8 ms·

I'm left with two thoughts. First, who is getting fired for this and what outsider will be brought in to fix this to keep it from happening again. Second, is

by josho 10y ago

I'm left with two thoughts. First, who is getting fired for this and what outsider will be brought in to fix this to keep it from happening again. Second, is a larger question. Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military?

DougWebb 10y ago
The answer to your second question, unfortunately, is a combination of "We're scared", "We're number one!" and "Who cares?"
meddlepal 10y ago
1. Nobody 2. Because it allows us to project force globally which is what actually allows us to be the one true global super power.
- mtgx 10y ago
  Assuming 2 is true, shouldn't Americans then be more concerned with spending those hundreds of billions of dollars a year more efficiently, so USA's power could be 2x, 4x (just by cutting the waste/corruption alone), or even 10x bigger (by using the money buy smarter/more effective technology than say...more tanks, or F-35's)?! People who keep supporting more military spending aren't patriots. Quite the opposite. Those that want their army to run well and effectively are the true patriots.
  - lintiness 10y ago
    sure, let's spend our tax dollars more efficiently. point me to the government bureau that magically manages its finances "efficiently".
    - galdosdi 10y ago
      I can think of one. The SSA spends just a fraction of a percentage point of its disbursements on administrative costs. There's probably others. Like private industry, government is huge, contains many agencies at many levels, and some of them are well run and some of them are poorly run and some of them are somewhere in between.
      - lintiness 10y ago
        .39% of "assets" (debt issued by other parts of government). vanguard charges about a quarter this (with vehicles delivering substantially better risk adjusted returns). their "plan" is also slated to go bankrupt without adjustment.
        galdosdi 10y ago
        It's true that their costs are greater than vanguard which is literally the cheapest private mutual fund company around. Try comparing it to an industry average; 0.39% is quite fair then. The "plan going bankrupt" has nothing to do with the administration of benefits, however. It's not happening because the bureaucracy is screwing up and wasting too much money -- even if they worked for free, you'd only gain 0.39% more per year. It's congress that is underfunding (or overprovisioning, or some combination of the two) -- could be fixed in two seconds with a bill cutting benefits and/or increasing taxes without any real change for SSA. Also, when it "goes bankrupt" as people misleadingly call it, they'll still be able to pay about 4/5 of the benefits currently promised. In effect, congress by doing nothing has already implicitly reduced future benefits to 4/5 of the current statutory amounts. If you just assume you'll get 4/5 of what is being promised, then it's in no way bankrupt and is self sustaining forever. 4/5 is not chump change. I've started to realize this whole "social security is a failure" talk may be FUD being spread to get people to accept further raiding of social security because "whatever, it's already broken"
      - kbutler 10y ago
        The "efficiency" of the SSA is simply because of the vast flow of money the SSA distributes. Similarly, the IRS is hugely "profitable", because its administrative costs are a tiny fraction of the money it brings in.
    - monkmartinez 10y ago
      Exactly, the rest of the world is super good at efficiently spending tax dollars... USA excluded.
      - refurb 10y ago
        Laughable comment. You think India gov't spending is efficient? Vietnam?
        monkmartinez 10y ago
        That was the point I didn't think I needed a sarcasm tag. Government inefficiency is a universal "known", like fire is hot, right?
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  - dforrestwilson1 10y ago
    Former military and former intelligence contractor here. No quarrel with what you are saying. The answer to "why not" is lobbying, constituents, and corruption. Military spending influences the economy in literally every state. That's why they don't close bases. That's why the legislature optimizes for maximum spend rather than ROI.
    - sremani 10y ago
      He is basically challenging the idea US being a maritime power projecting its power across the globe. I am more interested your answer to that line of questioning rather than institutional quid pro quo to get favors and support from senators.
      - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
        As the UK declined as the maritime power, the US filled the gap. This is on a line of history going back to the Dutch and the Spanish.
  - chiph 10y ago
    Former military here. The #1 way to reduce waste would be to change the accounting rules. As it is, if you don't spend your full budget for the year, next year's budget will be cut by that amount. And you aren't allowed to keep a "rainy day fund". This causes problems when you have expensive equipment that only fails occasionally. You have to budget for a possible replacement, but if you make it through the year without a failure, you've got all this money that you have to suddenly find a use for.
- toddmorey 10y ago
  The sad thing is, all want I for my kids is great health and great education, and those are the two areas where the US performs the most poorly. That's such a spectacular failing of the basic social contract. I've never once hoped for them to be citizens of a "the one true global super power". I've always wondered how much of the world superpower is sold to us as "to keep us safe" when the honest reality is "too feed our national ego". I do believe that the world is a safer place than it was 30 years ago. But I can't think of a conflict since WWII where U.S. efforts in the region seemed to be the stabilizing factor.
  - refurb 10y ago
    You may want to ask the Eastern European countries who were under the yoke of the Soviets for 45 years whether or not that spending was worth it. Or for that matter, the Western European countries as well.
  - meddlepal 10y ago
    I'm not sure what your point is here... our healthcare and education is excellent. It's expensive, but it's excellent.
    - serge2k 10y ago
