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Because these countries rely on the US military for protection? All the EU does against Russia. Japan and south-east Asian countries do against China. Look up

Because these countries rely on the US military for protection? All the EU does against Russia. Japan and south-east Asian countries do against China. Look up how underfunded Germany’s Bundeswehr has been these past few years, how France’s push to build up European defenses is going, how Eastern European countries rely on NATO. When you get defense for “free” from an overstretched US military, you obviously have more budget to develop your own country.

inglor_cz 3y ago
Unfortunately you are right and here in Central Europe, Putin's invasion of Ukraine caused a lot of anguish. At least initially, plenty of people were afraid that he is going to steamroll Ukraine, and then continue towards the Baltic/Poland, in order to restore the entire imperial zone of influence of the former USSR, or at least as much of it as practical (so, without the former GDR, probably; with AfD in his pocket, he could gain a lot of soft power there anyway). In that case, if the US decided that they don't really care about a potential nuclear war for the sake of some distant Eastern European countries, we would be caught with our pants down. Only Poland was somewhat prepared. Many European countries grew fatter and lazier under the American defense umbrella. It was easier to stuff money into popular projects than into guns and soldiers. Only, it turns out, sometimes you really need those guns and soldiers even in the 21st century. "Si vis pacem, para bellum."
- ttyprintk 3y ago
  Another HN post puts this in terms of civilian casualties: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38579988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38579988 The average people in powerful democracies have a responsibility to avoid the circumstances which historically have led to mass civilian casualties. For USA, the toll of nuclear strikes is an approachable example. Other great powers have a worse record in avoiding malicious mass suffering. The part relevant to your comment is that the US military now needs to prevent war rather than excel at it. And it has chosen to look as formidable as possible to rational enemies. I think Europe agrees with this, but I don’t know if there are other ways.
fxtentacle 3y ago
Historically, it seemed like the US was very happy with Germany, for example, having a rather low military budget. And even now, how do you think US politics would react if Germany would kick the US military out of Rammstein to deploy their own nukes?
darthrupert 3y ago
While true, this doesn't quite explain why China has plenty of high speed rail.
- afpx 3y ago
  Their rail company is almost $1T in debt.
  - JCharante 3y ago
    Only $1T? That's so cheap!
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    It is privately funded by public SOEs, at least. The BJ-SH line makes enough money, the rest of the HSR lines are running at losses. Maybe they can make money on renting space in train stations like Japanese rail companies do.
willcipriano 3y ago
> When you get defense for “free” from an overstretched US military, you obviously have more budget to develop your own country. I have been saying for decades, they need to pay tribute. Never before in history has a super power defended smaller nations and expected nothing in return. The US taxpayer should enjoy some relief from foreign governments who want to be defended.
- fatherzine 3y ago
  They do pay tribute. Slightly obfuscated behind the financial order that comes with that 'protection'. Look up debt levels, or how ownership of strategic assets changed hands in the historical blink of eye since eg Eastern Europe joined NATO / EU.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    It they had paid enough the US wouldn't have trillions in debt from spending on defense.
    - vetinari 3y ago
      That's entirely different problem, and US-internal one: privatization of the profits and socializing of the losses.
- atlantic 3y ago
  The US is offering as much protection as the New York mafia offers local shopkeepers - protection from themselves. Sure, we need to pay tribute, but that's because we're vassal states, not because we get anything in return.
walkhour 3y ago
The US military budget is 12% of the total. > I want affordable housing. Affordable healthcare. High speed rail. Better zoning laws. New subway lines. Are you saying we only need 12% of the budget to fix these things? Note that coincidentally medicare is already accounting for ~12% of the total. Say the military budget goes to zero (which it can't), and we spend half of that on medicare (it would be 18%). Will it fix the problem? I think the problem is much deeper than wasting this 12%.
- tkpk 3y ago
  This would be true if the only way to improve healthcare was to throw more money at it. The US could have the best healthcare system if it chose to spend those 12% on something else than pharma's pockets.
  - opo 3y ago
    There isn't some simple silver bullet here. While the US ends up subsidizing other industrialized countries for prescription drugs (and that should be stopped), it is a small percentage of overall healthcare costs: >While prescription drug costs only accounted for 8 percent of total U.S. healthcare spending in 2020, the price of such drugs has risen substantially over the last few decades. ... The U.S. spends twice as much on prescription drugs as other comparatively wealthy nations, on average. https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2022/11/how-much-does-the-united-states-spend-on-prescription-drugs-compared-to-other-countries https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2022/11/how-much-does-the-united-s...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- idontwantthis 3y ago
  The government doesn’t need to and shouldn’t spend a dime on housing. It’s up to each state to just make it possible to build more homes. If the government can somehow compel that then great. We can fix the housing crisis and grow GDP at the same time.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
kalleboo 3y ago
The US hegemony gives your country massive wealth. US GDP per capita is 30% higher than Germany. Europe is extremely poor compared to the US even when they're not paying for defense. The US has more than enough money to fix its domestic problems. There's just no political will. Nobody votes for the person who wants to fix difficult problems when you can just vote for the guy who points out flaws in the other guy's plan. (Europe is not really any different today - we're just lucky we got the big issues settled a few decades ago before social media gave everyone a voice)
- tetris11 3y ago
  GDP per capita requires just 1 multi-billionaire to bump those percentages up. You can't make such a QoL comparison that way.
  - strangesmells06 3y ago
    Id like to see a median comparison or some other stats.
    - ttyprintk 3y ago
      It doesn’t change the argument much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income Off topic: China has done a great job pulling half a billion people out of poverty and it shows.
  - kalleboo 3y ago
    Just look at Americans though - they drive expensive trucks, have huge homes, middle class people can even own boats to require those trucks to drive back and forth with from their homes that have much land they can park a boat on it. Europeans are stuck in tiny apartments in cramped cities and take the train, bus or ride a bike. The US may not be sustainable but it has massively better QoL, I have so many friends who have moved to the US because you can live so much better with the same job.
    - 3y ago
libertine 3y ago
> When you get defense for “free” from an overstretched US military, you obviously have more budget to develop your own country. Don't forget that is not "free", the US has benefited from a lot of perks due to the position they're in. But it is true sovereign countries should take care of their defenses beyond what the US has to offer, but that will also come at the cost of the US. You can't have the cake and eat it at the same time - which is what some people seem to be forgetting among all of those internal politics complaints, and the mixing of the US geoplitics with internal politics. Because you can't be the "leader of the free world" and get all the benefits from it, while you cherry pick what it entails. Now you might argue that you don't see the benefits of that position, which is fair, but a lot is going on more than just military bases in Europe. And the world will carry on, and those voids left by the US will be filled. China is very happy to fill those empty spaces.

