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Irony: Our Huge Military Is What Made Us an Empire ... But Our Huge Military is What Is Bankrupting Us, Thus DESTROYING Our Status as an Empire
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As I've previously pointed
out, America's military-industrial complex is ruining our economy.
And
U.S. military and intelligence leaders say that the economic crisis is
the biggest national security threat to the United States. See this,
this
and this.
As
RT points out, it is ironic that America's huge military spending is
what made us an empire ... but our huge military is what is bankrupting
us ... thus destroying our status as an empire:
No
wonder people from opposite ends of the political spectrum like Barney Frank
and Ron Paul are calling for a reduction in military spending.
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Another consideration, social program money gets spent in US, sure some money goes to by imported products, but social program employees live in US, recipients live in US, buy food and shelter in US. Military spending goes all over world.
The biggest social programs in US budget, by far, are social security and medicare and the other biggee federal expense is defense. If we have to cut say, 30 percent of Federal spending, what should it be, Medicare, Soc Security, of DOD?...I pick DOD.
If you exclude Social Security and Medicare for the federal budget because they are trust funds/transfer payments - (govt organized pooled insurance that is paid for by the premiums of FICA withdrawals) and if we instead just focus on where fed income taxes (along with other Fed taxes, like gas tax) goes, then the money of actual tax revenue (not FICA) that goes in Federal budget to DOD is even more disproportionate...
this link shows both ways of looking at federal budget, http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm
either way, defense is huge cost whose cut is least painful way to trim our budget...
We have over 2000 military bases, and now we even are getting a AfricCom , so God only knows how many bases we will have on that continent soon enough, to add to the permanent bases in germany, okinawa, guam, poland, iraq, afghanistan, korea, diego garcia, Kygrystan, portugal, UK, turkey, saudi arabia, japan, bulgaria, italy, kosovo, kuwait, israel, cuba, dijibouti,bahrain, greece, phillipines etc...
really, 63 countries, really, exactly when do we start considering ROI and diminishing returns...remember, military personnel are government employees, generals central plan military...if govt is inefficient and incompetent and wasteful, does this not apply to military also???
Excluding SS/Medicare from the federal budget "because they're transfer payments" makes no sense. Money is money, and the government's future SS liability vastly outstrips its future revenue. Either entitlement will swallow the whole of the state, leading to a sovereign debt/currency crisis in which we all get screwed so retirees can get their free medicine (which they won't anyway), or entitlements get cut. Pretending it's not there won't change that.
McDonald's is in 105 countries. I think most of them are profitable.
The Red Cross is in pretty much every country.
China and Russia have intelligence or offices in all those same countries.
Inefficient, yes. But don't confuse the existence or purpose of an entity with it's performance.
but that fact is inconvenient to the point he is trying to make
It's called "Imperial J-Tribe Crack" -- You, my friend, are their Golem... so keep moving and sending the US Golem Forces over to Iran-Iraq-Afghanistan. How D.A. do the idiots need to fooled in the USA to see the truth?
But don't worry, the Big Boot is coming to the J-Tards and their Lying, Criminal a**es.
http://theinfounderground.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5367
Read the entire thing. Why not?
Another good one -- sounds like America, doesn't it?
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/articles/MacDonald-Solzhenitsyn-200...
Here's a novel idea for you to consider: You can oppose excessive military spending without indulging in anti-Semite pornography.
yes, it can be done, but you have to admit that u.s. policy since 2001 and israel policy since, oh, 1948 make it so much easier the other way. 9-11 conspiracy theory and criticism of empire are not anti-semitic or even anti-jewish at base. they're anti-israel/anti-zionist in most of their motivation (imo).
Well, at least the social programs (not that I favor them) don't result in the death of innocent millions overseas.
"innocent millions overseas."
Did you have a mixup on orders of magnitude?
if one included wounding, displacing from their homes and bereaving, with the inclusion also of "our only dependable middle east ally", one gets to millions fairly easily.
Those things are not "death." Please use words in the way that normal people use them.
real nice thing to say about our troops who are fighting people that would have your head on a stick in 30 secs
and the reason they would have your head on a stick in 30 seconds?.... because you are sending armies overseas like an empire. Keep your weapon in ur pants America, keep the fuck out of other countries with your armies, and you might find less assholes around the planet want to fly airoplanes into your landmarks.
