Billions $$$$ in New Spending for Drones and Military Contractors' Stock Prices Soar:

[amborin]

Obama's Budget Calls for Billions in New Spending for Drones

by: Jason Leopold

This is how major US defense contractors reacted to the unveiling of President Barack Obama's fiscal year 2011 spending plan for the Pentagon, part of the president's overall $3.8 trillion budget proposal. Shares of General Dynamics, a maker of military aircraft, submarines and munitions, rose 3.9 percent and closed at $69.43 in trading on the New York Stock Exchange, the uptick due in large part to additional spending on the war in Afghanistan, according to Sanford Bernstein, a financial research firm.

Northrop Grumman Corp., which builds unmanned spy planes and ships, rose 2.3 percent to close at $57.92. Boeing Co., a manufacturer of aircraft carriers, shares increased by 1.8 and closed at $61.70. Lockheed Martin's shares rose 37 cents to close at $74.89. Raytheon Co., a missile supplier, was up by a percentage point to close at $52.96, while shares of L-3 Communications Holdings, a firm that supplies intelligence gathering and monitoring equipment, was up 1.6 percent to close at $84.64. And shares of Harris Corp soared 4.2 percent to close at $44.74. Harris manufactures tactical radios utilizes encryption technology.

All in all, it was a good day for the military-industrial complex.
Indeed, Craig Fraser, an aerospace and defense analyst with debt ratings firm Fitch Ratings, said the Defense Department's record $708 billion base budget, up $18.2 billion or 3.4 percent, was "better than we expected, across the board." The spending covers the fiscal year which begins October 1, and runs through September 30, 2011. Adjusted for inflation, the defense budget is the largest since World War II.

The budget was released along with the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which for the first time in years has done away with the concept that the US must be prepared to wage two wars at once. The QDR says the US must be prepared for broader security challenges, which includes investing in technologies to battle threats from al-Qaeda.
About $159 billion will be used to continue funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan identified in the budget as "overseas contingency operations." The wars have already topped $1 trillion.....

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http://www.truthout.org/obama-administrations-budget-calls-billions-dollars-new-spending-drones56588

[timeforpeace]

1. Well at least the Federal Government and the Military Industrial Complex are doing well in this

economy.