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There isn't an "opportunity cost" as the article discusses, there's no evidence that Congress would have spent that money on something else. It doesn't sit in a
by Grakel 5y ago
There isn't an "opportunity cost" as the article discusses, there's no evidence that Congress would have spent that money on something else. It doesn't sit in an account and then they allocate it, they make it up on paper and then try (and fail) to cover it later.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoIgnore money. Think in terms of stuff. Metal that gets put into Humvees can't be put into something else. We threw away an insane amount of stuff. And think in terms of people. People that spend a year as soldiers in Afghanistan can't spend that year doing something else. We threw an insane amount of people-time, and a tragically insane amount of people. There is an opportunity cost in terms of both stuff and people. We can print money, but we can't print stuff or people.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Gravey 5y ago> Think in terms of stuff. Metal that gets put into Humvees can't be put into something else. We threw away an insane amount of stuff. Much of that stuff has actually found itself in the hands of those it was made to fight against. This is significantly worse than throwing it away in my opinion.
- koolba 5y ago> People that spend a year as soldiers in Afghanistan can't spend that year doing something else. The greatest asset the US has built up over the past twenty or so years fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is a reserve of soldiers with real world military experience. I’m not saying it justifies the cost. Far from it. But it’s not a complete wash from a mid term strategic analysis.
- Grakel 5y agoSadly it would be a big problem if we went 20 years without a war, the military would be greatly deteriorated.
- Johnny555 5y agoThe greatest asset the US has built up over the past twenty or so years fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is a reserve of soldiers with real world military experience. The average term of enlistment in the USA military is 15 years, 11 years for officers. So that experience gets lost quickly unless we keep getting embroiled in new wars.
- hn8788 5y agoThere's no way the average term of enlistment is 15 years. Very few people choose to re-enlist after their first term, or are even allowed to. In 2016, there were almost 200k Marines, and they were struggling to get 10k people to re-enlist after their first 4 years[1]. https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2015/10/12/first-term-marines-are-slow-to-sign-on-for-another-enlistment/ https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2015...
- Johnny555 5y agoI just used the snippet returned a Google search, which said: The average length of enlistment for U.S. military personnel is just under 15 years for all branches. The average service time for officers is a bit less, averaging about 11 years. The U.S. Air Force has an average enlistment time of 14.7 years. Oct 4, 2017 The referenced URL is: https://classroom.synonym.com/beyonce-curls-8729.html https://classroom.synonym.com/beyonce-curls-8729.html (yes, that "beyonce-curls" URL is the right one) Surprisingly, it does include references, but only one of them still exists, which backs up the 11 year number for officers, but not for general enlisted: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2011/10/05/chapter-6-a-profile-of-the-modern-military/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2011/10/05/chapter... The average officer in 2009 had been in the military nearly 11 years, slightly more than a year longer than the average in 1973. The pattern among enlisted personnel is more complicated. The average length of service for enlisted personnel rose from 5.8 years in 1973 to a peak of 7.5 in 1994 and 1996, but then began drifting downward and now stands at 6.7 years.
- babesh 5y agoBlood, toil, tears, and sweat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood,_toil,_tears_and_sweat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood,_toil,_tears_and_sweat
- Grakel 5y agoAbsolutely not. Waste fuels the economy. There's no shortage of metal, only the price of metal. As for people, spending a couple of years in the military is much better personal development for many young people than going to college at an age when most people can't appreciate it. These things aside, of course the loss of life is horrific and a terrible waste.
- Apocryphon 5y ago1 in 5 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are diagnosed with PTSD. And veterans account for 20 percent of U.S. suicides. https://facethefactsusa.org/facts/the-true-price-of-war-in-human-terms/ https://facethefactsusa.org/facts/the-true-price-of-war-in-h...
- kortex 5y agoOn the other hand, college was tough, but didn't kill/maim/disfigure/traumatize me.
- Sharlin 5y ago> Waste fuels the economy. Yeah, and see what mess that sort of thinking has got us into. Economic growth is worthless if it’s not sustainable.
- yunohn 5y ago> There's no shortage of metal, only the price of metal Metal is a non-renewable resource. Cost of extraction does not match market price, more so when unnecessary demand is created for wars. What kind of spin is this?
- onelastjob 5y agoYou can only print so much money though before the dollar becomes worthless, so there is an opportunity cost since you can't print infinite dollars
- dlp211 5y agoExcept we don't just print money and give it away. The money is borrowed (backed by some asset), and this distinction matters. IOW, the money that gets printed is (generally) non-inflationary. Stop using what you learned in your Econ 1XX level courses to try and reason about government spending and money operations, especially, US government spending and money operations. What you learned is not applicable.
- onelastjob 5y agoSeems like inflation is skyrocketing to me. Specifically asset inflation. Housing prices, stocks, bitcoin, etc. Basically dollar becoming worth less against these assets thanks to QE.
- valzam 5y agoHouse prices are a real issue, although I don't think that's only because of increased money supply. Otherwise, does it matter? What's the impact on ordinary people if bitcoin is worth 100 or 1 mio dollars? Notwithstanding the fact that the number of people actively buying financial assets has gone up a lot in recent years, which is bound to increase prices.
- sneak 5y agoDollars being worth less is obviously true. The well-defined link to this being a result of QE is less clear. I keep hearing that it's supply shortages due to covid and wage increases due to unemployment aid. Who knows if that is true, either.
- dlp211 5y agoThere is no such thing as asset inflation. If the price of assets is going up, then they are going up. It sucks that housing is considered an asset (it shouldn't, it should be a consumable) but that is the long and short of it. And you can't have an average 2% inflation target and underperform that target for a decade+, then complain when there is inflation above 2%(which is transitory and caused by simultaneous demand and supply shocks due to covid).
- Retric 5y agoThe simplest way to look at it is the national debt would be 22.6T instead of 28.6T. That’s one option where nothing changes except war or no wars. Many people say national debt has zero impacts but eventually nobody is going to be lending the US money if we don’t pay our debt, which one way or another leads to a world of hurt. However, to get that debt we needed to borrowing money from someone and agree to pay them interest. We could have also browned the same money and lowered taxes, or borrowed the same money and had free universal healthcare or whatever other government spending we wanted. That’s what opportunity cost means.
- Grakel 5y agoWe're never going to pay it, and no we couldn't have gotten universal healthcare. If they had the votes, they would have done both, regardless of cost. They don't have the votes for universal healthcare.
- Retric 5y agoRunning out of people willing to lend us money is the ultimate risk. The more we borrow the sooner that happens.
- mulmen 5y agoYou mean the more we don’t pay back? Carrying debt generally increases credit rating.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Retric 5y agoOnly up to a point, try borrowing say 50 million dollars while making 50k. Before lending money people look at your existing debt load to determine if your likely to pay it back. The same thing happens to countries, though more smoothly as they first require higher interest rates.
- yunohn 5y ago> there's no evidence that Congress would have spent that money on something else “Reality is unchangeable, so we can’t know the unknown” So what? It definitely could’ve been spent better than decade’s killing hundreds of thousands of civilians.
- Grakel 5y agoYou don't get it. It couldn't have been spent on something else. If the day before 9/11 Congress had passed universal healthcare, free college, and basic income, they still would have spent this money on a war. Are you saying they could have said, oh we got attacked, let's estimate the cost of a war and put it into healthcare?
- yunohn 5y agoNo, I’m saying the USA didn’t need to make it a multi-decade war, killing civilians while they were at it.