the advent of smart homes, with domestic appliances communicating with each other, keeping stock levels and managing inventory. Autonomous cars and trucks are already moving past testing, with legislation being the main impediment.
Within the next decade, traditional industries — such as agriculture, mining and drilling — all anticipate automation through high-speed IoT, powered by billions of sensors and devices communicating over 5G.
Bottlenecks
These applications are dependent on extensive 5G coverage to provide the capacity, speeds, and latency required for these systems to perform as intended at a global scale.
But two other potential roadblocks toward 5G could present themselves.
First, malicious devices could cause chaos within networks, empowered by their interconnectivity.
Second, the 5G rollout will encompass an explosion in transactions and payments between these devices. Such volumes will likely dwarf the current capacity of centralized and decentralized financial infrastructure.
The blockchain referee
Blockchain innovations could likely solve the first problem. Public, decentralized blockchains are proficient at ensuring immutability, tamper-resistance and establishing consensus among distrusting entities.
Thus, they can be used as a foundational layer for settling disputes between IoT devices that cannot settle transactions or smart contract conditions. Since these devices can transact with money and operate vehicles, establishing an underlying protocol layer with robust security is paramount. Blockchains can excel at this.
Decentralized blockchains offer further benefits over the current client-server model used in IoT. Their decentralized architecture means that identity can be protected and guaranteed. Currently, IoT devices identify themselves via cloud servers, with their identification data held in these databases. As such, the data can be compromised, stolen or imitated, presenting a major security threat to any application that runs atop such a network.
By using a decentralized blockchain, we can protect these identities through the use of asymmetric cryptography and secure hashing algorithms. Devices would be registered according to their own corresponding blockchain addresses, guaranteeing their identity. This blockchain layer can provide a level of security and frictionless identification unmatched by the existing centralized infrastructure.
Scaling up
Unfortunately, the second problem of scale cannot be directly solved by blockchains. The sheer extent of IoT means that decentralized blockchain architectures are not capable of handling the necessary throughput. This is at least true on layer one — i.e., blockchains themselves.
It is both possible and preferable to defer the majority of transactions to layer two protocols like the Lighting Network that operate on top of blockchains, through the use of payment channels or sidechains.
However, given that every device will need to have its own address and on-chain transactions, there will need to be an on-chain capacity that reaches tens of thousands of transactions per second. In short, scalability must improve significantly on both layers.
Blockchains such as Bitcoin Cash ABC, with block size increases, and Ethereum, through sharding,are building out far greater on-chain capacity. Simultaneously, we are seeing the steady progress of the Lightning Network as it rolls out, along with sidechains such as Liquid from Blockstream, while Ethereum’s Plasma network continues to advance. The buildout of 5G and layer two blockchain infrastructure are fortuitously occurring simultaneously, providing the necessary scalability and coverage for an IoT-oriented economy.
One other route for system architects would be to add other structures, such as graphs between the base blockchain layer and IoT devices. Designs such as directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) can be used to achieve far higher throughput. However, this typically results in undermined security and decentralization.
Navigating the trilemma of scalability, security and decentralization is a prerequisite to any blockchain-based IoT network, and deficiencies in any of these three areas could be cataclysmic for users and would undermine the purpose of using such a protocol in the first place. Until developers can produce alternative designs that achieve high throughput without sacrificing security or decentralization, IoT networks will have to use the more limited, yet secure blockchain structure.
Tamper-resistant data
5G empowered IoT devices are set to drive a massive increase in data transfer. Cisco projects that they will generate 847 zettabytes by 2021. Although blockchains at their core are distributed data storage systems, it is unfeasible to store significant amounts of data on-chain. If this IoT data is not stored on-chain, though, this still leaves it open to attacks.
However, it is quite possible to store hashes of data on-chain, with links pointing out to external data storage sites for the whole dataset. Indeed, such external storage could be run on other decentralized protocols, such as the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) or OrbitDB. While this does not guarantee the same level of tamper-resistance, it does offer a stronger level of security than centralized alternatives. Importantly, by storing hashes on-chain, any tampering of the data will result in a change in the hash, thus drawing attention to such an attack, along with a time record via the timestamp.
