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It's never been a matter of money. We've seen the government can pass multi trillion dollar bills on demand and increase the budget at will. That's what is la

It's never been a matter of money. We've seen the government can pass multi trillion dollar bills on demand and increase the budget at will. That's what is lacking, the political power/will to pass such legislation. It's unfortunate but it has nothing to do with this war or its cost.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> It's never been a matter of money. We've seen the government can pass multi trillion dollar bills on demand and increase the budget at will. Not without consequences. Contrary to the headlines, we can’t simply print as much money into existence as we want. For example, the actual cost of the war was closer to $2T. The $6.4T number quoted in this headline is the theoretical sum total including interest payments on the debt well into the future. Simply passing bills to spend money that we don’t have may get things done, but our children have to pay for it eventually. Even cheap debt must still be serviced. A significant portion of your tax bill every year goes to servicing interest on national debt. So no, it’s not simply a matter of political will to spend all the money we want. There are limits.
- nightski 5y ago
  Yeah I agree, you can't print money without consequences. But my point was when the political will exists things seem to get done regardless of whether we can afford them or not.
- minikites 5y ago
  >Simply passing bills to spend money that we don’t have may get things done, but our children have to pay for it eventually. I always see this argument, but never a deeper reason why. As far as I know, the projections for every developed economy looks like this, is every country going to go bankrupt eventually? If the economy is growing, we can in fact print money with little to no consequence of inflation. The US can "borrow" money incredibly cheaply. Government spending stimulates the economy, we can spend and do much more than we currently are, if we merely choose to build instead of destroy.
  - sk2020 5y ago
    Why not round everyone’s bank account up to the nearest $1,000,000,000,000,000? Wouldn’t such unprecedented “stimulus” create unprecedented growth and end poverty forever? Would our newfound quadrillions end scarcity of resources? If not, why not?
    - minikites 5y ago
      How does this nonsensical example refute or even address my argument?
- aiisjustanif 5y ago
  > Simply passing bills to spend money that we don’t have may get things done, but our children have to pay for it eventually. Government debt is not that simple at all. A governments debts and budgets are no the same as a household. This also completely ignores economic growth and how types of inflation (cost-push vs demand-pull) affect if inflation or debt is “good” or “bad”. > So no, it’s not simply a matter of political will to spend all the money we want. There are limits. Please explain the limits if it’s a dollar amount. Most economists agree that we actually do not know what the “limit” is and mostly we noticed very little if anything troubling caused directly by the stimulus packages. They overwhelmingly helped keep economic growth stable.
fennecfoxen 5y ago
It's sometimes handy to define tradeoffs as a "question of money" and understand through this that things have costs. Fighter jets don't manufacture themselves. The metal to make guns is smelted in blast furnaces built and maintained by men and materials that someone paid for, using fuel someone paid for, and those people who were paid didn't do it for the decimal(2) value of the dollars involved, they did it for the real value. The soldiers who serve expect to be discharged with the cash which will buy them a home and a car and the other benefits they've been promised. These all require resources; someone else is deprived of the resources they would otherwise have, in order to make these things happen. It's great if you can measure this process in money. Of course you can print as much as you want, and of course that doesn't mean any more resources exist, and then you need the economists to try their best to make adjustments to the numbers as you go along.
- nightski 5y ago
  I feel like most of the resources needed for healthcare already exist as part of the current system. It's simply a matter of policy and how it's paid for. But I am not an expert and could be missing a key point.
  - fennecfoxen 5y ago
    Well, health care services are an ongoing expense. You pay doctors twice a month. Doctors expect to buy new things sometimes, not just "resources that already exist". And it's fine to say "society can afford <x>" in isolation — we obviously have spent the money on the war, we obviously have spent money on health care. It's a question of trade-offs and whether spending money on the war is worth it. And that's really an awful lot of money to have spent on a war. The risk we see today with money is that we're trying to make a lot more of it and we might find that it doesn't mean the resources we expected. Weekly earnings in the US are up $16/wk since January — but adjusting for inflation they're down $9/week.
    - nightski 5y ago
      It's not "society can afford <x>". It's society has already afforded <x> for the entire duration of this 20 year war. That is not speculation. It also had nothing to do with the money printing during covid or the recent signs of inflation.
roenxi 5y ago
While it is true that these things aren't just a matter of money, it is difficult to argue that Afghanistan was a better place to put the funding. This is ultimately the biggest domestic consequence of the war for the US - if someone can have their way burning trillions of dollars (of borrowed funds, no less) wrecking Afghanistan, what is the justification for not doing the same thing for something that makes someone - anyone - feel good about life?

