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US proposes $450-billion cuts to defence spending

 

By Dylan Hackett, News Editor

arack Obama issued the White
B House’s latest outline for

Pentagon spending last week,
which included vast spending cuts
to the American military—slashing
the budget by about $450 billion
over the next ten years.

“The Budget Control Act

passed by congress last year

| with the support of Republicans

and Democrats alike mandates
reductions in federal spending
including defence spending.
insisted that we do that
responsibly,” said Obama at a recent
press conference.

A 14 per cent reduction in
standing troops will likely lessen the
United States’ ability to carry out
military occupations that defined
foreign policy over the last decade,
like the recently-concluded Iraq
War and the War in Afghanistan
(America’s second-longest continual
occupational war). The past decade
saw the United States increase
annual military spending by 73 per
cent.

The plan highlights that
traditional combat vessels like the
11 US aircraft carriers will remain
intact while foreign deployments
and research and development will
suffer. Upon the announcement of
a decreased US military budget,
stock of Lockheed Martin, the
$45-billion annual revenue military
defence contractor, saw a slight dip
in trading value, demonstrating that
defence contractors are not likely

to experience the same prosperity
brought by Pentagon investment of
the Bush years in the next decade
if Obama’s plan is seen through.
Lockheed’s F35 multipurpose fighter
jet is set to be delayed because of
this announcement, prompting
nations participating in the NATO
mission in Afghanistan, including
Australia whose purchase of 14 of
the proposed jets to be up in the air.

Australian Ambassador to
United States, Kim Beazley, had
a few words to say about the
prospective delay. “The Americans
are very clear that as they proceed
with the F35 program they’re under
close watch by the Australian
government and if at any point of
time a risk develops to the capacity
for Australia to be satisfied with
the forcing being that it has for the
air defence of Australia then the
Australian government will take
action.”

As Canadian parliament is
currently not in session, there
has been no word from Defence
Minister Peter MacKay (who
recently wed Iranian-born beauty
queen and Iranian rights activist
Nazanin Afshin-Jam) on whether
or not Canada will take up any of
the American slack regarding the
NATO mission in Afghanistan. The
Canadian government's current
plans in Afghanistan, as of last
fall’s parliamentary sessions, are
to train soldiers and lessen combat
involvement. This still poses a
significant risk to deployed soldiers.

 

Students recuperate cash through online textbook resale and buyback

By Dylan Hackett, News Editor

ith the start of winter
semester comes the mad
flurry of used textbook

sales, as Douglas students across
both campuses bargain with
each other to lessen the burden
on their post-holiday, limited
supply of student funds. The
bulletin boards located outside the
bookstores—covered thrice over in
sale proposals which would likely
add up to a full semester’s worth
of paper credit—are a traditionally
popular option for students wishing
to sell their used textbooks.

However, more and more
students are taking their business
online to resell websites, giving
Douglas students another medium
of finding cheaper books and
bartering with students from
neighbouring Metro Vancouver
schools.

Popular methods of textbook
resale include multi-purpose

online classifieds, like the enduring
Craigslist Vancouver, which hosts
thousands of new classifieds

every week, not limited to student
textbooks.

An ever more popular resale
website is books2go.ca, which caters
specifically to student resale and is
designed and operated locally by
two University of the Fraser Valley
students, who founded the service
in 2006. The website has over 1,400
textbooks listed in its Douglas
College domain and boasts a total
textbook sales amount of over
$720,000. Students can also browse
books listed by students from other
schools much larger than Douglas,
like Simon Fraser University—
whose students currently list over
7,000 textbooks—to find the best
quality and cheapest prices.

Textbooks on this website often
sell for significantly less than the
used Douglas Bookstore price and
can sometimes be listed at half of
the new sale price. Boooks2go0’s

side-by-side listings of duplicate
textbooks allow for comparisons
that benefit purchasers because
they force sellers to lower prices to
remain competitive against other
listed textbooks. The site also has a
search function that caters directly
to book listings allowing users to
search by ISBN, course code, or
book title/ author / keyword.

The resell market, in general,
lists a disproportionate amount
of textbooks by business and
accounting students—but is still
worth browsing for any student

willing to put the time into hunting.

Although the durable and reusable
tote bags given with the purchase
of books at the official Douglas
Bookstores don’t come with book
sales from fellow students, online
resale is gaining in popularity, and
looks to be an increasingly viable
way for students to recuperate loss
of expenses.

   

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