Boom times -- literally

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI, has added up all the military spending on earth and concluded that the swooning of financial markets  had no effect on the world's appetite for missiles and tanks and bombers and AK-47s. Global military spending shot to $1.5 trillion in 2009, six percent higher in real terms than in 2008. The United States accounted for more than half of that, but 14 of the top 15 spenders boosted their military budgets. It's a long-term trend. Military spending worldwide rose almost 50 percent from 2000 to 2009. International weapons sales rose, too. Boom times for Lockheed Martin, but also for some Scandinavian defense contractors. Shares in Norway's Kongsberg Group have more than quintupled the past five years. Saab AB of Sweden, which can't seem to sell its Gripen fighter, has had a harder time of it.