While America is in a steep
decline with Wall Street chosen politicians running the country, it seems Putin
has learned a valuable lesson from this American “exceptionalism.” The result of that lesson was seen in the
Russian annexation of Crimea. Russia’s
investment in their military, as in people, has paid off big time.
According to a New York Times article called “Crimea
Offers Showcase for Russia’s Rebooted Military”:
PEREVALNOYE, Crimea — The soldiers guarding
the entrances to the surrounded Ukrainian military base here just south of the
capital, Simferopol, had little in common with their predecessors from past
Russian military actions.
Lean and fit, few if any seemed to be
conscripts. Their uniforms were crisp and neat, and their new helmets were
bedecked with tinted safety goggles. They were sober…
Past Russian military actions have often
showcased an army suffering from a poor state of discipline and supply, its
ranks filled mostly with the conscripts who had not managed to buy deferments
or otherwise evade military service. Public drunkenness was common, as were
tactical indecisiveness and soldiers who often looked as if they could not run
a mile, much less swiftly.
Yes, five years ago Russia’s army
was a mess, with broken, outdated equipment, low pay, improper training and low
morale. Putin recognized you can’t have
a strong military if you don’t value your military personnel.
The transformation of the armed forces has
been a personal priority of Mr. Putin, who as prime minister from 2009 to 2012
and more recently in his return to the presidency has overseen billions of
dollars in new military expenditures…
Since the start of 2012, salaries for most
military personnel have roughly tripled, to between $700 and $1,150 a month for
privates and sergeants — a respectable amount in Russian terms. The Kremlin has
also expanded housing and education benefits.
Putin has increased the salaries,
expanded housing and education benefits for military personnel in stark
contrast to America.
In the meantime, American
military personnel have had pay cuts, cuts in education benefits and slashed
pensions in order to funnel those funds directly to Wall Street in the form of
contracts to build outdated, unnecessary equipment that generates Wall Street
profits. According to Investors.com:
The Obama administration
plans to cut the military pensions of those who served their country while
giving public employees a break by exempting their ObamaCare subsidies from
sequestration.
On the heels of
announcing that Army troop levels will be cut below pre-World War II levels,
the Military Times has reported that the Obama administration is planning to
reduce military pension costs by 10% by converting part of their retirement to
401(k)-like defined-contribution plans from defined-benefit plans.
Yep, Obama is handing over military pensions to Wall Street to convert them from defined benefit plans to “401(k)-like” plans. If you have seen what happened to your 401(k) plan after Wall Street installed George W. Bush into the presidency, you know what a crap idea that is.
That cost-saving
measures are to be applied only to the military and not to politically favored
groups and programs is seen in the administration's quiet removal of the
cost-sharing subsidies designed to help lower-income people cover some
out-of-pocket costs imposed by ObamaCare from its list of programs subject to
the sequester, eliminating the 7% cut for 2015.
These low-income
subsidies are paid directly to insurance companies that already have been
promised that if they lose money because the risk pools ObamaCare is creating
wind up with mostly the sick and the elderly — rather than the young and
healthy ObamaCare needs — the taxpayers will bail them out.
The Military
Officers Association of America has calculated that the typical Army sergeant,
as a result of pension and other benefit changes, stands to lose up to $5,000
in annual benefits under the administration's fiscal 2015 budget.
The budget also
calls for slashing subsidies for base commissaries, a 5% increase in the cost
of military housing and a 1% cap on annual active-duty pay increases.
Wall Street’s disdain for the American people who serve in our Military was front and center when Donald Rumsfeld disparaged our military servicemen and women. (From Dorian DeWind, Military Affairs Columnist for The Moderate Voice).
… the character
– of the then secretary of defense on December 8, 2004, when he held a town
hall meeting at Camp Buehring, Kuwait.
At that time,
the Iraq War was raging and our troops were being killed by the dozen every
week in insurgent attacks.
