Your post is stupid.
The reason Apple and Dell are able to make $400 IPODs and $2,000 computers in Singapore and ship them over here is because the US Navy keeps those shipping lanes open. It also keeps the shipping lanes open for our exports as well.
If you think the "rich" could fund that, I'm sorry but you're IQ is approximately you shoe size.
Who does the goverment rely on for the money to do those things?
To field a Navy and to secure the worldwide shipping lanes? The taxpayers of course.
Lets consider the alternative. GE wants to send a bunch of turbines over to Japan. So they call Maersk (sp?) and tell them to pick them up from a train yard in Long Beach, CA. Maersk has to now field their own navy because since the US Navy is not there any longer, the pirates that used to be in the far flung shit-holes of the world have now set up shop off of Santa Catalina (not to mention Saipan, Guam, Palau, Truk Island, the Azores, Dutch Harbor (we got rid of the Coast Guard too). So escort ships--you'll need more than one--with mercenaries on board set sail with the freighters in a convoy. The ship makes it to Japan with only a few skirmishes along the way. GE's profit dwindles because while there were only a few skirmishes...Maersk has to employ the same number of mercenaries and escort vehicles every time.
And the same goes for Apple, for Exxon, for Monsanto, for Royal Dutch Shell.
Speaking of which...those platforms out in the Gulf....sitting ducks.
Those guys on the Deadliest Catch--it just got deadlier
Feel like going on a cruise down to Belize...it just got hotter
The infinitesimal stupidity of claiming that private industry doesn't need the government is a new low for the right wing looney birds.