8 ms·
Ukraine aid's best-kept secret: Most of the money stays in the USA
- Synaesthesia 3y agoSo it's really a mechanism whereby taxpayer dollars get redistributed to elite groups via funding of hi-tech industry like arms manufacture.
- crazygringo 3y agoOnly in a highly technical sense. Because this is the broken window fallacy [1]. Yes, most of the money is being "spent" in the US to hire workers to build new weapons and tanks and so forth. But then all those resulting weapons and tanks are being sent to Ukraine. They're not staying in the USA. And all those extra workers that have been hired? Well, they came from working on other things. Things that aren't getting done anymore -- or the people that replaced some of them came from yet other things that now aren't getting done, that aren't benefiting people and businesses in the US. So no, there's no reasonable sense in which the money is "staying in the USA", in the sense of having our cake and eating it too. It's being spent on hardware that is sent to Ukraine. And we are losing out on all of the products and services that we would have built instead. All of that value is gone. Because it got shipped to Ukraine instead. (I'm very much in support of Ukraine BTW. Not arguing against this at all! But we should be honest about what it costs us. We don't magically get most of the money back as a nation somehow.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window?w...
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago>And all those extra workers that have been hired? Well, they came from working on other things. Things that aren't getting done anymore How can you be so sure? What if they came out of schools into their first job? Now those people get training, and some skills in their resume for the future. Honestly, your entire comment reads very FUDy and lacking in proof/substance.
- crazygringo 3y agoIt's by definition. They would have gone to another job instead, where they would have gotten similar training and skills, on average. Arms production isn't hiring a ton of people who would be unemployed otherwise. US unemployment is at around a historic low. Every extra job added there is basically being taken away from somewhere else. That's just how the economy works.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago>They would have gone to another job instead So why didn't they go to those other jobs instead? You're making it sound like they got roped into slavery against their will.
- crazygringo 3y ago> You're making it sound like they got roped into slavery against their will. Of course I'm not. It's great for them. But it still means there's another job left unfilled. If they're making weapons, something else is not getting made/done. That's all I'm saying. Hope it's clear now.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago> But it still means there's another job left unfilled. Then it's their fault for being less competitive employers than those other military jobs. Welcome to the free market. You are not owed employees just because you have a job opening, you need to compete for them. If you're an unattractive employer, tough shit mate. Git gud.
- xcv123 3y agoYou are completely missing the point here.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
- tlogan 3y agoYes - we can spend all these resources and re-build houses in Hawaii.
- glitchc 3y ago[flagged]
- eropple 3y agoWhat a fascinating starting point: > As of October 1, 2023, the act has been terminated since the fiscal year of 2023 has been over, without any use of Lend-Lease.
- standardUser 3y agoThat only partially diminishes the point. It has been in effect for the vast majority of the duration of the war and is obviously worth considering, instead of downvoting into oblivion without even offering a response.
- ceejayoz 3y agoIf it was never used, how "in effect" was it really? I also can't see any support for the assertion that this would've meant US ownership of bits of Ukraine. WWII's Lend-Lease was a legal fiction; the lended (at no cost) weapons, vehicles, etc. were expected to wind up expended/destroyed, not returned.
- eropple 3y agoI was being tongue-in-cheek. The rest of your post wasn't worth engaging with, as 'ceejayoz aptly demonstrated.
- standardUser 3y agoI could not disagree more. We are having our cake (pumping cash into our defense industry) and eating it to (replenishing aging arsenals, advertising to prospective arm buyers, get invaluable real-world data on how our weapons work, decimating the military of a chief geopolitical rival). There is no downside here form the US perspective. Every dollar spent is returned in ways that no other expenditure could replicate.
- yeknoda 3y ago500,000 Ukrainian casualties
- jonnycomputer 3y agoWhat could you possibly mean? Blame Russia for Ukrainian casualties.
- dralley 3y ago1) citation needed 2) how many would it be if we were not providing them with assistance? Do you think they're just going to roll over and capitulate if the US turns off the tap? They didn't do that in the first few days of the war when they had very little assistance and practically none of their allies believed they would last the week, why would that happen now?
- nvoeiah 3y ago>how many would it be if we were not providing them with assistance? Do you think they're just going to roll over and capitulate if the US turns off the tap? Seems like it? What else would they do? Just look at what's happening, they are going to end up losing anyway despite the amount of money that the West has been giving them. (4 days ago) https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/at-what-cost-ukraine-strains-bolster-its-army-war-fatigue-weighs-2023-11-28/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/at-what-cost-ukraine-st...
- dralley 3y ago
- jncfhnb 3y ago> And all those extra workers that have been hired? Well, they came from working on other things. Things that aren't getting done anymore -- or the people that replaced some of them came from yet other things that now aren't getting done, that aren't benefiting people and businesses in the US. This effect is so negligible it’s not even worth calling out.
- jonnycomputer 3y agoYeah, its a pretty bald faced assertion.