      If you have money.
    - toddmorey 10y ago
      "America's wealthiest and best-educated young adults still lag behind their peers in other countries in the literacy, numeracy, and computer-age problem-solving skills needed to compete in the global labor market." http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/02/18/us-millennials-come-up-short-in-global.html http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/02/18/us-millennials-... "The U.S. spends more on health care than other high-income countries but has worse outcomes." http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2015/oct/us-health-care-from-a-global-perspective http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/20... "American Schools vs. the World: Expensive, Unequal, Bad at Math" http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/american-schools-vs-the-world-expensive-unequal-bad-at-math/281983/ http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/america...
- turar 10y ago
  "When Japan surrendered, the US was faced with a choice: Either disarm, as we had done in the past, and enjoy the prosperity that comes from releasing so much wealth and energy to the private sector, or maintain ourselves on a full military basis, which would mean tight control not only of our allies and such conquered provinces such as West Germany, Italy, and Japan but over economic–which is to say political–lives of American people. As Charles E. Wilson, a businessman and politician of the day, said as early as 1944, “Instead of looking to disarmament and unpreparedness as a safeguard against a war, a thoroughly discredited doctrine, let us try the opposite: full preparedness according to a continuing plan.” The accidental president, Harry Truman, bought this notion. Although Truman campaigned in 1948 as an heir to Roosevelt’s New Deal, he had a “continuing plan”. Henry Wallace was onto it, as early as: “Yesterday, March 12, 1947, marked a turning point in American history … Yesterday, President Truman proposed, in effect, America police Russia’s every border. There is no regime too reactionary for us provided it stands in Russia’s expansionist path. There is no country too remote to serve as the scene of contest which may widen until it become a world war.” But how to impose this? The Republican leadership did not like the state to be the master of the country’s economic life while, of the Democrats, only a few geopoliticians, like Dean Acheson, found thrilling the prospect of a military state, to be justified in the name of a holy war against something called communism in general and Russia in particular. The fact that the Soviet Union was no military or economic threat to us was immaterial. It must be made to appear threatening so the continuing plan could be set in motion in order to create the National Security State in which we have been living for the last forty years. What is the National Security State? Well, it began, officially, with the National Security Act of 1947; it was implemented in January 1950 when the National Security Council produced a blueprint for a new kind of country, unlike anything the United States had ever known before. This document, known as the NSC-68 for short, and declassified only in 1975, committed–and still, fitfully, commits–us to the following program: First, never negotiate, ever, with Russia. This could not continue forever; but the obligatory bad faith of US-USSR meetings still serves the continuing plan. Second, develop the hydrogen bomb so that when the Russians finally develop an atomic bomb we will still not have to deal with the enemy without which the National Security State cannot exist. Third, rapidly build up conventional forces. Fourth, put through a large increase in taxes to pay for all this. Fifth, mobilize the entire American society to fight the terrible specter of communism. Sixth, set up a strong alliance system, directed by the United States (this became NATO). Seventh, make the people of Russia our allies, through propaganda and CIA derring-do, in this holy adventure–hence the justification for all sorts of secret services that are in no way responsible to the Congress that funds them, and so in violation of the old Constitution. Needless to say, the blueprint, the continuing plan, was not only openly discussed at the time. But, one by one, the major political players of the two parties came around. Senator Arthur Vandenburg, Republican, told Truman that if he really wanted all those weapons and all those high taxes to pay for them, he had better “scare hell out of the American people.” Truman obliged, with a series of speeches beginning October 23, 1947, about the Red Menace endangering France and Italy; he also instituted loyalty oaths for federal employees; and his attorney general (December 4, 1947) published a list of dissident organizations. The climate of fear has been maintained, more or less zealously, by Truman’s successors, with the brief exception of Dwight Eisenhower, who in a belated fit of conscience at the end of his presidency warned us against the military-industrial complex that had, by then, established permanent control over the state." - Gore Vidal, "National Security State" The entire essay, along with many of Vidal's other writings is highly recommended. https://www.amazon.com/United-States-1952-1992-Gore-Vidal/dp/0679414894/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1471633447&sr=1-1&keywords=gore+vidal+united+states https://www.amazon.com/United-States-1952-1992-Gore-Vidal/dp...
mc32 10y ago
I think that's the idea behind some people's wanting European nations to foot more of their own Nato monies... Asking Japan et al. to rely less on the U.S.... etc.
finid 10y ago
It's how the empire sustains itself, until it's no longer able to sustain itself. Let's hope the transition to another empire does not happen by force.
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
2: It's not that disproportionate. Most militaries are funded within 2%-6% of GDP. America's economy is just so enormous that the spending seems ridiculous. Yes, there is a lot of waste, a LOT OF WASTE, but it's a small price to pay to feel safe and secure from foreign militaries when one has the benefit of, as the economist put it: "friends to the north and south and fish to the east and west." The thought that a war could ever occur on our own soil is simply something most Americans don't even contemplate, unless you've spent one too many evenings polishing your favorite firearms and rewatching "Red Dawn."