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> It's never been a matter of money. We've seen the government can pass multi trillion dollar bills on demand and increase the budget at will. Not without consequences. Contrary to the headlines, we can’t simply print as much money into existence as we want. For example, the actual cost of the war was closer to $2T. The $6.4T number quoted in this headline is the theoretical sum total including interest payments on the debt well into the future. Simply passing bills to spend money that we don’t have may get things done, but our children have to pay for it eventually. Even cheap debt must still be serviced. A significant portion of your tax bill every year goes to servicing interest on national debt. So no, it’s not simply a matter of political will to spend all the money we want. There are limits.

nightski 5y ago
Yeah I agree, you can't print money without consequences. But my point was when the political will exists things seem to get done regardless of whether we can afford them or not.
minikites 5y ago
>Simply passing bills to spend money that we don’t have may get things done, but our children have to pay for it eventually. I always see this argument, but never a deeper reason why. As far as I know, the projections for every developed economy looks like this, is every country going to go bankrupt eventually? If the economy is growing, we can in fact print money with little to no consequence of inflation. The US can "borrow" money incredibly cheaply. Government spending stimulates the economy, we can spend and do much more than we currently are, if we merely choose to build instead of destroy.
- sk2020 5y ago
  Why not round everyone’s bank account up to the nearest $1,000,000,000,000,000? Wouldn’t such unprecedented “stimulus” create unprecedented growth and end poverty forever? Would our newfound quadrillions end scarcity of resources? If not, why not?
  - minikites 5y ago
    How does this nonsensical example refute or even address my argument?
aiisjustanif 5y ago
> Simply passing bills to spend money that we don’t have may get things done, but our children have to pay for it eventually. Government debt is not that simple at all. A governments debts and budgets are no the same as a household. This also completely ignores economic growth and how types of inflation (cost-push vs demand-pull) affect if inflation or debt is “good” or “bad”. > So no, it’s not simply a matter of political will to spend all the money we want. There are limits. Please explain the limits if it’s a dollar amount. Most economists agree that we actually do not know what the “limit” is and mostly we noticed very little if anything troubling caused directly by the stimulus packages. They overwhelmingly helped keep economic growth stable.

fennecfoxen 5y ago

It's sometimes handy to define tradeoffs as a "question of money" and understand through this that things have costs. Fighter jets don't manufacture themselves. The metal to make guns is smelted in blast furnaces built and maintained by men and materials that someone paid for, using fuel someone paid for, and those people who were paid didn't do it for the decimal(2) value of the dollars involved, they did it for the real value. The soldiers who serve expect to be discharged with the cash which will buy them a home and a car and the other benefits they've been promised. These all require resources; someone else is deprived of the resources they would otherwise have, in order to make these things happen. It's great if you can measure this process in money. Of course you can print as much as you want, and of course that doesn't mean any more resources exist, and then you need the economists to try their best to make adjustments to the numbers as you go along.

nightski 5y ago
I feel like most of the resources needed for healthcare already exist as part of the current system. It's simply a matter of policy and how it's paid for. But I am not an expert and could be missing a key point.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  Well, health care services are an ongoing expense. You pay doctors twice a month. Doctors expect to buy new things sometimes, not just "resources that already exist". And it's fine to say "society can afford <x>" in isolation — we obviously have spent the money on the war, we obviously have spent money on health care. It's a question of trade-offs and whether spending money on the war is worth it. And that's really an awful lot of money to have spent on a war. The risk we see today with money is that we're trying to make a lot more of it and we might find that it doesn't mean the resources we expected. Weekly earnings in the US are up $16/wk since January — but adjusting for inflation they're down $9/week.
  - nightski 5y ago
    It's not "society can afford <x>". It's society has already afforded <x> for the entire duration of this 20 year war. That is not speculation. It also had nothing to do with the money printing during covid or the recent signs of inflation.

roenxi 5y ago

While it is true that these things aren't just a matter of money, it is difficult to argue that Afghanistan was a better place to put the funding. This is ultimately the biggest domestic consequence of the war for the US - if someone can have their way burning trillions of dollars (of borrowed funds, no less) wrecking Afghanistan, what is the justification for not doing the same thing for something that makes someone - anyone - feel good about life?