- crazygringo 3y agoNo, that's the entire point of the broken windows fallacy. It's not negligible -- it adds up to the same amount of value. This is why it's called a fallacy, because people think it's negligible, when it's not. The Wikipedia article I linked to in my original comment explains it in full detail.
- standardUser 3y agoEvery theory is subject to real world variables and in this conversation, I have yet to see one real world variable.
- crazygringo 3y agoWhat theory are you talking about? This isn't a theory. It's a principle of economics. It's just how money works. Arguing that it's false makes as much sense as arguing 2+2=5. It's literally just adding up accounting.
- jncfhnb 3y agoIf it’s so obvious, please write out what is gained and what is lost to net out to 0
- jncfhnb 3y ago
- dralley 3y agoBullshit. >But then all those resulting weapons and tanks are being sent to Ukraine. They're not staying in the USA. They don't need to stay in the USA. Most of those weapons systems are not even particularly relevant to the US' needs right now. Some are even literally expired, or near their expiration date. The US has thousands of tanks and thousands of armored fighting vehicles stockpiled as well as thousands of MRAPs left over from various occupations in the Middle East. Not only do we not need more of them, but those weapons were designed, and built, primarily to counter a scenario in which Russia (/ USSR) invaded Europe. And that's now happening. They will be of very little use in the Pacific, and will be of no use whatsoever if they just sit in the desert for another 20 years. So if you want to talk about opportunity costs, that should be part of the calculation. > And all those extra workers that have been hired? Well, they came from working on other things. Things that aren't getting done anymore -- or the people that replaced some of them came from yet other things that now aren't getting done, that aren't benefiting people and businesses in the US. Wrong. People, and jobs, are not 100% liquid. People doing manufacturing jobs can't immediately retrain to be software engineers. And I don't know if you've noticed, but there are a lot of people who worked in manufacturing struggling to get by in an economy that has globalized manufacturing out of the US. You may have also heard that the US is now trying to get repatriate some of that critical manufacturing back to the US. Defense spending is a good way to keep those skills and supply chains viable. > So no, there's no reasonable sense in which the money is "staying in the USA", in the sense of having our cake and eating it too. It's being spent on hardware that is sent to Ukraine. And we are losing out on all of the products and services that we would have built instead. All of that value is gone. Because it got shipped to Ukraine instead. Since you're so interested in opportunity costs, how about we have a discussion about the opportunity costs of allowing Russia to successfully invade their neighbors? The political opportunity costs of failing to help a nation which we had strongarmed into giving up their nuclear weapons in the 1990s, and the subsequent risk of increased nuclear proliferation? The opportunity costs of dealing with the situation now rather than later, with more land and population at their disposal (1938 Czechoslovakia says hello)? This is a rare occurrence of a scenario where it is in our interests to help Ukraine, while being the moral thing to do, while also being an insanely efficient use of resources comparatively speaking. Certainly far moreso than the 20 years spent in the middle east.
- dragontamer 3y agoThe answers are inbetween. It is clear that our 155mm production sucks and that 155mm shells are needed in large numbers in a peer contest. Building 155mm capacity is itself beneficial, in that we are learning how to build more production lines and learn how to ramp. No amount of money is 'useful' per se. What we care about the skills of our workers to reliably and consistently perform in these production lines. ------- We get the best of both worlds. We can practice and ramp up production, building the production skills. But it's the Ukrainians who are putting their lives on the line. A bit grim, but this is very beneficial to us.
- rzazueta 3y agoI've been feeling this way for a while. So much human effort spent on producing human suffering and death. No wonder everyone feels like everything is falling apart.
- rainsford 3y ago> But then all those resulting weapons and tanks are being sent to Ukraine. They're not staying in the USA. I'm not sure why the end product of economic activity has to physically stay in the country to be beneficial. In the case of Ukraine, the US government spending money to build say anti-tank missiles and stockpiling them locally is arguably much less beneficial to the US than spending money to build anti-tank missiles and giving them to Ukrainians to use to blow up Russian tanks. Nobody is mounting a tank invasion of the US, but spending money to wreck one of the two major US adversaries is a pretty good return on investment in my book. You're right that spending money on war in general is a great example of the broken window fallacy, but that has nothing to do with where the tanks you're building end up. It would be the same economic problem if it was a war being fought in the US or with the US as a direct participant. Everybody would have been better off economically if the Russians had stayed in their own country, but they didn't.
- dralley 3y ago100%
- jncfhnb 3y agoNo, this is not the broken window fallacy for the US. It is the broken window fallacy for the entire global economy. Yeah obviously the war does not help the global economy. The fact that the goods are exported is not relevant. Many goods are exported. Missiles, sure, but also food. Is exporting food a broken window fallacy? Obviously not. The US has an immense economic competitive advantage in military goods owing to its technology. It’s a product like any other and the wages that flow through this industry as well as its suppliers are huge net positives to the overall economy. Selling that which you have a competitive advantage on and buying the rest is the basic principle behind international economics.
- baybal2 3y ago[dead]
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoSecret to whom? Several reporters pointed this out a year ago.