Empowering smart contracts
Blockchains can also directly benefit from 5G in terms of functionality and performance.
One such example is smart contracting. Blockchain smart contracts often depend on oracles. These oracles relay external data to the contract. Of course, this information can only be transmitted with internet access. For applications such as supply chains, 5G can facilitate these oracles in remote areas where they otherwise would not be possible.
Network improvements
Blockchains can also derive network improvements from 5G.
The massive increases in range and bandwidth, in parallel with the reductions in latency aided by edge computing, could lead to a surge in additional nodes joining public blockchains. By extending coverage to remote areas as well as providing increased connectivity to nonstatic devices such as mobiles and tablets, there could be significant increases in network participation and, with that, improved security and decentralization.
In addition, due to latency reductions, developers would have more scope to experiment with reductions in block times, thus increasing on-chain throughput. In turn, this would offer far better support for IoT devices using blockchains for settlement, consensus and security.
A multi-fold relationship
To truly appreciate the values of 5G, IoT and blockchain, you have to consider them as synergistic rather than offering wholly separate value propositions. With the right architecture, this technology stack — along with second layer solutions, edge computing, virtual reality, augmented reality and IoS — is set to create an unprecedented amount of value while simultaneously radically altering working conditions, employment and recreation.
- Russia's 4th Richest Woman Killed In Freak Private Jet Crash
In a time when the public is especially sensitive about any airplane disasters, coupled with the now traditional interest in Russian oligarchs, a tragic story from Sunday afternoon combines both: the co-owner of Russia’s second biggest airline Siberia Airlines (aka S7), and Russia’s fourth richest woman, Natalia Fileva, was killed in a freak crash when her private jet crashed in Germany, taking the lives of a pilot and another passenger as well, the company said.
A six-seater private jet with Fileva on board took off from Cannes in France and was en route to the central German town of Egelsbach when it disappeared from radars at 13:22 GMT (15:22 local time), according to flight tracker Flightradar24.
#BREAKING: JUST IN: German police say a pilot and two Russian Businessmen died in a plane crash of a small airplane near Frankfurt, Germany, Two other individuals died in a crash with a police car responding to the scene. pic.twitter.com/IOGRTnIqHU
— News flash (@BRNewsFlash) March 31, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The plane crashed in a field near the town of Erzhausen, some 10 kilometers (6 miles) south of Frankfurt, police said, adding that at least three people, including the pilot, were on board. The identity of the other person who accompanied Fileva is still unclear, with some reports suggesting her father was on the plane.
The Epic E1000 airplane According to RT, the US-made Epic E1000 turboprop light aircraft crashed into the ground as it was preparing to make a landing at Egelsbach airport. The plane was destroyed and completely burnt out as it hit the ground, according to police. The debris is scattered around an area of a 20 meter-radius.
The cause of the crash has not yet been identified, S7 said.
Natalia was the wife of Vladislav Filev, the CEO and co-owner of S7 Airlines – Russia’s biggest private airline holding company. Her personal wealth amounted to $600 million according to Forbes magazine. S7 is the main competitor in Russia to Aeroflot. It has 96 aircraft that fly to 181 cities and towns in 26 countries, the company’s website says.
Natalia Fileva “The S7 Group holding team expresses deepest condolences to the family and significant others,” the company said adding that Russian and international authorities would investigate the crash.
Aeroflot also paid tribute: “As head of the S7 Group of Companies, Natalia achieved outstanding success, helped strengthen domestic civil aviation and increase the authority of Russia as a great aviation power.
“The management and staff of Aeroflot express sincere condolences to the relatives and friends of Natalia and the entire staff of the S7 Group of Companies. We grieve with you, colleagues.”
An S7 Airlines airplane Russian specialists will take part in the investigation of the tragedy. So far German media reported that the pilot had not notified aviation authorities of any malfunctions during the flight, although so far no speculation of foul play has emerged.
Meanwhile, adding to the freak nature of the event, two other people died when a police vehicle rushing to the scene of the crash collided with another car near the airport. The three police officers in the police car suffered serious injuries, DPA reported.
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