Please Mister, Please wrote:
Ah yes, the standard response from someone who is too insecure about themselves to appreciate it when they are corrected.
Nonetheless, I do believe that you will never unknowingly make the same mistake again for the rest of your life. And for this you are most welcome.
Says the guy who starts a sentence with the word "And" which is a conjunction.
You're not so perfect yourself.
We tried the isolationist thing and WW1 and WW2 happened.
As far as military spending goes. You have to spend money to make money. In 2012 the pentagon reported foreign arms sales of $69 billion. This is important because it creates helpful relationships in the future.
Prior to Afghanistan and Iraq the U.S plans for a very high friendly to enemy troop ratio. This troop level requires support. Support costs money.
Still, we spent more during the 40s/WW2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Troops#mediaviewer/File:US_defense_spending_1910_to_2007.png
Also, the best military technology and maintenance for this equipment requires money. Would you rather we just affix bayonets?
Alan
Yamaha wrote:
Serious question.
The world would be a much better place, and stop invading other countries.
There is a wide range of reasonable budgets to employ between isolationism and our currently over funded "defense".
The "spend money to make money" comment MUST be a joke. Our sales are a fraction of a budget and typically end up with leading to a conflict that we later have to spend more money to go clean up.
Anon wrote:
Please Mister, Please wrote:Ah yes, the standard response from someone who is too insecure about themselves to appreciate it when they are corrected.
Nonetheless, I do believe that you will never unknowingly make the same mistake again for the rest of your life. And for this you are most welcome.
Says the guy who starts a sentence with the word "And" which is a conjunction.
You're not so perfect yourself.
Thank you for the correction.
I must say I do not recall making a claim of perfection. Perhaps my memory is fading.
interesting story in thy NYT about how the air force is rethinking spending.
the problem - and this will explode as a major issue soon - is that personnel costs have skyrocketed. So much money is now going to medical care and disability etc...that there is and will be much less money for high tech armaments.
The disability issue is going to be a scandal - the number of servicemen and women who retire on trumped up disability.
this is happening in all industries, not just the military of course.
Anon wrote:
Also, since WW2 we've been running protection for many EU, African, Middle Eastern, South American countries which are direct allies of the US, if we were to reduce spending and need to pull forces back, we'd see another country like Russia or China move in and take hold in order to control resources for their needs (usually by force & stealing it from that nation).
US forces do not protect the EU or most countries in which they are deployed.
They use those countries for forward bases (or to breed US national soccer players). The same goes with Japan, Australia, and Thailand.
To say the EU needs protection, which has combined military forces of 1.5 million personnel and hundreds of nuclear warheads, is patently ridiculous.
The same goes for the likes of Singapore, Greenland, South Africa.
Anon wrote:China would invade Hong Kong, Taiwan, Possible go to war with Japan over an old WW2 fued.
Why would China invade itself (Hong Kong). Where've you been?
Anon wrote:
Says the guy who starts a sentence with the word "And" which is a conjunction.
You're not so perfect yourself.
Starting a sentence with "and" is perfectly acceptable in English. But you don't have to believe me:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/words/conjunctionsOne legacy of spending so much on ‘defence’ is that the USA has been in a state of permanent war, since 1945, in which around 30 million have died.
Of the 248 armed conflicts worldwide since the end of WW2, the USA has started 201 of them.
In a recent poll, the rest of the world consider the USA by far and away, the greatest threat to world peace.
Just the Facts. wrote:
US forces do not protect the EU or most countries in which they are deployed.
They use those countries for forward bases (or to breed US national soccer players). The same goes with Japan, Australia, and Thailand.
To say the EU needs protection, which has combined military forces of 1.5 million personnel and hundreds of nuclear warheads, is patently ridiculous.
The same goes for the likes of Singapore, Greenland, South Africa.
