Drea Knufken
Governments spend trillions per year on tanks, artillery, armored vehicles, aircraft, motor gunboats, missiles, and other defense goodies. Global military spending was $1.14 trillion in 2007. That number is only going up. Global military spending is expected to increase 34% to $1.15 trillion by 2012. And global defense industry profits increased 12.6% during 2007-8, according to Fortune.
Who’s the biggest, baddest military spender of them all? That honor goes to the US, which spent $623 billion on defense in 2008. We’re also the world’s biggest military weaponry supplier. 9 of the 10 biggest profiteers of last year’s global war spend were US companies. Hey, at least we have one market that the recession hasn’t dry up.
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Prostitution
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If you’ve ever slipped a sex worker money for sweet-tasting deeds, congratulations. You just contributed to a $108 billion market. Enslavement contributes to those high returns: Globally, a single woman sex slave earns her pimp up to $250,000/year. Who needs business school when you can build an empire of prostitutes?
Although prostitution is more common in poor countries and around military bases, rich countries like the US certainly get their share. Here, prostitutes charge an average of up to $50 for oral sex, $100 for intercourse, and have 3-5 clients per day. If nothing else, the prostitution market is productive.