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Most militaries are funded within 2%-6% of GDP. The global share of GDP spent on military (as of 2015) is 2.29%, and most countries are below that (the US having a huge GDP and spending significantly above that drags up the global share); the US's 3.3% is quite high.
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    It's also worth noting that the since American military provides such a large security blanket to global trade that most nations who would otherwise tough it out themselves to protect their merchant fleets don't have to, unless they are are in piracy hotspots like Somalia. Many non-American merchant ships often fly the Stars and Stripes illegally to deter those who are averse to pissing off the US Navy. America does often not like it when countries other than itself goes to war because it makes it hard to sell American consumer goods there, unless those goods are the weapons of war themselves.
    - angry_octet 10y ago
      In what area of the world are you suggesting that commercial vessels false flag as American? Do you have any references? Because the goes completely against known behavior in major shipping areas. AKA it sounds like you just made that up.
- danohu 10y ago
lintiness 10y ago
someone with little / no influence will be fired. budgets like this get bloated and abused by entrenched political interests. the second question has nothing to do with anything really. what's so magical about a military budget that isn't exactly identical to any other government agency budget? do people actually imagine if we cut defense spending the government magically hands back "unspent" money? of course not, they'll piss it away in other departments.
cheetos 10y ago
> Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military? Because most of us are too ignorant to know better, and those of us that do are trapped by a de-facto two party system that is more interested in maintaining its own power via the status quo than representing the will of its constituency (for example, DWS and the DNC).
gnopgnip 10y ago
For your second point you have to consider the bigger picture. If the US drastically cut it's military spending one of two things would happen. NATO or another international military alliance would form to continue the status quo. Or another country would become the world military superpower. If that new superpower was Russia or China it could negatively affect everyday life in the United States. The US military spending is in a local maxima.
- josho 10y ago
  Yeh, I've heard this argument before. If you analyze it, you'll realize it's BS. You can reduce spending without creating a power vacuum. E.g. reducing the budget by 10% isn't going to create a power vacuum nor shock its allies. The reality is that their is no political will to start reducing spending on the military, nor is their desire by its civilians to do so. The question is why?
  - Thriptic 10y ago
    The average person probably wouldn't benefit from cuts that much while a minority of people would be deeply negatively affected. You can bet that minority of people is going to be calling their representatives whereas the average citizen won't care either way.
antisthenes 10y ago
> Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military? The military industrial complex is an enormous jobs program. Some of your friends and neighbors probably have a job that supports the military in one way or another.
MikeKusold 10y ago
> Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military? Any congress member that suggests cutting funding to the military gets painted as not supporting the troops during his/her next election. Also, no major party will adopt the reigning in of military spending platform because then the opposing party will constantly bring up that the unemployment rate increased due to the other party's budget cuts.
- josho 10y ago
  That explains congress, thank you. It doesn't exactly explain the citizenry (it does for those that might be left unemployed from military cuts, but I expect that's a small % of the electorate).
DashRattlesnake 10y ago
> First, who is getting fired for this and what outsider will be brought in to fix this to keep it from happening again. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not believe the military has ever successfully and accurately completed its accounting in the modern era, so probably not. It's also not like the military leadership's major concern is accounting practices. > Second, is a larger question. Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military? We like and have gotten used to having a military that arguably more powerful than any other in the world. That requires lots of money, but most people big enough policy wonks to understand the degree of waste.
DenisM 10y ago
2-a. The Unites States spend 3.3% of it's GDP on the military. This is in line with other countries. Japan and EU are spending less only because they are under NATO (US) defense umbrella. France, for example, is at 2.1%, so 3.3% is hardly disproportionate. 2-b. Military spending (along with other public spending) is the cornerstone of Keynesian economy. It's the best way known to man to stave off deflationary spiral. 2-c. Military spending is the driver of innovation. Pretty much all of US technological dominance is rooted in military spending. Nearly all of our jobs here on HN came form that. 2-d. Projection of power brings tangible benefits to the US economy. So 3.3% is a real bargain, all things considered. [EDIT] Many comments ignored the benefits part of my argument. Yes, 3.3% is larger than 2%, it was not lost on me. Now consider that in exchange for the 1.3% the US managed to snag the first place in the high-tech industry with a huge lead over the rest of the world. Until just recently almost everyone who is anyone in the high-tech world was based in the US. Boeing, Intel, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Hewlett Packard, Google, Yahoo, Uber, AirBnB, the list goes on and on. It's not an accident. That 1.3% comes back many times over. And it's just one of the benefits. Look, I dislike people-killing as much as the next guy. But you can't ignore the economic realities, especially if you want to change the status quo.