Looking an Army
soldier who was pleading for better protection against improvised explosive
devices (IEDs) straight in the eye, Rumsfeld coldly, clinically and callously
replied, “As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the
Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
Yes, according to Rumsfeld, a big “F” you to our soldiers. That has been our Wall Street politicians’ answer to our army since 2000. Spending on adequate equipment and safety measures cuts into Wall Street profits.
So how does Putin speak to his
military?
In a speech to
military officers in February shortly after the raises were enacted, Mr. Putin
declared, “I have always believed that military servicemen should be paid, as
has always been the case in Russia, by the way, even more than skilled
specialists in the sphere of economics or administration or other civilian
sectors.”
Imagine that, Putin values his
lowest grade serviceman more than “skilled specialists in the sphere of economics
or administration or other civilian sectors.” America has chosen to fatten its military
budget to enrich Wall Street banks whereas Putin has seen the value of
investment in its people.
This is what Russia’s takeover of
Crimea looked like:
This is what America's “liberation"
of Iraq looked like:
So, what does this mean for the
people of Crimea? Well, according to the
New York Times:
MOSCOW — Moving
quickly to envelop Crimea in the Russian bureaucracy and economy, the Kremlin
said Monday that it had nearly doubled pensions paid to retirees on the
peninsula, raising them to the average levels paid in Russia.
President
Vladimir V. Putin signed a decree raising pensions and another increasing
salaries for public sector workers like teachers and doctors, according to a
statement posted on the Kremlin’s website. Officials also announced a number of
new investment plans and tax breaks for Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine two
weeks ago after a rushed vote in the Crimean Legislature. The Crimeans even
realigned the clock, moving theirs ahead two hours, to be identical with
Moscow’s time zone.
What’s really interesting here is
Putin raised pensions for public sector workers like teachers and doctors. And, what is America doing? Dumping and closing public schools for Wall
Street profit driven charter schools.
According to AlterNet:
Studies shows that
charter schools don’t typically outperform public schools and they often tend
to increase racial and class segregation. So one must wonder, what exactly is
motivating these school “reformers”? And why have they pushed for more and more
closure — and new charter schools — at such an unprecedented rate in recent
years?
Pro-charter
supporters will tell you that it’s time for public institutions like our
schools to start competing more like for-profit institutions. Test scores and
high enrollment, then, define success. Unsuccessful schools, they say, should
close just as unsuccessful businesses do. For neoliberal school reformers from
today’s Arne Duncan-led
Department of Education to scandal-ridden movement leader Michelle
Rhee to billionaire Bill
Gates, it is taken on faith that market principles are desirable in
education.
So, studies show charter schools
don’t typically outperform public schools, why decimate public school and fund
charter schools?
Public School
Charter School
And what
precisely is the NMTC doing to restore these so-called “blighted communities”?
It’s providing hedge fund managers and wealthy real estate investors with
opportunities to cash in on the charter school boom. The government frames it
as a useful tool that builds communities up, operating on the assumption that
charter schools provide some sort of de facto restoration. But as
Part
I demonstrated, they don’t.
But they do
provide wealthy investors with a 39
percent tax credit that more than doubles returns on these investments
within just seven years. As NY Daily News reporter Juan
Gonzalez reported for Democracy Now!, “this is a tax credit on
money that they’re lending, so they’re collecting interest on the loans, as
well as getting the 39 percent tax credit.” And that’s not all. As Gonzalez
explained, the federal government “piggyback[s] the tax credit on other kinds
of federal tax credits, like historic preservation or job creation or
Brownfield’s credits. The result is, you can put in $10 million and in seven
years double your money.” So, if you put in a couple million dollars, you’ll
have double that amount within just seven years.
Well the road to hell is paved
with Wall Street profits. Putin’s Russia
is beginning to look like what was once America, before our Wall Street
selected politicians destroyed America’s military and public sector.
So, meet Putin’s new Russia, a
strong vibrant army, enhanced public schools and pensions and a government that
governs with the consent of the governed.
Where Wall Street demands austerity for America and western countries,
Putin’s Russia is looking pretty good.
By Patricia Baeten
