This Month's Stock Pick, May 2005

[Don1]

First, some extrapolating, interpolating, and general estimating...in December, the Lancet study reported 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths due to the war. 48% of the Iraqi population is less than 18 years of age. Therefore, approximately 48,000 of those dead civilians were kids. This happened over a 21-month period. So that would be an average of 2286 kids per month killed. This is the figure that I will use for a month kid-killed estimation since there are no other statistics available on the subject. The first part is completed.

Now, to this month's stock pick...TaDa! It's General Dynamics. General Dynamics has the contract for the military's Stryker vehicle program as well as I have no idea what other Iraqi contracts. Their stock is traded in the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol GD. General Dynamics is a profit-making company and they even give stock dividends.

This month alone, General Dynamics was awarded hundreds of millions of US $ in government contracts. And only one director sold some of his shares to make a profit of over $500,000.

But the real news comes from market cap growth. At the start of the month, their stock was hovering around $104.50 and today, the 30th of the month their stock is valued at $107.95. That is a 3.3% appreciation in just one month...very good for a blue chip stock! Their market cap rose as a result by roughly $700 million.

To raise their market cap by $700 million, all they had to do was help in killing 2286 Iraqi kids (all this month only). Therefore, they profited by $306,000 per Iraqi kid's death for just this month.

These numbers reflect extreme corporate responsibility and efficiency and so we are proud to make General Dynamics our stock pick of the month!

[bahrbearian]

1. Blood Money.

[Mnemosyne]

2. So ashamed of this administration

words can not convey.

[Don1]

3. The Shame Goes All Around

I am ashamed of everyone, including myself. We all need to do more.

Instead, we run around on Memorial Day yelling "Support the Troops."

How about "Support the Iraqi Children?"

2286 per month killed. That's bigger than the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq. It's almost as big as the number of US civilians killed on Sept 11th. And this is in only a month. The overall number must be greater than 50,000 kids dead by now!

Why are Iraqi children treated as less than US citizens? Why are 10 times as many Iraqi kids' deaths not given any attention in US media at all?

We need to scream this number out. Otherwise, we are all guilty of not letting people know...and ultimately, we are all guilty of not trying to change the system enough.

[wtmusic]

5. One way to help Iraqi children

is to sponsor one for $35/month

http://www.lifeusa.org/

[Don1]

7. Speaking of sponsoring...

I sponsor 3 kids (not in Iraq) from Christian Children's Fund already. I would like to point out to you some calculations that I have done previously on the subject by copying and pasting those calculations here.

"...it is highly irresponsible for the US to use its monetary resources to line corporate pockets (like Halliburton, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, ESSI etc) in this war while meanwhile killing 100,000 civilians, including 50,000 children and hiding all this information from the American people whose interests are allegedly being represented. The irresponsibility is not only extreme violence and carnage against innocents, but it is a 3000-fold violence against their spirits. Let me explain. We have used now approximately $170 billion in the Iraqi war and this has been used over a 2-year period. On the other hand, it costs $288.00 to sponsor 1 child through the Christian Children's Fund for one year. Multiply by that by two. It costs $576.00 over a two year period to sponsor 1 child. Therefore, if we used the war money to sponsor children (instead of killing them for corporate profit), then we could have sponsored $170 billion/$576 = 295 million kids. Since as I said before, the population of Iraq is only 25 million, we are talking about nearly 12 Iraqs. We could have saved 12 Iraqs in that time period! Furthermore, we could have saved 295 million/100,000 = 2,950 times as many people as were killed. Yes, that is correct. The U.S. killed an outrageous number of people, 100,000 civilians. But what is more outrageous and what really condemns the whole effort is that we could have saved 3 thousand times that many people."

[catzies]

4. I can't separate my investments from my ethics, but others do

I know someone *cough* ex-boyfriend *cough* who says it's okay to own stock that makes you money even if you disgree with how they made it.

He gave me a tip on a company that I sold when I found out they took Carlyle Group money. He said that was stupid. I don't think so.

I dumped him and the stock.

[Don1]

6. He is Guilty of Passive Violence

If no one invests in these stocks then they will go downhill. And govt contracts or not, the war-profiteers will become less powerful entities in our country.

Therefore, your ex-boyfriend's decision to not act against the war-profiteers is an act of "passive violence." He stands by while kids are dying and does nothing. He lets them be killed. He allows the powers that kill them to grow in strength and influence in our government.

I think that you understand this already and I am glad that you do. I am glad that you refuse to sell out your principles for profit. Thank you!