there are over 550 million firearms and worldwide circulation that's one firearm for every 12 people on the planet the only question is how do we learn the other 11 step number one open up a bank or manufacture war materials like weapons raw materials soldiers or services step number two don't just pray for war lobby for war push your politician friends for more conflicts step number three support both sides of the war so that you come out on top no matter who wins step number four sit back relax and bask in all that sweet cash flow as innocent men women and children perish [Music] war is a racket it always has been it's possibly the oldest easily the most profitable as surely the most vicious is the only one international in scope it is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and losses in lives there's something special about war for people who live in first world countries it may seem like a far-off concept that would never happen here and yet over the past three thousand four hundred years of human history we've spent only 268 of love in peace but the business of war goes much further back than that but the first one ever recorded back in 2700 BCE and Mesopotamia this makes the industry of war half a longer track record than the information industry education and banking combined along with many others war is the ultimate discipline of any government war is the government was life and death is to humans if nations can meet the challenge of war though survive if they can't no perish war can also be looked at as a racket but unlike your small time mafia gangster asking for his protection money or is big do you even know what Vig means it's the US Air Force dropping a bomb on your roof in fact this racket is so so profitable that at least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in just the US alone during World War one and that's in early nineteen hundred's money and it's because of these life or death scenarios and these opportunities for massive profits that incentivizes governments to willingly forget about its laws to forget about the prosperity of its citizens the prosperity of its economy to make sure that above all else its military is well-funded well-equipped and well-trained that means if you can help governments in their primal act of survival to remain empowered by offering raw materials weapons soldiers services to soldiers you're gonna be the government's best friend and they'll be more than happy to not only pay for your products with money that they have but they'll borrow more money and even create it out of thin air via their central banks to make sure that they live and because a government's first concern is survival they're not all that concerned about getting the best deal that means you can easily overcharge for your products it was all a scam Halliburton was charging $45 for seats pack Canada like Coke or Pepsi Halliburton charge government $100 for every bad clothes they washed and they will gladly pay the markups to make sure that your business and your salary are taken care of how taken care of you may ask normal business profit margins are around 10% give or take but wartime profits oh especially with the big wars we're talking twenty percent 60 percent a hundred percent three hundred percent eight hundred percent the sky is the limit take DuPont for example during World War one during the wartime years their profits increased by over nine hundred fifty percent or take the central leather company at the same time during that three years before the war profits were around 3. 5 million dollars not too bad in 1916 alone 15 million a very small increase of I don't know thirteen hundred percent or take even less war oriented companies like the American Sugar Refining Company they averaged 2 million a year before the war and in 1916 6 million now you may be thinking to yourself but Jake that was the great war certainly war profits can't be that insane today without another world war can it and yeah you're right but they're still pretty damn juicy during the Iraq war often called the most privatized war in history KBR one of the main logistics supplier contractors for the US we're talking like food facilities etc got a whopping thirty nine point five billion dollars in Iraq related contracts with goe logistics and the Kuwait Petroleum Corp falling behind with a measly thirteen point five billion dollars in contracts now those numbers are huge but what does that mean for you if you were running one of these companies well KB R's parent company Halliburton CEO was paid a nice forty two point six million dollars in 2004 what about Tainan and kakhi the two companies that provide the u. s.
with interrogators that were part of the infamous Abu Ghraib prisoner torture case khaki CEO made a fairly decent twenty two point two million dollars in 2004 and Titan he takes the crown with a forty seven point two million dollar income in both 2004 and five revenue in the tens of billions salaries and the tens of millions I don't know about you guys but I am 100% willing to help bump some innocent villages for that kind of money I'm definitely getting the monetize for listen but at the end of the day it's not really the government that's paying you all these juicy profits no no no it's the citizens it's the plebs like you and I that foot the bill the company is overcharging taxpayers their taxes and through this thing called inflation where the government doesn't want to anger us too much by raising taxes too high to pay for all this stuff so they just print more money that way they get the stuff like they want by taxing us in a sneakier fashion so at this point you've completed step one you have a copying that can provide warm materials to the government so what's next in our journey to becoming a war profiteer during World War two automakers were known as the arsenal of democracy because they were able to transform their production lines to make airplanes tanks and trucks a very patriotic act not so patriotic was when US troops invaded Europe to find out the enemy were also driving vehicles made by Ford an Opel whose parent company was GM the Washington Post reported that GM was an integral part of the German war effort the Nazis kind of invaded Poland without the Swiss banks they cannot have done it without GM Ford and GM definitely weren't alone though chase-manhattan were especially sinister with a representative in Paris helping the Nazis seize the assets of at least a hundred Jews people that the Nazis thought were really worth pursuing other banks committed similar acts as well or take the Gulf War for example where it was found that businesses and governments and at least 26 different countries sold weapons to both sides during the iran-iraq war or even more recently Halliburton had a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands that was selling around 40 million dollars a year in oilfield services to the Iranian government what do all of these companies have in common they have no loyalty to their home country but it's not just these particular companies if you look throughout history funding and supplying the enemy is all in a day's work as a war profiteer it's nothing personal see in the war industry your customers are all the governments of the world those are the people that you're loyal to not just one of them in your customer pool because if you limit yourself to just your home country not only are you basing all of your revenue off of just that one nation but you're leaving so much money on the table so what if you're an American company and your bullets end up being use on US soldiers relax they're replaceable the military has recruitment unlock down my point you shoot you know what isn't replaceable though this opportunity to make a literal and figurative killing so no allegiance no patriotism if innocent lives are lost oh well it's not like you pull the trigger right all right moving on to step number three all right now for the tricky part you can't make those juicy wartime profits if there isn't a war now there's usually a conflict somewhere around the globe at any given time that you can profit from but those profits are nothing compared to the kind of money you can make one big superpowers like the u. s.