And the number of twits on this site that dont realise that welfare stops American from rioting for food and is a major contributor to your consumer economy is pathetic.
US spends a considerably smaller portion of its GDP on defense than a number of other countries, including Russia and China. http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RL32209.pdf.
The portion of GDP spent on defense in the US has overall declined significantly from WWII (high 30%) to the cold war (10%ish) to mid 2000's 3.5-5% ish. http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size.php.
The portion of GDP devoted to entitlement programs was several times the defense percentage by the mid 2000's. It has grown greatly since then.
The percentage of government debt to GDP is 90%. Doubled in just the last 18 months--mostly due to the stimulus package and falling tax revenues.
Looked at another way, between 1999 and 2008:
* Welfare grew 292%
* Social Security and Medicaid grew 213%
* Education spending grew 173%
* Military Spending grew 146%
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/06/Confronting-the-Unsustainable-Growth-of-Welfare-Entitlements-Principles-of-Reform-and-the-Next-Steps
Which type of spending growth does the author think creates the biggest problem? The big ones? Or the little one?
So I just don't understand all the drama over defense, other than that the author doesn't like the US having a defense and gets the vapors over it. I'm happy to discuss particular military ventures. Some seem like a good idea and others don't. But there is not much of a case to be made for all the hyperventilation over the "ironies" that military expenditures are destroying America. They aren't.
Well done Breaker, using percentages you managed to hocus pocus the facts like so many of the duped that have come before you.
Breaker, do you even have an inkling how much the US's education budget is nominally?
Let me give you a hint: Compared to the military spending (not even including the hidden war chest slush fund you will never see reported) education equals a whole lot less than half a hill of beans. Despite its supposedly OUTRAGEOUS increase of 173%
A trillion dollars a year for war on the poor, man! So that Halliburton can have their pipeline through Afghanistan!? So that all the companies that sent jobs overseas or south to exploit other nations can operate with impunity?! Not to mention other sundries of protection for your plutocracy and their friends, of course. A trillion dollars a year to stir up hornets' nests worldwide? Are you a complete and utter fool?
Below you complain that the order of magnitude of deaths inflicted by your military has been exaggerated (it hasn't btw): Man, for the money you and yours are payin' you should be askin' why your military industrial complex's murder rate isn't double that estimate!
"Which type of spending growth does the author think creates the biggest problem? The big ones?"
Indeed the big ones. But not as defined by idiots who go can't tell a percentage increase from a nominal one.
Regards
Goin, can you point me to the part in the Constitution where the government provides for the common education?
While I have great respect for the US Constitution (should it ever be reinstated as a guiding force in the US' governing body): Ans. No, no I can't dashingdwl. Though in the long run you have to admit it would be a much wiser area to allocate a cool trillion of tax dollars annually, as evidenced by every other nation in the developed world with a higher standard of living than the US (and they accomplish this with far less/capita).
Regards
the $ spent by the feds on "education" is probably the worst waste of all.$ spent to indoctrinate little minds to hate the US, sing praise songs to obamagod, learn sex at an early age, teach the religions of global warming, diversity and "tolerance"(i.e. everything is ok). very little effort to teach the basics, reading, writing, math, real science, etc.
$spent at the college level is even a bigger waste. look at what harvard turns out.
Not to mention the idiots who wipe their asses with the Constitution and feel they can expand the legitimate scope of Government at a whim. Progress You Can Suck On™
You ask: "Breaker, do you even have an inkling how much the US's education budget is nominally?"
Yes, I do.
"The U.S. Department of Education estimated that total primary, secondary, and higher education expenditures in
2001 amounted to more than $700 billion, or 7 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP; NCES 2002, Table
29)." http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/economy.pdf. (That's a number from the NEA, which consistently underestimates education spending as part of its political agenda. So the number is probably low. Compare it with the numbers cited in my previous post about military spending).
And, that spending on education has more than doubled in real-dollars-per-pupil and since 1970. It has increased as a portion of GDP.
The subject article claims that military spending is crashing the "American Empire." The various percentages of GDP I cited in my earlier post pertain directly to that point. If you think (as the author apparently does) that excessive government spending in the US is taking the US down, why should you look at a military spending, which is a relatively small, and shrinking type of gvt spending (as a percentage of GDP)? Aren't the likely culprits the larger and rapidly growing types of spending?
