Author Topic: DUmbass political and economic theories collide, expose the truth of liberalism  (Read 2014 times)

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Offline SSG Snuggle Bunny

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DUmbasses have many collisions between their pet theories and reality. This is just one of them but it is a more significant one:

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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
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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.

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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
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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.

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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
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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=439x79458

So 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.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2010, 06:44:21 AM by SGT Snuggle Bunny »
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Offline The Hollywood NeoCon

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BRILLIANT post, Sarge!!!!  :cheersmate:

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Offline JohnnyReb

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Allowing muslims to blow up shit and kill massive numbers of people here in the U.S. will do wonders for our economy and unemployment.
“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism’, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.” - Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Party presidential candidate 1940, 1944 and 1948

"America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within."  Stalin

Offline formerlurker

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means that America spends more on the military than the rest of the world combined—with room to spare.


http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm

We have been the military superpower since WWII.   Note, don't you believe for one minute the dollar figure provided by China or Russia -- mmmkay sport?


Offline Carl

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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.


You are one dumbass piece of shit...how in the world can anyone with half a brain compare the events following WWII with 2011.
We were at that point an economy largly based in agriculture,had just barely made the conversion from horses to tractors,and had spent 4 years in all out war production.
Did these people ever once read a history book?
Just about every product was rationed,many factories converted to some sort of military production it was inevitable there would be a boom of some sort getting us OUT of public "work".

Tell a DUmbass that their name is on a waiting list for a computer/TV/refrigerator and you will have screams of outrage that will reach new heights yet that is what the nation endured to defeat Germany and Japan.
The DUmmy of today would have declared that war a waste of our money and after 8 months a loss and we should just get out.

God,the ignorance of these folks can get under your skin.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2010, 07:40:05 AM by Carl »

Offline JohnnyReb

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Just about every product was rationed,many factories converted to some sort of military production it was inevitable there would be a boom of some sort getting us OUT of public "work".

Tell a DUmbass that they their name is on a waiting list for a computer/TV/refrigerator and you will have screams of outrage that will reach new heights yet that is what the nation endured to defeat Germany and Japan.


Yeah, daddy waited for a Farmall M tractor until the spring of '48. Then the only one available was an MD (diesel)...and he needed a tractor bad enough that he took it. In the end being the first farmer around here to get a diesel tractor was the best thing to ever happen to him.
“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism’, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.” - Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Party presidential candidate 1940, 1944 and 1948

"America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within."  Stalin

Offline DumbAss Tanker

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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.

There's really too much thundering ignorance in there to address, it goes completely off the rails at the start assuming that the late 1930s never happened and the world went straight from 1932 to 1944 in the space of a year.  Preparation for the war, with its associated infrastructure building and technological innovation, actually had a HUGE amount to do with pulling both Germany and the US out of the Depression, though both them and the world in general would have been much better off if the global war had never ultimately happened.

Now as far as the DUmmie's little excerpt above goes, the basic problem here is that a tank costs about $2 Large, not $30, so the dope is really comparing a tank company to that theoretical hospital, which at that price is not going to be exactly a new Mount Sinai.  The difference is that keeping that tank company around after the initial investment means paying about 60 salaries, half of which are close to minimum wage but with an excellent benefits package, and the rest somewhat more up to the senior foremen (PSGs and 1SG) and the four or five sort of white-collar jobs (One low-level executive, the CO, and three or four management trainees - the PLs and the XO).  The hospital on the other hand will have a total payroll of several hundred, most of whom get white collar professional salaries and killer benefit packages, and a significant number of whom get very high salaries indeed.  The tank company can be relocated at will, the hospital not so much; the tank unit can even be mothballed, or moved into the reserve components so the entire staffing is costing about one sixth of a full-time unit to maintain against need, which is impossible with the hospital since the recurring non-personnel costs are damn near as high whether you keep it going full blast or cut the operation back by half.

The tank company looks much more economical in the long run, but the real question is which one - if EITHER - you need more.  No land war threat, you don't need much in the way of tank companies; an area already served, or too thinly populated to merit a $30 Mil hospital (And to staff it), it would be foolish to build one.  Just because it is possible to collect the $30 Mil, does not mean that you have to collect and spend it.     
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That here, obedient to their law, we lie.