- FireBeyond 10y ago
  2a - Relativity. France is at 2.1%, US 3.3%. In other words the US is spending fifty seven per cent more than France. How is that "hardly disproportionate"? What's that quote? "The US spends more on defense than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom we list as allies".
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  I disagree that our military spending is reasonable, or a bargain. http://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison http://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison http://i.imgur.com/PhHo3eh.gif http://i.imgur.com/PhHo3eh.gif "The United states spends more on defense than the next seven countries combined."
  - Viper007Bond 10y ago
blahi 10y ago
>Second, is a larger question. Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military? The larger question still is how did you come to the conclusion that they spend a disproportionate amount on military?
- dforrestwilson1 10y ago
  Relative to GDP and most other countries it is disproportionate.
  - blahi 10y ago
    Which other countries? Denmark? US's spending is 3,3% of GDP. That is ~40% less than Russia and ~60% more than China. That sounds proportionate. Considering that the US has the most to gain from preserving the status quo, it's perfectly reasonable to make a large effort in that direction.
    - josho 10y ago
      User 'toomuchtodo' gave us a good reference earlier in this discussion showing just how much the US spends. http://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison http://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison Also, I would argue that Russia isn't a good example to compare against because they are the cold war superpower that was overspending against the US to win the cold war, and it seems they, like the, US continue that trend.
      - blahi 10y ago
        So what is a good comparison if not the rival? Who should we compare it to then? San Marino?
monkmartinez 10y ago
Wouldn't it be cool if ALL governments had "fix this to keep it from happening again"? That is, let's start with nationstates and their banks. Ie. The Fed, Bank of Japan, Bank of England, Deutsche Bank / Germany. $62.4 billion is a rounding error for most of the "world's" banks.So let's temper the huff and bluster... I mean, its corruption and politics all the way down. --------- Your second question is interesting. Why does the rest of the world expect the US to "do something" when bad things happen? Don't answer that because it doesn't matter.
- adwn 10y ago
  > nationstates and their banks [...] Deutsche Bank / Germany Note that Deutsche Bank is a private, non-state-owned company. You might be thinking of the Deutsche Bundesbank.
  - monkmartinez 10y ago
    Thank you, it was indeed what I meant.
jayess 10y ago
It's the biggest corporate welfare program known to man.
deleted 10y ago
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Viper007Bond 10y ago
Why the US military spending is so high requires some history. Before WWII, the US was actually quite isolationist: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/american-isolationism https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/american-isol... The US wanted to stay out of other people's wars and problems and take care of itself. The simple version is that Pearl Harbor showed the US what happens when you do that, although of course it was more complicated than that. Ever since then, the US has decided, for better or worse, to involve itself in problems around the world. It's in the US's best interests. Many countries have smaller militaries because they are a part of NATO, which is largely backed by the US. So when you compare their military to the US's, it's not really a fair comparison.
- josho 10y ago
  I understand the historical context and your argument. It doesn't explain why the US spends more in raw dollars than every other country combined. It seems whenever I ask the question about spending the response I hear assumes the only other option is to spend next to nothing. Rather, I'm simply curious why it isn't even up for consideration to reduce spending to bring it into line with other countries, or even smaller cutbacks that would leave the US spending above all other nations. I've never ever heard that up for discussion by an American.
  - zeveb 10y ago
    > It doesn't explain why the US spends more in raw dollars than every other country combined. Because a) we spend a reasonable proportion of our GDP on defense and b) we have a really, really high GDP. Multiply a sane proportion by a big number and you get … a really big number.
pjc50 10y ago
The Iraq war was plagued by accounting problems: pallet-loads of dollar bills being shipped in to pay for rebuilding, then vanishing. I don't think this was ever dealt with. The large military spending is supported by two factors. The first is the element of American morality that believes in righteous violence: it's not merely an unfortunate necessity but a positive moral act. The same attitude supports both individual people keeping revolvers under the pillow and a globe-spanning military. The second it the lack of inter-state redistribution. American politics since Roosevelt is very against Keynsianism. Suggest paying people to dig holes and fill them in again and there will be outrage. Paying billions for weapons systems that are never used or equipment shipped to Iraq/Afghanistan and then destroyed new, unused? Fine.
pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
why do you assume any of us tolerate it? buy a gun. fix the problem. you're all cowards.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
It could be that no one will be fired. Our spending is in line with the sheer scale of the US as a country. One thing to consider - Eleanor Roosevelt was extremely successful in making the military an agent for social change. This, coupled with the way things worked with the Cold War draft made the military a significant social program, one with tanks and bombers. Where Americans hold fast to Rugged Individualism in the larger economy, within the ranks of the military, we get significant lift in training, support and quality of life issues for our troops.

