Here’s an interesting statistic from Jane’s Defence Industry, the trade journal of the war and weapons industry: “Defence expenditure in the U.S. will equal that of the rest of the world combined within 12 months.”

While foreign imports threaten nearly every aspect of our economy, we’re still tops at building weapons. Of the billions the U.S. government will spend in 2006 acquiring arms, 98 percent will be spent with U.S. arms makers.

The pace of defense spending in the U.S. is truly breathtaking. Even the base closings announced last week by the Pentagon will only remove a drop from the defense-spending bucket.

The Pentagon last week estimated that by closing or moving all of the bases on the list, it will save $48 billion over 20 years. A pretty tidy sum, until you consider that at $1 billion per day, that’s 48 days worth of spending in Iraq.

Isn’t it remarkable that 4 percent of the world’s people spend as much defending themselves as the other 96 percent combined?