When you're serving your country, there's a good chance you'll move around a few times . . . which can conflict with the traditional American dream of homeownership. Soldiers who bought homes several years ago could be stuck selling now at depressed prices -- and on fairly short notice.

Needless to say, the financial pressure can be profound. A Staff Sergeant with a decade of service behind him, for example, is paid just under $37,000 a year. Even when you add in the health care and other benefits provided by the Department of Defense, it's still hard to handle a serious loss on a home.

The February stimulus plan included provisions to help military personnel in this situation, but little has happened. Soldiers complain that information is hard to find and guidelines aren't available. So far, none of the funds have been disbursed, and the federal government is keeping its collective mouth shut.

One of the things that really helps the U.S. balance of trade is weapons sales. In a recession, perhaps they should be encouraged more.

According to Reuters, Iran's Gulf neighbor, the United Arab Emirates, has signed a deal worth $3.3 billion to buy missiles from U.S. firm Raytheon (NYSE: RTN).

The Census Bureau reports that the October balance of trade was a negative $57 billion. A lot of that could be made up by selling missiles, tanks, rifles, and war planes. The Department of Defense has to approve most of the sales, but perhaps it should be annexed to the Department of the Treasury, at least until the recession is over. Some of the countries where a lot of sales are prohibited, like North Korea, could be added to the "OK to export weapons" list?

In September, The New York Times reported that "From tanks, helicopters and fighter jets to missiles, remotely piloted aircraft and even warships, the Department of Defense has agreed so far this fiscal year to sell or transfer more than $32 billion in weapons and other military equipment to foreign governments, compared with $12 billion in 2005." Up that number to $100 billion and think of the jobs it would create.

Weapons sales are not on the new Obama list of plans to create 2.5 million jobs by spending $800 billion. And, selling weapons does not cost the government at dime.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Peregrine Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ: PPHM) is in such poor financial shape that it has been delisted has received a notice of its failure to meet continuing NASDAQ Capital Market requirements and may soon be delisted. The stock is currently priced at $0.70 and does not publicly trade.

Why should investors care whether a small biopharmaceutical company implodes like so many long-ago dot coms? Because Peregrine is running several important clinical trials testing whether its product, bavituximab, might be another weapon in the fight against prostate and breast cancers, diseases which kill tens of thousands of Americans every year. In the fight against cancer, every likely beneficial treatment scenario needs to be pursued aggressively.

Peregrine recently raised $21 million from institutional investors in order to fund the continued collection of data in its clinical trials. This is good news, except that the clinical trials are being run not in the US, but in India where there are fewer patient protection policies and data collection and analysis is much cheaper to produce. Presumably, credible evidence from the India clinical trials will convince the FDA to allow clinical trials using bavituximab in the US.

A recent piece of good news for Peregrine is that the Department of Defense is investigating whether bavituximab may be effective in treating hemorrhagic fever. It is possible that Peregrine will be awarded a five-year contract worth almost $45 million to develop treatment protocols and run clinical trials investigating this use of its product. Such a contract would help Peregrine immensely. In its most recent quarterly report, Peregrine recorded a net loss of $4.65 million, less than last year's $5.45 million loss, but hardly good news. Peregrine did post $1.6 million in earnings from its wholly owned contract drug manufacturing subsidiary Avid Biosciences. If bavituximab does prove effective in the fight against some types of cancer, and if the drug does win FDA approval for use in the U.S., then Peregrine will have in-house manufacturing facilities. The need for such expertise currently seems a long ways away for Peregrine, which may be an attractive buy-out candidate by a much larger pharmaceutical company.