by josho 10y ago

DougWebb 10y ago

The answer to your second question, unfortunately, is a combination of "We're scared", "We're number one!" and "Who cares?"

meddlepal 10y ago

1. Nobody 2. Because it allows us to project force globally which is what actually allows us to be the one true global super power.

mtgx 10y ago
Assuming 2 is true, shouldn't Americans then be more concerned with spending those hundreds of billions of dollars a year more efficiently, so USA's power could be 2x, 4x (just by cutting the waste/corruption alone), or even 10x bigger (by using the money buy smarter/more effective technology than say...more tanks, or F-35's)?! People who keep supporting more military spending aren't patriots. Quite the opposite. Those that want their army to run well and effectively are the true patriots.
- lintiness 10y ago
  sure, let's spend our tax dollars more efficiently. point me to the government bureau that magically manages its finances "efficiently".
  - galdosdi 10y ago
    I can think of one. The SSA spends just a fraction of a percentage point of its disbursements on administrative costs. There's probably others. Like private industry, government is huge, contains many agencies at many levels, and some of them are well run and some of them are poorly run and some of them are somewhere in between.
    - lintiness 10y ago
      .39% of "assets" (debt issued by other parts of government). vanguard charges about a quarter this (with vehicles delivering substantially better risk adjusted returns). their "plan" is also slated to go bankrupt without adjustment.
      - galdosdi 10y ago
        It's true that their costs are greater than vanguard which is literally the cheapest private mutual fund company around. Try comparing it to an industry average; 0.39% is quite fair then. The "plan going bankrupt" has nothing to do with the administration of benefits, however. It's not happening because the bureaucracy is screwing up and wasting too much money -- even if they worked for free, you'd only gain 0.39% more per year. It's congress that is underfunding (or overprovisioning, or some combination of the two) -- could be fixed in two seconds with a bill cutting benefits and/or increasing taxes without any real change for SSA. Also, when it "goes bankrupt" as people misleadingly call it, they'll still be able to pay about 4/5 of the benefits currently promised. In effect, congress by doing nothing has already implicitly reduced future benefits to 4/5 of the current statutory amounts. If you just assume you'll get 4/5 of what is being promised, then it's in no way bankrupt and is self sustaining forever. 4/5 is not chump change. I've started to realize this whole "social security is a failure" talk may be FUD being spread to get people to accept further raiding of social security because "whatever, it's already broken"
    - kbutler 10y ago
      The "efficiency" of the SSA is simply because of the vast flow of money the SSA distributes. Similarly, the IRS is hugely "profitable", because its administrative costs are a tiny fraction of the money it brings in.
  - monkmartinez 10y ago
    Exactly, the rest of the world is super good at efficiently spending tax dollars... USA excluded.
    - refurb 10y ago
      Laughable comment. You think India gov't spending is efficient? Vietnam?
      - monkmartinez 10y ago
        That was the point I didn't think I needed a sarcasm tag. Government inefficiency is a universal "known", like fire is hot, right?
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- dforrestwilson1 10y ago
  Former military and former intelligence contractor here. No quarrel with what you are saying. The answer to "why not" is lobbying, constituents, and corruption. Military spending influences the economy in literally every state. That's why they don't close bases. That's why the legislature optimizes for maximum spend rather than ROI.
  - sremani 10y ago
    He is basically challenging the idea US being a maritime power projecting its power across the globe. I am more interested your answer to that line of questioning rather than institutional quid pro quo to get favors and support from senators.
    - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
      As the UK declined as the maritime power, the US filled the gap. This is on a line of history going back to the Dutch and the Spanish.
- chiph 10y ago
  Former military here. The #1 way to reduce waste would be to change the accounting rules. As it is, if you don't spend your full budget for the year, next year's budget will be cut by that amount. And you aren't allowed to keep a "rainy day fund". This causes problems when you have expensive equipment that only fails occasionally. You have to budget for a possible replacement, but if you make it through the year without a failure, you've got all this money that you have to suddenly find a use for.
toddmorey 10y ago
The sad thing is, all want I for my kids is great health and great education, and those are the two areas where the US performs the most poorly. That's such a spectacular failing of the basic social contract. I've never once hoped for them to be citizens of a "the one true global super power". I've always wondered how much of the world superpower is sold to us as "to keep us safe" when the honest reality is "too feed our national ego". I do believe that the world is a safer place than it was 30 years ago. But I can't think of a conflict since WWII where U.S. efforts in the region seemed to be the stabilizing factor.
- refurb 10y ago
  You may want to ask the Eastern European countries who were under the yoke of the Soviets for 45 years whether or not that spending was worth it. Or for that matter, the Western European countries as well.
