In the News March 21

War Profiteering

Major U.S. Arms Manufacturers and War Profiteers

Pentagon funding and Canadian expenditures on war provide guaranteed profits to the major war oligopolies. There are now only five major U.S. aerospace oligopolies: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamic, Northrup Grumman and Boeing. This represents monopolization of the industry since 1990, when there were 51 major companies. Huntington Ingalls, along with General Dynamics, are the only two building surface warships, down from eight in 1990. Before, 13 monopolies supplied tactical missiles, now there are only three. Only General Dynamics makes tracked combat vehicles, like the Abrams battle tank.

At the end of January, Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes described current war conditions as “opportunities for international sales.” He added, “The tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defence spending over there. So, I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.” This is in addition to the guaranteed profits from the U.S. Pentagon budget of $782 billion plus an additional $13.6 billion for Ukraine, much of which will go to these war oligopolies.

Share prices of major U.S. aerospace and war oligopolies have jumped since the conflict in Ukraine started and are expected to continue to surge as global war budgets increase. Shares for Raytheon are up nearly eight per cent, General Dynamics 12 per cent, Huntington Ingalls 14 per cent, Lockheed Martin 18 per cent and Northrop Grumman 22 per cent.

These powerful oligopolies, combined with the energy oligopolies, such as Exxon, are a major force for more wars and organize to seize more and more of the public’s funds for their own private interests.

(TML Daily, posted March 21, 2022)