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Offline SSG Snuggle Bunny

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The tank company looks much more economical in the long run, but the real question is which one - if EITHER - you need more.  No land war threat, you don't need much in the way of tank companies; an area already served, or too thinly populated to merit a $30 Mil hospital (And to staff it), it would be foolish to build one.  Just because it is possible to collect the $30 Mil, does not mean that you have to collect and spend it.

It's not even a cost benefit analysis.

Imagine if all the Axis Powers of WW2 wanted to do was exterminate roughly 10 million souls. However, upon the conclusion of that campaign they would effectively rule the world, a world where there would be pay reasonably scaled by government dictate based on efforts of the employee, there would be universal hospital access at no cost to the user, food would be evenly distributed and the trains would even run on time; so on and so forth.

Would it still be worth 50 million souls to save the 10 million so the remainder pf the world could live according to their indiviual conscience as opposed to state diktat?

That is where DUmbasses fail.

They would accept the immorality of genocide because they reject morality because it cannot be reconciled with their self-love. They would accept the food, housing and medicine of a slave state because the material gains for themselves is greater than ephemeral notions of freedom for their fellow man.

Give a DUmbass half a chance and they will gladly load the gas canisters used to remove the troublesome sorts that stand in the way of their well ordered and "fair" society. Look how many tyrannies, past and present, they exonerate so long as social justice serves as the punchline.

This is why DUmbasses have not earned nor can they maintain their life, liberty and happiness except at the exertions of of their betters and as such they should be reduced in status to that of mere slaves as they were meant to be.
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Offline DumbAss Tanker

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By all means, MSB; I did not mean that allowing genocide to occur uninterrupted would have been a good thing, I was stopping the comparison short of the historical point at which the Nazi leadership chose irrevocably to go down that road. 

In a historical sense I do wonder whether the Western democracies would have had the will to intervene against genocide, had Hitler not done them the favor of willfully pushing the Danzig Corridor crisis to the point of open war in September of 1939.  Hitler delivered them not just a sound casus belli but really left them no alternative but to declare war, very intentionally, and very stupidly as it proved in retrospect. 

Had he embarked on a genocidal pogrom confined to the territory he controlled in August of 1939, with all the subterfuge, suppression, and disinformation actually employed in the historical Holocaust, would the West have sacrificed itself to intervene, or pretended to a lack of 'reliable' information?  The difference from the Kulak suppression in the USSR would not have been so very great, nor so long before, and the West did a marvellous job of pretending that wasn't happening at the time.  It is a moral burden that Hitler's own rapacious bloodthirstiness saved us from having to face.   
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That here, obedient to their law, we lie.

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Offline true_blood

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Allowing muslims to blow up shit and kill massive numbers of people here in the U.S. will do wonders for our economy and unemployment.
Noticed how the DUmmies didn't even mention that?! The stupid is overwhelming there at the DUmp. :mental:
They somehow think by getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan and the closing of Gitmo will make the throwbacks not want to kill or injure us Americans. EPIC FAIL!

Offline SSG Snuggle Bunny

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In a historical sense I do wonder whether the Western democracies would have had the will to intervene against genocide, had Hitler not done them the favor of willfully pushing the Danzig Corridor crisis to the point of open war in September of 1939.  Hitler delivered them not just a sound casus belli but really left them no alternative but to declare war, very intentionally, and very stupidly as it proved in retrospect. 

Had he embarked on a genocidal pogrom confined to the territory he controlled in August of 1939, with all the subterfuge, suppression, and disinformation actually employed in the historical Holocaust, would the West have sacrificed itself to intervene, or pretended to a lack of 'reliable' information?  The difference from the Kulak suppression in the USSR would not have been so very great, nor so long before, and the West did a marvellous job of pretending that wasn't happening at the time.  It is a moral burden that Hitler's own rapacious bloodthirstiness saved us from having to face.

Not a syllable in dispute.
According to the Bible, "know" means "yes."