Both Parties in Congress Have Been Buying Up Stocks to Profit From the War in the Middle East
Chip Somodevilla. Getty Images.There was a time when I naively thought that there were some subjects that we could come to near universal agreement on. Emphasis on the "near," because you can't get 100% of people to agree the sun is out at noon on a clear day. But something as close to unanimous consent as human beings are capable of. Take, for example, Dave Portnoy's simple but eloquent stand against murder, torture, rape and mutilation, that spoke for all of us:
But based on the noise coming from places in every time zone around the globe, including US college campuses where parents spend $60,000 a year presumably to get their children prepared to become functioning adults, being anti-brutality is not a consensus opinion. Such is the state of the world humankind has created.
So let me double down on the naivety. Let me try to find one thing that every remaining rational American can agree on:
Our elected officials shouldn't be allowed to profit from a war.
Is that a controversial opinion? I mean, is there anyone who isn't a Congressman or Senator who would disagree with that statement? Doesn't it seem like simple logic that if you've got people who make the decisions, spend taxpayers money on the weapons, and vote to send young Americans off to fight and be maimed, psychologically damaged or killed, that it shouldn't be in their personal best interests to do exactly that?
Which is precisely what those thieving weasels on both sides of the political divide have been doing:
Finbold - As tensions escalate between Israel and the Hamas group, it has been revealed US congressional leaders have been making some strategic investment moves into military-related stocks.
For starters, defense company General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) has witnessed a surge in purchases. This isn’t entirely unexpected; defense stocks often become attractive during times of geopolitical tension. Remember the Ukrainian war? We saw a similar trend then.
However, what’s even more intriguing is the sectoral split between Republicans and Democrats. A substantial number of Republicans have shown a keen interest in the energy sector. Heavyweights like Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM), Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN), and Chevron (NYSE: CVX) are clearly the favorites.
On the other side of the aisle, Democrats seem to be playing the long game, focusing on the cybersecurity sector with acquisitions in firms like Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT), according to insights by @unusual_whales on X (formerly Twitter) on October 9.
And not for the first time in recent memory:
And just to confirm this isn't an issue of left or right, Red State or Blue State, here's someone who's advised four Presidents, including one Republican and three Democrats, denouncing it:
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To be clear, I'm nobody's idea of anti-capitalist. It's not a perfect system by any means. But if people being able to live comfortably, take care of their families, and have enough to eat just happens to be your thing, it's the best way of functioning ever devised by man. If you've got a better plan, let's hear it. Just don't waste my time or yours with that bullshit your college professors prattled on about. Because they have the luxury of theory. No one has ever asked them to solve an actual problem. And if they ever tried to actually put that utopian nonsense to practical use, they'd be out of business in a month instead of making six figures in a tenured job where they can't get fired.
Nor am I dumb enough to think investors haven't profited from war since the invention of coinage. Here's a quote that says it best:
"You know, there's a famous saying by the Baron de Rothschild, 'When there's blood in the streets, buy property.'" - Jodie Foster, Inside Man
And I'll point out that Rothschild added, "Even when the blood is your own."
Hell, Sam Wainwright was able to save George Bailey's bacon at the end of It's a Wonderful Life not because he decided to run a broken down Building & Loan in a small town, but because he made a fortune manufacturing parts for warplanes in WWII. I have no doubt everyone of us with a mutual fund is seeing their account managers moving shares into these very same companies. It's disturbing and sickening to contemplate. But it's the reality of a terribly imperfect world.
The difference is, my fund manager and yours, as well as the stock traders and private investors, don't make the calls as to how wars are fucking conducted. And even if some Representative in the House isn't directly involved in the decision making either, he or she is working with the people who are. Or hiring them. Or getting jobs with the companies who make the war profits.
It's even worse with the higher ups in the Defense Department, who actually do make the calls. They have such an incestuous relationship with these defense contractors they could give birth to a shitty little son named Joffrey. They're constantly leaving the Pentagon to go work for them, then going back into government and approving new contracts with the company they just left. Eisenhower warned us about this very thing when he left office, and no political leader has ever been more right about anything.
It's reprehensible. But it's the working class and poorer class kids who volunteer to serve, not them. And all too often they come back wounded, traumatized, or not at all. Just never as rich as the people who sent them into harm's way.
So if any kind of consensus opinion is still possible between us all in this divided, chaotic world, let's all agree that the two parties are corrupt beyond belief. To the point they're openly using the bloody conflict in the Middle East to get even richer than they already are. And if we can't make it illegal for them to do this, it's hard to imagine we have any hope at all of saving the country.
It's us against them.