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Re: Obama's win - good or bad for the US/the world?
Posted:
Nov 7, 2012 9:12 PM
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On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 8:09 PM, kirby urner <kirby.urner@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
>
This is all not relevant since money is fungible. (For those who don't
know that I mean, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungibility
for an introduction.)
>
> Lending the US money is sort of like lending meth to a meth addict
> wouldn't you say?
>
No. See again
"Re: Speachless In New York (or, another OMG moment) "
http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=7914775
and all my other messages in that thread that address this, as well as
those that I link to in that message.
>> 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.
>
I agree that things can be spent differently - both in the public and
private sectors.
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