War and the Economy

Am I missing something?

Headlines everywhere I turn are about a looming US recession, global echoes of fear while America's stock exchanges were closed for the MLK holiday...echoes that scared the Fed so much that a historic three-quarter percent rate cut was announced early in the day, before the markets opened, in what strikes me as an anti-panic gesture. That move makes me think the panic already started...at the top.

Meantime, the war machine keeps pumping. (Pumping money... not oil.) I added a widget to the sidebar linking the cost of the war. And I looked this morning linking the economy with the war. Didn't find much, but there's this...

The United States of America spends 56% of total government military spending on Planet Earth, with a published FY2008 military budget of $623 billion* (in 2008 dollars). China is a distant second at 6% with an estimated 2004 military budget of $65 billion. The entire "Axis of Evil" (with Pakistan thrown in for good measure) spends barely 1% at less than $15 billion.

Seems to me there are only two dots on the page. One is the economy and the other is military spending as a function of that economy. I don't think shopping at the mall is gonna get us out of this one.

Am I trying to connect the wrong dots?

What am I missing?