DUmbasses have many collisions between their pet theories and reality. This is just one of them but it is a more significant one:
TalkingDog (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Tue Dec-28-10 04:16 AM
Original message
Our perpetual war as an economic stimulus
http://gonzalolira.blogspot.com/2010/12/has-american-mi...
This is a major issue—major like a hole in the head: The United States spends over 6% of its GDP on the military—more, if you add the money spent on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (And by the way: The self-delusion that keeps those two wars “off the books� Astonishing—but that’s for another time.)
Since the U.S. is the largest economy in the world, that +6% means that America spends more on the military than the rest of the world combined—with room to spare.
Right there, you know something’s gone horribly wrong.
In Falling Forward, I argued that this enormous military created the need to find a new enemy, now that the Soviet Union is no more, and the nations of the former Warsaw Pact are busy trying to join NATO, rather than fight it.
I've been pondering this for quite a while. Bringing the troops home would only add to the burden on the jobs market. Of course I was called a conspiracy theory nut in a another thread for suggesting that governments used war as economic stimulus.
freshwest (165 posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Tue Dec-28-10 04:51 AM
Response to Original message
1. You're not crazy, there are people who believe the old story that war is good for the economy.
As far as bringing the troops home having a negative impact on the job market, it wasn't when soldiers came back from any war, especially WW2. But as they re-entered the job market, there was also a lot of government investment in infrastructure, and these are the jobs that they could fill the best. And there was a lot of hiring for all kinds of public jobs. It's not happening because the right refuses to allow it.
Yes, this would be the same "right" (aren't we always?) that, until January, is woefully outnumbered in both houses of congress and is on the outs in the CinC seat.
ngant17 (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Tue Dec-28-10 11:18 AM
Response to Original message
2. war is more economical than peace?
Only if you can successfully occupy and plunder the natural resources of the country which is being invaded. And only if you ignore the adverse economic reaction facing the inhabitants of said invaded/occupied country.
Example: Hitler's war against the Soviet Union/Russia (22 Jun 1941), if it was successful, it might have been an economic stimulus for the Germans. Not for the hundreds of thousands of German KIAs, of course. That's the cost of doing "business". However, in any case it could not have economically benefited the Russians, in either the civilian or military sector. They would have been liquidated and never factored into the German's economic equation. Maybe for some designer lamp shades or what pitiful little money they could have pulled out of the dead.
So there are at least two sides of the coin here. It depends on the constraints of your argument. How do you define success? War is profitable only in a specific way, benefiting a smaller sector of the national economy, and only in the short term.
An economy based on peace, international cooperation and peaceful coexistence is far more profitable to more people in the long run.
Suppose it costs $30 million dollars to build one battle tank. It would more cost-effective if we lived in a perpetual war economy than if the tank was only going to be used sporadically in occasional wars and invasions of foreign countries.
OTOH suppose a 40-unit hospital costs in the neighborhood of $25-$30 million. Basically the same as one tank used by the military. It would be an economic stimulus for a greater number of people, whether we were in a perpetual war economy or a perpetual peace economy.
And yet, amid all the proper datum he still manages to come to the wrong conclusion because he never addresses the economic and material devastation suffered by the nations defending themselves from the Nazis. A lack of defense spending on their part would have done nothing to spare them the ravages of war it only would have hastened their demise, left the aggressors unopposed to the point they would have been intractable and the added wealth and lack of defense would have only made them more appealing as targets of conquest.
Would you rather rob a house with $30 million worth of jewels or guns?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x79458So herein lies the great DUmbass conundrum: if government spending is good than military spending is good. If military spending is bad then government spending must be bad.
So how do they reconcile?
The
work of the military must be bad.
That means the people the military is engaging are: A) misunderstood B) innocent victims C) feel threatened because we were the first ones ever, anywhere to have a military D) justified in attacking the US
And that is how most liberals come to be anti-US. It isn't so much and initial, reflex hatred of the military as it is a love of government spending in their favor and it's not like they're ever going to join the military. Remember, their first reflex is to love themselves. That is why they demand your money. They need and deserve it more than you do. But in order to justify taking it away from you they have to make the case that the religious fanatics flying planes into buildings are bogeymen/victims of US imperialism.
Make no mistake, if we were rich enough to support liberals in the manner in which they believe themselves deserving and maintain a proper national defense the libs wouldn't give half a squirt of piss in protest of defense spending or foreign wars. That's why most war protests peter-out during liberal administrations. They believe the money is being spent on them. Bombing civilians doesn't bother them; just think Bill Ayers. He is excused because what he really wanted was "social justice" which means taking your money and giving it to them.
Remember: self-love explains all liberalism. It explains why self-esteem exercises trump school performance, why sex and abortion are exempt from the vices that can plague a society and need to be (culturally) regulated, why taxpayer money must be spent to cure behaviorally-spread diseases, why you're dumb and they're uber-smart, why you wanting your money is wrong and why defense spending is the only form of government spending that could ever be wrong.
