US Defense Firms Decry Trump, Ignore Record Profits from Endless War
Bloomberg's latest dispatch details how US defense giants are fretting over a Trumpian mandate to shift cash from shareholder dividends and stock buybacks (a cool $110 billion over five years, per Bloomberg) into capital expenditures. The 'conundrum' is: how to please Trump while still enriching themselves. (Because, you know, they're not already doing that.) Lockheed Martin's stock, for instance,
has surged from roughly $250 in 2016 to over $450 today, buoyed by the ever-growing global demand for its F-35s. Meanwhile, the same Bloomberg that covers defense industry hand-wringing rarely scrutinizes the actual human cost of the weaponry peddled by these 'majors,' often to countries cited for human rights abuses. One might wonder if the real 'conundrum' isn't how to please Trump, but how to
maintain the pretense of a benevolent defense industry while their bottom lines swell with every new conflict. Perhaps, just perhaps, if these companies invested less in propping up their stock price and more in actual innovation that didn't rely on perpetual warfare, they wouldn't have to face such existential crises. But then, who would buy their incredibly expensive toys?