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Re: Obama's win - good or bad for the US/the world?
Posted:
Nov 7, 2012 8:09 PM
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On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 1:15 PM, Paul Tanner <upprho@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 2:09 PM, kirby urner <kirby.urner@gmail.com> wrote:
> ...
<< SNIP >>
>> Once military expenses, broadly are interpreted, are subtracted from
>> net IRS revenue, what's left for taxpayers to take credit for? Do USA
>> citizens even pay for their own schools? Or is that China again?
>>
>
> I already did run them in a general way in my message
>
> "Re: Speachless In New York (or, another OMG moment) "
> http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=7914775
>
This diagram from 2010 is helpful.
It looks like the deficit would just about equal discretionary
spending, which includes defense spending.
So we could turn it around and say taxpayers get no credit for defense
spending (that's borrowed).
Tax revenues cover mandatory expenses and that's it.
In this sense, all that military spending as a "return on investment"
to a global population to invests in US government spending.
Given how military spending is very slanted towards a certain kind of
engineering (destructive vs. constructive, Army Corps of Engineers
notwithstanding), I can see why some private investors, including
other governments ("private" in the sense of "not USA government)
would be unhappy with how their funds were being committed.
Lending the US money is sort of like lending meth to a meth addict
wouldn't you say?
How are bayonets and bazookas going to raise the money to pay back
principal plus interest? MI tank anyone? They're piling up in the
desert yet General Dynamics insists "we" need more. Who is this "we"
of theirs I wonder.
> as well as in other messages, repeatedly. It's just not that hard to
> get the total debt to start moving down as a percentage of GDP while
> not reducing social spending. It just takes smarts and guts on the
> part of non-conservative politicians (conservative ones are not
> interested in lowering the debt while preserving social spending).
Remember that GDP can represent all kinds of wasteful and stupid
spending, like turning the USA into Incarceration Nation.
Build fewer schools, more prisons, and the GDP might stay the same (in theory).
I hope those lending Uncle Sam all that dough pay some attention to
how it's spent, is all I'm saying. Squandering on welfare for all
those families and singles in Okinawa, for example -- hard to think of
a more wasteful way of life, occupying Japan and burning fuel.
I agree with Smedley Butler (decorated war hero): have the military
guard the boarders in a defensive posture.
Playing "policeman to the world" is how Uncle Sam markets himself (as
the "last / only superpower"). That's the neo-con line ("Americans
from Mars").
Lets see if that continues to be what investors want to pay for.
Uncle Sam will need to keep paying top dollar to PR / image
specialists to keep seeming like an attractive player. Or maybe
that's the State Department's job?
Kirby
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