Blood money, the profits of war

WE plebeians give much in times of war. World War One cost one million British lives; World War Two added another 450,000. Multiply these figures by 10 to represent those who lost limbs or other physical faculties. Don’t weep too lengthily. Many vampires become bloated on war.
Company holdings of Richard ‘Dick’ Cheney, American politician and businessman allegedly profited by $39,500,000,000 from the Iraq War alone.
September 3, 1939, Britain declared war on Germany: “In Britain, Lord Halifax was reported as being ‘redeemed.’ He ordered beer. We laughed and joked.”
So they might; investments of a considerable number of political elite meant war propelled many to financial fortune beyond their dreams. A different picture would emerge if politicians were obliged to wear the badges of those who sponsor them.
Minnows also plunder their own. The Economist, September 1941, conceded that just 2 per cent of real estate had been destroyed by German bombing. The article included a note that commented on ‘the furious pace at which speculators were buying the bombed sites for a song.’
Of course it’s all a long time ago. Whoa! We taxpayers continue to give blood, sweat and tears to banks and war profiteers. In 2014 the UK announced you will pay $349 million of War Bonds debt incurred during WW1. These are Perpetual Bonds. Keep coughing up Tommy Atkins.
July 22, 1936, wily Winston departed £50,000 (€780,000 in today’s money) richer after attending a small house party organised by Focus Group. The deal: “Provided he direct his canon squarely upon their enemy, Germany.” Needless to add that Focus Group was a cabal of leading war profiteers. War is when people shoot each other, who don’t know each other, on behalf of people who know each other, but don’t shoot each other.
Harry Patch, last veteran of The Great War, died in 2009 aged 111: “I felt then, as I feel now, that the politicians who took us to war, should have been given the guns and told to sort their own differences themselves.”
, instead of organising than legalised mass murder.”