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Defense spending doesn't contribute not even a little bit to how inflation (CPI) is being calculated, because the DoD is spending money on stuff that doesn't af

by fosk 4y ago

Defense spending doesn't contribute not even a little bit to how inflation (CPI) is being calculated, because the DoD is spending money on stuff that doesn't affect the general population. Unless everyone is trying to buy an F22, of course, and that finds its way into the CPI. Not every expense is the same when it comes to the cost of general goods and services.

light_hue_1 4y ago
> Defense spending doesn't contribute not even a little bit to how inflation (CPI) is being calculated, because the DoD is spending money on stuff that doesn't affect the general population. Unless everyone is trying to buy an F22, of course, and that finds its way into the CPI. That's completely wrong. When the government spends on defense that money is not put into a large pit somewhere at Lockheed HQ and then lit on fire. It is spent on wages, on buying things from other contractors, etc. It ends up in people's pockets just like stimulus checks do. There's no difference. This is Econ 101 stuff. You're seriously misleading people in this thread about how CPI, inflation, and the economy as a whole works.
- fosk 4y ago
  Defense spending more than doubled from 2000 to 2019, from ~320B to ~730B, while inflation grew on average 2.10% per year during the same time period. It is true that defense money gets redistributed across the population and into the economy, but that has always been the case and inflation was in check. The fact that you are insinuating that this has anything to do with the current inflation problem is misleading. In 2023 we are dealing with the fallback of Covid fiscal policies, not defense spending.
  - light_hue_1 4y ago
    > The fact that you are insinuating that this has anything to do with the current inflation problem is misleading. In 2023 we are dealing with the fallback of Covid fiscal policies, not defense spending. No. I'm stating that medicare+defense spending is far larger than either covid relief or student loan forgiveness. By an order of magnitude per year. The fact that you don't think the thing that's 10x bigger can cause inflation, but you think the minor foonote that is covid spending can, shows that this is 100% ideology-driven and not fact-driven. Even basic back of the envelope economics shows you're completely off.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      > The fact that you don't think the thing that's 10x bigger can cause inflation, but you think the minor foonote that is covid spending can, shows that this is 100% ideology-driven and not fact-driven. What a weird comparison. If it's true that something doesn't cause inflation, then if you make it 10x as big it still probably won't cause inflation. That's not an illogical position at all. 10 times zero being zero is not holding ideology over facts. And even if we say defense spending was a significant part of the 2% inflation, that doesn't mean it also caused the huge spike we just had.

by fosk 4y ago

light_hue_1 4y ago

> Defense spending doesn't contribute not even a little bit to how inflation (CPI) is being calculated, because the DoD is spending money on stuff that doesn't affect the general population. Unless everyone is trying to buy an F22, of course, and that finds its way into the CPI. That's completely wrong. When the government spends on defense that money is not put into a large pit somewhere at Lockheed HQ and then lit on fire. It is spent on wages, on buying things from other contractors, etc. It ends up in people's pockets just like stimulus checks do. There's no difference. This is Econ 101 stuff. You're seriously misleading people in this thread about how CPI, inflation, and the economy as a whole works.

fosk 4y ago
Defense spending more than doubled from 2000 to 2019, from ~320B to ~730B, while inflation grew on average 2.10% per year during the same time period. It is true that defense money gets redistributed across the population and into the economy, but that has always been the case and inflation was in check. The fact that you are insinuating that this has anything to do with the current inflation problem is misleading. In 2023 we are dealing with the fallback of Covid fiscal policies, not defense spending.
- light_hue_1 4y ago
  > The fact that you are insinuating that this has anything to do with the current inflation problem is misleading. In 2023 we are dealing with the fallback of Covid fiscal policies, not defense spending. No. I'm stating that medicare+defense spending is far larger than either covid relief or student loan forgiveness. By an order of magnitude per year. The fact that you don't think the thing that's 10x bigger can cause inflation, but you think the minor foonote that is covid spending can, shows that this is 100% ideology-driven and not fact-driven. Even basic back of the envelope economics shows you're completely off.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    > The fact that you don't think the thing that's 10x bigger can cause inflation, but you think the minor foonote that is covid spending can, shows that this is 100% ideology-driven and not fact-driven. What a weird comparison. If it's true that something doesn't cause inflation, then if you make it 10x as big it still probably won't cause inflation. That's not an illogical position at all. 10 times zero being zero is not holding ideology over facts. And even if we say defense spending was a significant part of the 2% inflation, that doesn't mean it also caused the huge spike we just had.