- meddlepal 10y ago
  I'm not sure what your point is here... our healthcare and education is excellent. It's expensive, but it's excellent.
  - serge2k 10y ago
    If you have money.
  - toddmorey 10y ago
    "America's wealthiest and best-educated young adults still lag behind their peers in other countries in the literacy, numeracy, and computer-age problem-solving skills needed to compete in the global labor market." http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/02/18/us-millennials-come-up-short-in-global.html http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/02/18/us-millennials-... "The U.S. spends more on health care than other high-income countries but has worse outcomes." http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2015/oct/us-health-care-from-a-global-perspective http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/20... "American Schools vs. the World: Expensive, Unequal, Bad at Math" http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/american-schools-vs-the-world-expensive-unequal-bad-at-math/281983/ http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/america...
turar 10y ago
"When Japan surrendered, the US was faced with a choice: Either disarm, as we had done in the past, and enjoy the prosperity that comes from releasing so much wealth and energy to the private sector, or maintain ourselves on a full military basis, which would mean tight control not only of our allies and such conquered provinces such as West Germany, Italy, and Japan but over economic–which is to say political–lives of American people. As Charles E. Wilson, a businessman and politician of the day, said as early as 1944, “Instead of looking to disarmament and unpreparedness as a safeguard against a war, a thoroughly discredited doctrine, let us try the opposite: full preparedness according to a continuing plan.” The accidental president, Harry Truman, bought this notion. Although Truman campaigned in 1948 as an heir to Roosevelt’s New Deal, he had a “continuing plan”. Henry Wallace was onto it, as early as: “Yesterday, March 12, 1947, marked a turning point in American history … Yesterday, President Truman proposed, in effect, America police Russia’s every border. There is no regime too reactionary for us provided it stands in Russia’s expansionist path. There is no country too remote to serve as the scene of contest which may widen until it become a world war.” But how to impose this? The Republican leadership did not like the state to be the master of the country’s economic life while, of the Democrats, only a few geopoliticians, like Dean Acheson, found thrilling the prospect of a military state, to be justified in the name of a holy war against something called communism in general and Russia in particular. The fact that the Soviet Union was no military or economic threat to us was immaterial. It must be made to appear threatening so the continuing plan could be set in motion in order to create the National Security State in which we have been living for the last forty years. What is the National Security State? Well, it began, officially, with the National Security Act of 1947; it was implemented in January 1950 when the National Security Council produced a blueprint for a new kind of country, unlike anything the United States had ever known before. This document, known as the NSC-68 for short, and declassified only in 1975, committed–and still, fitfully, commits–us to the following program: First, never negotiate, ever, with Russia. This could not continue forever; but the obligatory bad faith of US-USSR meetings still serves the continuing plan. Second, develop the hydrogen bomb so that when the Russians finally develop an atomic bomb we will still not have to deal with the enemy without which the National Security State cannot exist. Third, rapidly build up conventional forces. Fourth, put through a large increase in taxes to pay for all this. Fifth, mobilize the entire American society to fight the terrible specter of communism. Sixth, set up a strong alliance system, directed by the United States (this became NATO). Seventh, make the people of Russia our allies, through propaganda and CIA derring-do, in this holy adventure–hence the justification for all sorts of secret services that are in no way responsible to the Congress that funds them, and so in violation of the old Constitution. Needless to say, the blueprint, the continuing plan, was not only openly discussed at the time. But, one by one, the major political players of the two parties came around. Senator Arthur Vandenburg, Republican, told Truman that if he really wanted all those weapons and all those high taxes to pay for them, he had better “scare hell out of the American people.” Truman obliged, with a series of speeches beginning October 23, 1947, about the Red Menace endangering France and Italy; he also instituted loyalty oaths for federal employees; and his attorney general (December 4, 1947) published a list of dissident organizations. The climate of fear has been maintained, more or less zealously, by Truman’s successors, with the brief exception of Dwight Eisenhower, who in a belated fit of conscience at the end of his presidency warned us against the military-industrial complex that had, by then, established permanent control over the state." - Gore Vidal, "National Security State" The entire essay, along with many of Vidal's other writings is highly recommended. https://www.amazon.com/United-States-1952-1992-Gore-Vidal/dp/0679414894/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1471633447&sr=1-1&keywords=gore+vidal+united+states https://www.amazon.com/United-States-1952-1992-Gore-Vidal/dp...