- Gibbon1 3y agoI think calling it a secret is just plain insulting to anyone the bothered to read the drivel. And one is left with the feeling the author has an unstated agenda that's he's too chicken shit to state openly. Whoop de do. The US, Western and Eastern European countries are using their market economies to build weapons to send to Ukraine or replace stocks of weapons also sent to Ukraine. And they'll keep doing that until either Russia gives up or implodes. If the author hates that he should come out and say he wants Russia to annex Ukraine.
- frumper 3y agoThis hasn’t been a secret. McConnell has been spouting this as a big reason why he supports it.
- wtk 3y agohttps://archive.is/2023.11.30-145448/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/29/ukraine-military-aid-american-economy-boost/ https://archive.is/2023.11.30-145448/https://www.washingtonp...
- SuperNinKenDo 3y agoIs this even per se a bad thing? One if the big talking points with "sending money to Ukraine" is the level of corruption. But materiel are much easier to trace than cash or digital currency. I mean, yeah, the military industrial complex and all that, but that issues exists in either case.
- yieldcrv 3y agoIf you can’t make money in a war you just flat out can’t make money
- bryanlarsen 3y agoNo, the big secret is that much of the money would have been spent anyway. Sending a 20 year old artillery shell to Ukraine and replacing it with a new built artillery shell is money that would have been spent anyway. The money to build any F-16 sent to Ukraine is money that has already been spent. Sending it to Ukraine removes maintenance spending for that F-16 off the books. And we would eventually spend money to replace that F-16. Not all Ukraine aid money would have been spent anyway, but a large portion of it would have.
- deadbolt 3y agoWe are sending them actual money to support their government. It’s not all just gifts of military gear.
- neonsunset 3y agoThat is, if the equipment is actually being sent. We're getting what would've been replaced anyway and even then only scraps. Bradleys are being cut down and decommissioned as we speak instead of being sent here. The whole policy is to bleed ruskieland as much as possible at the cost of hundreds of thousands of our military personnel and civilian lives (just Mariupol alone is likely above 100k of the population dead), and a broken shell of a country if we manage to somehow survive.
- jonnycomputer 3y agoWe are sending a lot. Biden would send more if he could, but the Republicans won't let him. You may also not appreciate that the US cannot leave itself unprepared for a conflict, or its capacity to support Taiwan and other allies. Or the difficulties in increasing the manufacture of munitions and other military supplies. It simply isn't easy to do. You also may not realize the level of antipathy toward sending aid to Ukraine that exists here in the US, particularly by Republicans. People here seem to think that we are sending all this money to Ukraine, personally enriching Zelensky. A lot of this is Russian propaganda that has filtered into US conservative media, sometimes direct from RT.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoUS doctrine is to be prepared to fight two major wars. Implicit in that doctrine is that Russia is one of those two major wars. Aiding Ukraine in taking Russia off the table is cheaper than doing it ourselves, so by doctrine keeping Ukraine from losing should reduce our defence spending, not increase it.
- neonsunset 3y agoFor anyone's interested, as of Feb 23 2023 the total GDP spend of the US on supporting us (all expenses) is around 0.37%[0]. Arguably, far more damage to US and its economy was done through deep infiltration and billions of spend on destabilizing campaigns was done by ruskies. But, well, both the left and the right are too busy with self-inflicted inner turmoil and complete dismantling of Western values through what looks like a mass ritual of self-hate. It is likely that current inadequate policy and political actions would be written into history books as cowardice precipitating a tragedy, because when the aid in the early stages of the war proved to be too good, the next tier of equipment required for southern counteroffensive was being constantly delayed, and blocked, giving ruskies a lot of time to make our south the most mined territory in the world, and when the equipment arrived, it was both too little and too late. And now the support is being cut off entirely, with some EU countries (and UK!) left to patch the gaps where they can. On top of that, we are finding ourselves in what is effectively a blockade by our own neighbors through successful ruskie op done at crucial time of elections in Poland and openly pro-russian Hungarian govt. Personally, I don't see much justice in the world in general, we shouldn't have given up nukes and I dream one day our government restarts the nuclear program because it is the only insurance policy left and I promise, everyone's taking notes. Say goodbye to nuclear non-proliferation, say hello to re-ignition of all frozen conflicts because sides realize that you can get away with anything as long as you have the military power, for the US and the West will do nothing but watch. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64656301 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64656301
- readthenotes1 3y agoSo killing people is a jobs program. Is that why we are keeping it a secret?
- ksjskskskkk 3y ago[flagged]
- 1letterunixname 3y agoThe headwinds Ukraine aid face are: a. The irrational, misguided, nationalist, uninformed, gnat-like attention of the populist and religious nationalist parts of the Elephant party b. The utopian, peaceniking of parts of the Donkey party who profess dialog and appeasement will stop Russian tanks or deactivate millions of landmines The reality is that it's cheaper and more strategically useful for America if someone else draws Putin into a war of attrition, giving them another Afghanistan. Either Putin runs out of political capital, money, and/or bodies. The issue is Putin needs an offramp from the war, and preferably an offramp from power to retirement or self-imposed exile.