patrick.net

Very interesting question! Are the costs of defense against external enemies greater or less than the costs of defense against crime?

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/01/30/Hidden-costs-of-US-prisons-in-billions/UPI-84191327900935/

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com

is a good go-to site I guess.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year2013_US.html

shows ~$850B for DOD expense.

Police is at $130B, Courts at $70B, Prisons $80B, $15B other, for ~$300B in total.

This doesn't count the deferred pension expenses for all these gov't employees, LOL, but there again I think the DOD will outweigh them.

Man how I wish I had spent the last 25 years working up from E-1 to E-7 or whatever in the military. I'd be totally retired now :) Military pensions aren't that cushy, but 50% of base pay is nothing to sneeze at, over $2000/mo for the rest of your life, inflation-protected.

That's the dividends on $1.2M worth of Apple stock at current pricing.