You are really arguing that the shrinking portion of GDP that goes to the military is not being spent wisely. Perhaps. But that is not an empire crasher, which is the point of the article. It's pretty easy to argue that larger amount of US education spending is being spent incredibly stupidly. See: http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/end-them-don’t-mend-them. That doesn't mean education spending is "crashing the empire."
Me, I would spend some of the military dollars differently. For one, I would stop spending money and troops defending Europe and Japan (they are rich enough to grow up and shoulder that burden themselves). I would bring those troops and dollars home and put them on our border with Mexico. But that's just an argument about how to allocate a portion of money spent--not an argument about the drama of "empires crashing," which makes for much better hand-wringing.
Hyperventilate on.
"The U.S. Department of Education estimated that total primary, secondary, and higher education expenditures in
2001 amounted to more than $700 billion, or 7 percent of U.S. gross domestic product"
Whoops, that is total spending, not the Gov't budget. For a much, much closer estimate, go here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/overview/ and click on "Dept. of Education". Where is your $700 billion now? Apparently you really didn't have much of an idea of how little your Gov't is spending on Education after all.
Adding apples and oranges and concluding you have sour grapes ain't deduction, Breaker. Propagating Abracadabra like that is a result of dupage or deceit, take your pick. Whereas military spending's lion share is most assuredly on the backs of the taxpayer, and its claws are long and dug-in deep; not to mention its...
Regards
I don't think even the most fervent militarist could be blind to the fact that a big part of the current debt problem started in 2003 when the Bush administration committed to an ongoing forever war and occupation, at the same time cutting tax revenues. Every other war embarked upon was financed by tax increases and in the cas of WWII, "Liberty Bonds" (savings).
This particular piece of fiscal madness (cutting revenues and ramping up spending) is responsible for the budgetary deficits which are now crippling us. Since that time there has been an all out assault on social spending, with attempts to cancel social security at the same time increasing the military budget. States are cutting teachers, policeman, civil servants. Obama's health care "reform" is nothing more than an extension of the health care monopoly for the insurance industry.
I'd be interested in seeing a cash flow analysis of the mid east invasions just to see the extent of the damage to us! But the band plays on.
Tax *revenues* went up under Bush. Tax *rates* went down. Those two words mean different things.
GDP, Government Spending, Military spending are like the perpetual machine.
The government spends more, the GDP goes higher. The GDP goes higher, the government spending goes higher.
Our justification is somehow that since our wasteful spending is a % of GDP, we must be okay. The problem is the wasteful spending contributes to the GDP making it a fakery.
And just why might that be?
Hint: read Smedley Butler's War Is A Racket! (http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm)
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
Smedley was captain of the baseball team at one of our neighborhood private schools. He came back to Philadelphia briefly as chief of police, during which he discovered that Philadelphia policing was a racket, too. He happened to lead marines through an era of US corporate desire for latin american assets. I didn't do it. You didn't do it. Smedley did it. But then he wanted to run for office in Pennsylvania, and tried to distance himself from the racket he'd practiced (bravely and well) for years.
Best to read this whole fucking thing
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=25838
i am nonplussed by your link to the 1956 republican party platform. certainly we have fallen a long way from ike as president, probably our best since ww2. he was not without error though. he could have had john foster dulles shake ho chi minh's hand in geneva and saved us a lot of later grief. ditto vis a vis patrice lumumba and castro. being a real war hero is a great advantage. small wonder he had regrets about the military industrial complex. but what was your (as opposed to my) point?
Since when did the troops start fighting the US Government?
+1 to both of you.
No...just broken families and millions of lives here.
How's that "War on Poverty" thingy goin?...still fighting it...at what cost in lives and treasure?
the big bucks are medicare, medicaid and ss. how does that break families and lives? as for the "war on poverty" (would that be food stamps and unemployment payments?) the cost in treasure is fairly clear. it's costing lives too? what, the obese? mcdonalds takes food stamps?
Social spending is injected at the bottom of the economic pyramid and "trickles up". It creates wealth. There is no advanced country in the world today that did not begin by improving public health and education. They create public capital.