mc32 10y ago

I think that's the idea behind some people's wanting European nations to foot more of their own Nato monies... Asking Japan et al. to rely less on the U.S.... etc.

finid 10y ago

It's how the empire sustains itself, until it's no longer able to sustain itself. Let's hope the transition to another empire does not happen by force.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

2: It's not that disproportionate. Most militaries are funded within 2%-6% of GDP. America's economy is just so enormous that the spending seems ridiculous. Yes, there is a lot of waste, a LOT OF WASTE, but it's a small price to pay to feel safe and secure from foreign militaries when one has the benefit of, as the economist put it: "friends to the north and south and fish to the east and west." The thought that a war could ever occur on our own soil is simply something most Americans don't even contemplate, unless you've spent one too many evenings polishing your favorite firearms and rewatching "Red Dawn."

dragonwriter 10y ago
> Most militaries are funded within 2%-6% of GDP. The global share of GDP spent on military (as of 2015) is 2.29%, and most countries are below that (the US having a huge GDP and spending significantly above that drags up the global share); the US's 3.3% is quite high.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  It's also worth noting that the since American military provides such a large security blanket to global trade that most nations who would otherwise tough it out themselves to protect their merchant fleets don't have to, unless they are are in piracy hotspots like Somalia. Many non-American merchant ships often fly the Stars and Stripes illegally to deter those who are averse to pissing off the US Navy. America does often not like it when countries other than itself goes to war because it makes it hard to sell American consumer goods there, unless those goods are the weapons of war themselves.
  - angry_octet 10y ago
    In what area of the world are you suggesting that commercial vessels false flag as American? Do you have any references? Because the goes completely against known behavior in major shipping areas. AKA it sounds like you just made that up.
danohu 10y ago

lintiness 10y ago

someone with little / no influence will be fired. budgets like this get bloated and abused by entrenched political interests. the second question has nothing to do with anything really. what's so magical about a military budget that isn't exactly identical to any other government agency budget? do people actually imagine if we cut defense spending the government magically hands back "unspent" money? of course not, they'll piss it away in other departments.

cheetos 10y ago

> Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military? Because most of us are too ignorant to know better, and those of us that do are trapped by a de-facto two party system that is more interested in maintaining its own power via the status quo than representing the will of its constituency (for example, DWS and the DNC).

gnopgnip 10y ago

For your second point you have to consider the bigger picture. If the US drastically cut it's military spending one of two things would happen. NATO or another international military alliance would form to continue the status quo. Or another country would become the world military superpower. If that new superpower was Russia or China it could negatively affect everyday life in the United States. The US military spending is in a local maxima.

josho 10y ago
Yeh, I've heard this argument before. If you analyze it, you'll realize it's BS. You can reduce spending without creating a power vacuum. E.g. reducing the budget by 10% isn't going to create a power vacuum nor shock its allies. The reality is that their is no political will to start reducing spending on the military, nor is their desire by its civilians to do so. The question is why?
- Thriptic 10y ago
  The average person probably wouldn't benefit from cuts that much while a minority of people would be deeply negatively affected. You can bet that minority of people is going to be calling their representatives whereas the average citizen won't care either way.

antisthenes 10y ago

> Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military? The military industrial complex is an enormous jobs program. Some of your friends and neighbors probably have a job that supports the military in one way or another.

MikeKusold 10y ago

> Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military? Any congress member that suggests cutting funding to the military gets painted as not supporting the troops during his/her next election. Also, no major party will adopt the reigning in of military spending platform because then the opposing party will constantly bring up that the unemployment rate increased due to the other party's budget cuts.

josho 10y ago
That explains congress, thank you. It doesn't exactly explain the citizenry (it does for those that might be left unemployed from military cuts, but I expect that's a small % of the electorate).

DashRattlesnake 10y ago

> First, who is getting fired for this and what outsider will be brought in to fix this to keep it from happening again. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not believe the military has ever successfully and accurately completed its accounting in the modern era, so probably not. It's also not like the military leadership's major concern is accounting practices. > Second, is a larger question. Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military? We like and have gotten used to having a military that arguably more powerful than any other in the world. That requires lots of money, but most people big enough policy wonks to understand the degree of waste.

DenisM 10y ago

2-a. The Unites States spend 3.3% of it's GDP on the military. This is in line with other countries. Japan and EU are spending less only because they are under NATO (US) defense umbrella. France, for example, is at 2.1%, so 3.3% is hardly disproportionate. 2-b. Military spending (along with other public spending) is the cornerstone of Keynesian economy. It's the best way known to man to stave off deflationary spiral. 2-c. Military spending is the driver of innovation. Pretty much all of US technological dominance is rooted in military spending. Nearly all of our jobs here on HN came form that. 2-d. Projection of power brings tangible benefits to the US economy. So 3.3% is a real bargain, all things considered. [EDIT] Many comments ignored the benefits part of my argument. Yes, 3.3% is larger than 2%, it was not lost on me. Now consider that in exchange for the 1.3% the US managed to snag the first place in the high-tech industry with a huge lead over the rest of the world. Until just recently almost everyone who is anyone in the high-tech world was based in the US. Boeing, Intel, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Hewlett Packard, Google, Yahoo, Uber, AirBnB, the list goes on and on. It's not an accident. That 1.3% comes back many times over. And it's just one of the benefits. Look, I dislike people-killing as much as the next guy. But you can't ignore the economic realities, especially if you want to change the status quo.

