THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: According to Loren Thompson it’s about one percent of the U.S. GDP.

…most of the defense budget is not spent on weapons, it is spent on items like military pay and benefits, training, maintenance and the like. The amount of money set aside for developing and procuring military equipment in the budget agreement Congress reached last week is $197 billion — a third of the $593 billion defense budget, and barely 1% of GDP (which stands at $19 trillion).