Yes, they're forward bases. It's hard to defend your allies from attack if you're not there. Look up the cold war, that was the main purpose of the bases being there. It's not so much today, and yes, they've managed to get together 1.5mil troops, but about 1/3 is actual combat troops, a good portion of the military hardware is US made (planes, vehicles). Let's not forget the F-35 which has participation by EU members to recieve this jet as well.
Japan, post WW2, we signed an agreement for mutual security. It says specifically in there we defend Japan. Their post ww2 constitution strictly mentions not having anything past a defensive military.
Greenland's base is there for Defense as well setup through NATO. Look it up.
Singapore, it's more of an agreement. We sell them weapons systems & military logistics while also training their people here in the US.
Africa, more-so in the horn of Africa on the east coast. Our African involvement is minimal. Place is a mess.
Most of the bases we have are there for defensive reasons and have old agreements from post WW2. Some logistical like Singapore, some defensive like Japan's, some inbetween.
We would have to cut back gradually and probably greatly increase public infrastructure projects to offset the massive unemployment.
Joe Binks wrote:
One legacy of spending so much on ‘defence’ is that the USA has been in a state of permanent war, since 1945, in which around 30 million have died.
Of the 248 armed conflicts worldwide since the end of WW2, the USA has started 201 of them.
In a recent poll, the rest of the world consider the USA by far and away, the greatest threat to world peace.
http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman010310.htm
List off some of the 201 military conflicts and let's look at what had happened. I'm guessing majority of them were to prevent the expansion of communism.
Some lunatic wrote:
Russia would march into Europe and we'd have to rebuild the military.
Let Russia and other countries do what they want.
Joe Binks wrote:
One legacy of spending so much on ‘defence’ is that the USA has been in a state of permanent war, since 1945, in which around 30 million have died.
Of the 248 armed conflicts worldwide since the end of WW2, the USA has started 201 of them.
In a recent poll, the rest of the world consider the USA by far and away, the greatest threat to world peace.
http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman010310.htm
Thanks for posting the interesting link.
armed interventions in civil wars around the globe rarely help at all, and there are no state powers that would risk a war on us or our major allies, and our military budget will still be far larger than that of any other country, so there would be no negative military consequences. If the money were spent on infrastructure or education, we'd see a significant increase in GDP over the long-term.
dsds wrote:
Anon just got owned! Awesome.
Your response is EPIC!!!
dot com bubbbuble wrote:
We would have greater than 35% unemployment in the private sector, throwing the country into civil unrest.
Probably less threats from actual terrorists though.
Not to far from the truth. At least across the south the unemployment would hit 35%, plus Ohio (Air Force).
Keith Stone wrote:
dot com bubbbuble wrote:We would have greater than 35% unemployment in the private sector, throwing the country into civil unrest.
Probably less threats from actual terrorists though.
Not to far from the truth. At least across the south the unemployment would hit 35%, plus Ohio (Air Force).
Most of that potential 50% reduction is simply blown up and wasted, so causing 35% unemployment is a crock.
Plus the 50% would then be used in other areas, creating many more jobs than any that were lost, or simply kept by the people the taxes were taken from, reducing the need to work overtime.
Almost the entire US economy consists of the production and trade of useless and harmful things, including a bloated military.
What the MIC does is at best completely unnecessary and at worst harmful both to the US and other countries. With a huge nuclear arsenal, no other country will attack it regardless of its conventional strength. The army's purpose is to
) sit around in "allied" countries doing nothing at all
) stir up trouble in other countries to have something to do
) look good on TV
Public relations is probably its most important role, as the easiest way to control the country is to drum up lots of terrorists to scare the people, then show them the mighty army that will protect them from the terrorists. Then the people say "I love the government" and do as they're told.
The vast majority of US trade is consumer spending, which amplified the economic crash because consumers don't like buying useless things in a bad economy. They have to be carefully tracked and targeted by marketers to buy anything at all.* Without the government making them pay taxes and spending it on a bloated military, capitalism would collapse permanently.
