When 80 percent of US generals go to work for arms makers

aiming to eliminate corruptoin is a bit pie in the sky.

What's more, funding allocations to the services start with what's called the Defense Planning Guidance, which is a document issued by the Office of the (civilian) Secretary of Defense. This is then broken down into Service Program Guidance about where each military service spends its money. Services then come up with a Program Objective Memorandum outlining the budget they need, which then goes to the Joint Staff, because the Joint Staff's job is refereeing interservice food fights. This then goes to the (civilian) Presidential administration, who presents a budget to Congress, who approves it.

So there are many cooks in this budgetary kitchen, and if Congress doesn't like the military Congress funded and approved for the President to use, then perhaps Congress can look itself in the face and ask itself why it's not fulfilling its duties under Article I of the United States Constitution, instead of trying to pass the buck onto the President's subordinate officers, when it's ultimately Congress who controls the purse strings.

I keep saying "Congress" for a reason . . .

That's not what the link claims though.

>The fiscal 2019 audit examined more than $2.9 trillion in assets and $2.8 trillion in liabilities, the Pentagon said. The process involved about 1,400 auditors conducting 600 site visits, at a cost of nearly $1 billion.

Sounds like they can't keep track of all the stuff they supposedly own (ie. "assets"). That's slightly different than its yearly budget simply disappearing. Even if this year they tracked down where every cent went, they'd still fail the audit, because they can't account for the stuff they purchased years ago.

But are we willing to pay for it? Government jobs already pay pretty poorly compared to the private sector. Slapping the equivalent of a non-compete onto them isn't going to make them more appealing. You might have gotten rid of all the corruption, but you also ensured that the government will be staffed by monkeys.

Every general and flag officer started out as a junior officer or junior enlisted servicemember. There is literally no other way to get there. There are no lateral hires into the military; it's "up or out."

I think that the US armed forces have a far wider set of responsibilities than "war". For example, they act as a social protection service for its members, and weapons program are managed as part of economic policies as job guarantee programmes.

Then there are research programs who started out as military projects which ended up benefitting the whole mankind, such as the internet or GPS.

This takes place in a country whose society has been almost rabidly opposed to any policy remotely associated with socialism. It's almost a cheat code of sorts.

In pragmatic terms, criticising the US armed forces just because "war" seems ignorant and foolish.

McDonald's?

I think I'd actually prefer to see the generals and admirals getting new gigs with the smaller side of defense industry - there are tons of medium and small sized companies that could use their help.