US Prepares For War, Not For COVID-19

BATTLE FOR WORLD | July 9, 2020: In this edition of Richard Wolff’s short-brief he draws a comparison on how the United States is handling the COVID-19 pandemic, i.e. preparation for and managing it, and on the other hand how the United States has managed a similar problem of military preparedness, in handling military confrontation and military activities.   

It’s not profitable for private capitalist enterprises to produce both the needs to prepare the United States for a virus and to prepare for military activities aboard:

With the virus, we have known this for a longtime that you need to have testing, the equipment and the arrangements to prevent people from infecting each other.  To have the public health protected in the United States you would have to have a proper stock of tests, masks, gloves, ventilators, hospital beds, etc. – the whole procedure of managing a virus if it should attack. Private companies cannot afford to produce huge quantities of these things to stockpile them around the country so they will be available where the population are that will need them. And then to hold in warehouses in those areas stocks of these things they have produced for months or years… There are too much risks and too little profit and companies are not interested. 

The parallel with defense, the same thing applies to guns and bullets, and missiles and tanks, and aircraft and all the rest of military equipment. It’s not profitable for a company to produce jet fighters for example and stockpile them in hangers around the United States waiting for the next military engagement when the army or air force comes and buys to use that equipment. Too risky because there are more secure profitable opportunities available. 

So if you leave capitalism to itself, to the private enterprise, driven by profit, you will not get the production and stockpiling of the needed equipment to combat a virus, and you will not get the production and stockpiling of military equipment to fight wars.

Let’s see how the United States solves the problem: The government comes in and says, I will buy it from you as fast as you can produce it. I will take the cost and risk unto myself. I will stockpile these weapons around the country, indeed around the world and maintain them; and if they go out of date I will scrap them all and buy new ones from you. You will make a lot of money because I will give you a lot of money for this military equipment. And so we have guns and planes and missiles and tanks stockpiled all over the place.

Now compare medical preparation, nothing; the government did not do it.  The government did not do in the medical field what it did in the military field… 

(Editor: Watch his video here, his analyst is very thought-provoking.)

(BattleForWorld: What this says is that the US government and states irrespective of political parties, are giving the public lip-service and keeping up appearances acting, while officials and corporate entities divert monies into private hands, etc. Essentially it gives the impression as if the United States does not have a truly functioning people’s government. It is a government-shell filled with emissaries working on behalf of elite families, secret groups and organizations.)

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