Military spending is injected at the top, and creates an ongoing liability... the need to maintain military infrastructure. A lot of the money goes overseas, contributing to the exportation of the nation's wealth. Military intervention reduces the host nation's GDP... like in Iraq, Iran etc.... a lose-lose proposition.
When people and politicians refuse to pay for foreign wars by raising taxes or savings we end up in the position we are in today... teetering on the brink of insolvency and faced with need to radically trim the military budget.
I had no idea that economic growth was built on welfare dependents and aging pensioners, whose primary "job" is to sit around and consume what the rest of us produce. Here all along, I thought it was built on the labor, industry, and innovation of the active portion of society. You should write a book on how this works.
I believe Karl Marx already did ;-)
The multi-id kid's are pretty much quoting it verbatim.
"Social spending is injected at the bottom of the economic pyramid"
Where did the money to "spend socially" come from? Was it printed into existence? Or did it come from taxation?
Where did the money come from to spend?
"A lot of the money goes overseas, contributing to the exportation of the nation's wealth."
Agreed.
Close all the military bases in Europe ;-)
The point is.. Social spending in its best forms... health and education, creates wealth... Military spending creates liabilities and exports wealth. The cost of maintaining this "empire" far outweighs the benefits accrued, all the militaristic rhetoric to the contrary. The point is moot since the empire is unravelling on the insolvency it is creating.
Besides we're fighting the wrong racist state:
Remember the USS Liberty:
http://www.usslibertyveterans.org/
Apparently the question of where the money originally comes from to "spend socially" was too difficult for you to answer. As it will always lead to the uncomfortable dead end conclusion (in your mind anyways) that the state (the government) is a better allocator of wealth than the people.
It also would follow logically that the people do not need money. Just do your 40hr. week and all your earnings are taken by government to be re-distributed amongst everyone.
Lovely.
"The point is.. Social spending in its best forms... health and education, creates wealth"
LOL...well, if by that you mean me paying a doctor for his labor I suppose it does create wealth for him. As it should be. And me paying for a college education for my children does create wealth for the professor and administrators. Yes.
I don't see the tie in with goobermint here though. How are they involved with what should be private transactions?
Not that it matters...I'm going swimming.
SeeYa
Your expenditures for your children's education should produce some return to them as well as society... else you are maintaining that education is useless.
If you had sponsored a private soldier to go to Iraq and destroy things and or people on your behalf, I doubt any wealth would have been created... rather it would be destroyed.
Countries that invest (yes through taxes on excess productivity) in meaningfull education, health and socially profitable projects will prosper, those who destroy wealth through excess destruction will fail. You seem to beleive otherwise...Where does the wealth so destroyed come from? Try to figure it out.
"Your expenditures for your children's education should produce some return to them as well as society... else you are maintaining that education is useless."
My expenditures are for the benefit of my children's growth and well being. Not for the benefit of society. Any benefit to society is ancillary. And I could certainly maintain a position that a higher education is useless with little problem by giving you example after example if I chose to.
"Countries that invest (yes through taxes on excess productivity) in meaningfull education, health and socially profitable projects will prosper, those who destroy wealth through excess destruction will fail."
I have no idea what "a tax on excess productivity" looks like. Can you give me an example? And who or what would define "excess"? In "excess" of what? Survival? In this country EVERYTHING imaginable is taxed.
And what the hell is "excess destruction"?
"Try to figure it out."
I think I have. You don't know what the hell your talking about.
Jeff,
Apparently your not very old...late 20ish?
You write..."the big bucks are medicare, medicaid and ss." This is correct.
So your point is the nation must cut the military budget?
By the way, the money (your labor) taken out of your check (SS taxes) is spent TODAY...gone...you will never see a penny of it. It is a ponzi, a generational shell game in which politicians steal the money, spend it and place IOU's in it's place. Until now, it is just a transfer payment from you to someone else. There is no reserve.
And you have this reversed..."how does that break families and lives? as for the "war on poverty"...should read...as for the war on poverty, how does this break families and lives.
I will endeavor to explain as simply as I can. When you give a man a fish you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish he will feed himself forever.
This simple proverb, above, shows the fundamental flaw of socialism. If you can unlock it's truth you will have learned something very special today.