Back in 1983, a bright fellow decided to help explain the federal budget to dummies like me. His name is Greg Speeter and he first put out a guide titled Federal Budget 101. In 2012, collaborating with Speeter and others, Mattea Kramer et al, finally wrote a book, The People’s Guide to the Federal Budget in 2012. More importantly. they broke down the budget by select categories and put the data into a time clock that reveals how much is spent per hour and the total on war and veterans. The young generations of social media addicts love this clock. The select categories are a total of six.  I look at this Cost of War clock from time to time because it is so alarming and depressing all at once to Baby Boomers like me. But all Generations, Z and the next one tech-fed on social media since birth must be made aware of where tax money goes and who profits.

The six categories with dollar figures per hour and total are:

1. Care for Veterans costs is $70.09 million per hour, and so far, $4.5 trillion spent.
2. Homeland Security costs is $3.6 million per hour, and so far, $ 1.2 trillion spent.
3. Interest on War Debt is $9.25 million per hour, and so far, $1.3 trillion paid.
4. Military Costs for War on Terror is $$7.02 million per hour, and so far, $3.1 trillion spent.
5. State Department War on Terror is $3.31 million per hour, and so far, $2.77 billion spent.
6. Total Cost of War on Terror is $93.26 million per hour, and so far, $10.5 trillion spent.

But let’s keep this short because the figures above should also alarm and depress you. Check it out in real time: www.mationalpriorities.org/cost-of/

Even more alarming and depressing is the website www.armageddonclock.com/  It is popularly called the Doomsday Clock. This one indicates how much time is left before we destroy our planet because of nuclear war. It was begun by Albert Einstein and other atomic specialists during WWII when they saw in real time the destruction of human life and property after the US dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan. In 1947, they began an academic journal and an organization. Both journal and organization are now called the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In that year, they place the clock at 7 minutes to Armageddon of Doomsday. Since then it had been moved back 8 times and forward 18 times. For example, in 1953 it was moved up to 2 minutes. In 1981 it was move to 7 minutes. More contemporarily, in 2015 it was at 3 minutes. By 2021, it was at 100 seconds. In 2023, it went to  90 seconds and now in 2025 it is at 89 seconds or must 1 minute and 29 seconds before we blow ourselves to pieces.

A tip. If you want to live a bit longer than when the nuclear warheads explode near you move south of the equator.  All countries with nuclear weapons are all north of the equator. Because of  magnetic pull that draws all the deadly nuclear waste and radioactivity to the Arctic or North Pole that is who will die first.  South of the equator, maybe Australia has a nuclear weapon but it is a  big secret. Nonetheless, you are safer for a while longer way down south like in Uruguay, Paraguay, southern parts of Argentina and Chile. If you can weather it, try Antarctica.  Perhaps, we will run  into each other in Montevideo, Paraguay. Until that happens, look at who votes for this kind of  federal budget.

Democrats can kill this kind of expenditures and briefly did that last year with the federal government shut down of over a month. Last month, when it came up again, the Democrats, a few of them is all it took, knelt down before Trump and the Alter Boy-looking Speaker Johnson. They buckled because Trump and Johnson promised them to honor the verbal reforms they got in return for their votes. They believed Trump, the biggest liar in the world. He spouts lie after lie daily. Last count was 30,000 lies in 2025. So, do not look to Democrats to save us. They will like Republicans continue to doom us.