FireBeyond 10y ago
2a - Relativity. France is at 2.1%, US 3.3%. In other words the US is spending fifty seven per cent more than France. How is that "hardly disproportionate"? What's that quote? "The US spends more on defense than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom we list as allies".
toomuchtodo 10y ago
I disagree that our military spending is reasonable, or a bargain. http://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison http://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison http://i.imgur.com/PhHo3eh.gif http://i.imgur.com/PhHo3eh.gif "The United states spends more on defense than the next seven countries combined."
- Viper007Bond 10y ago

blahi 10y ago

>Second, is a larger question. Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military? The larger question still is how did you come to the conclusion that they spend a disproportionate amount on military?

dforrestwilson1 10y ago
Relative to GDP and most other countries it is disproportionate.
- blahi 10y ago
  Which other countries? Denmark? US's spending is 3,3% of GDP. That is ~40% less than Russia and ~60% more than China. That sounds proportionate. Considering that the US has the most to gain from preserving the status quo, it's perfectly reasonable to make a large effort in that direction.
  - josho 10y ago
    User 'toomuchtodo' gave us a good reference earlier in this discussion showing just how much the US spends. http://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison http://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison Also, I would argue that Russia isn't a good example to compare against because they are the cold war superpower that was overspending against the US to win the cold war, and it seems they, like the, US continue that trend.
    - blahi 10y ago
      So what is a good comparison if not the rival? Who should we compare it to then? San Marino?

monkmartinez 10y ago

Wouldn't it be cool if ALL governments had "fix this to keep it from happening again"? That is, let's start with nationstates and their banks. Ie. The Fed, Bank of Japan, Bank of England, Deutsche Bank / Germany. $62.4 billion is a rounding error for most of the "world's" banks.So let's temper the huff and bluster... I mean, its corruption and politics all the way down. --------- Your second question is interesting. Why does the rest of the world expect the US to "do something" when bad things happen? Don't answer that because it doesn't matter.

adwn 10y ago
> nationstates and their banks [...] Deutsche Bank / Germany Note that Deutsche Bank is a private, non-state-owned company. You might be thinking of the Deutsche Bundesbank.
- monkmartinez 10y ago
  Thank you, it was indeed what I meant.

jayess 10y ago

It's the biggest corporate welfare program known to man.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Viper007Bond 10y ago

Why the US military spending is so high requires some history. Before WWII, the US was actually quite isolationist: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/american-isolationism https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/american-isol... The US wanted to stay out of other people's wars and problems and take care of itself. The simple version is that Pearl Harbor showed the US what happens when you do that, although of course it was more complicated than that. Ever since then, the US has decided, for better or worse, to involve itself in problems around the world. It's in the US's best interests. Many countries have smaller militaries because they are a part of NATO, which is largely backed by the US. So when you compare their military to the US's, it's not really a fair comparison.

josho 10y ago
I understand the historical context and your argument. It doesn't explain why the US spends more in raw dollars than every other country combined. It seems whenever I ask the question about spending the response I hear assumes the only other option is to spend next to nothing. Rather, I'm simply curious why it isn't even up for consideration to reduce spending to bring it into line with other countries, or even smaller cutbacks that would leave the US spending above all other nations. I've never ever heard that up for discussion by an American.
- zeveb 10y ago
  > It doesn't explain why the US spends more in raw dollars than every other country combined. Because a) we spend a reasonable proportion of our GDP on defense and b) we have a really, really high GDP. Multiply a sane proportion by a big number and you get … a really big number.

pjc50 10y ago

The Iraq war was plagued by accounting problems: pallet-loads of dollar bills being shipped in to pay for rebuilding, then vanishing. I don't think this was ever dealt with. The large military spending is supported by two factors. The first is the element of American morality that believes in righteous violence: it's not merely an unfortunate necessity but a positive moral act. The same attitude supports both individual people keeping revolvers under the pillow and a globe-spanning military. The second it the lack of inter-state redistribution. American politics since Roosevelt is very against Keynsianism. Suggest paying people to dig holes and fill them in again and there will be outrage. Paying billions for weapons systems that are never used or equipment shipped to Iraq/Afghanistan and then destroyed new, unused? Fine.

pg_is_a_butt 10y ago

why do you assume any of us tolerate it? buy a gun. fix the problem. you're all cowards.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

It could be that no one will be fired. Our spending is in line with the sheer scale of the US as a country. One thing to consider - Eleanor Roosevelt was extremely successful in making the military an agent for social change. This, coupled with the way things worked with the Cold War draft made the military a significant social program, one with tanks and bombers. Where Americans hold fast to Rugged Individualism in the larger economy, within the ranks of the military, we get significant lift in training, support and quality of life issues for our troops.