inglor_cz 3y ago

Unfortunately you are right and here in Central Europe, Putin's invasion of Ukraine caused a lot of anguish. At least initially, plenty of people were afraid that he is going to steamroll Ukraine, and then continue towards the Baltic/Poland, in order to restore the entire imperial zone of influence of the former USSR, or at least as much of it as practical (so, without the former GDR, probably; with AfD in his pocket, he could gain a lot of soft power there anyway). In that case, if the US decided that they don't really care about a potential nuclear war for the sake of some distant Eastern European countries, we would be caught with our pants down. Only Poland was somewhat prepared. Many European countries grew fatter and lazier under the American defense umbrella. It was easier to stuff money into popular projects than into guns and soldiers. Only, it turns out, sometimes you really need those guns and soldiers even in the 21st century. "Si vis pacem, para bellum."

ttyprintk 3y ago
Another HN post puts this in terms of civilian casualties: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38579988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38579988 The average people in powerful democracies have a responsibility to avoid the circumstances which historically have led to mass civilian casualties. For USA, the toll of nuclear strikes is an approachable example. Other great powers have a worse record in avoiding malicious mass suffering. The part relevant to your comment is that the US military now needs to prevent war rather than excel at it. And it has chosen to look as formidable as possible to rational enemies. I think Europe agrees with this, but I don’t know if there are other ways.

fxtentacle 3y ago

Historically, it seemed like the US was very happy with Germany, for example, having a rather low military budget. And even now, how do you think US politics would react if Germany would kick the US military out of Rammstein to deploy their own nukes?

darthrupert 3y ago

While true, this doesn't quite explain why China has plenty of high speed rail.

afpx 3y ago
Their rail company is almost $1T in debt.
- JCharante 3y ago
  Only $1T? That's so cheap!
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  It is privately funded by public SOEs, at least. The BJ-SH line makes enough money, the rest of the HSR lines are running at losses. Maybe they can make money on renting space in train stations like Japanese rail companies do.

willcipriano 3y ago

> When you get defense for “free” from an overstretched US military, you obviously have more budget to develop your own country. I have been saying for decades, they need to pay tribute. Never before in history has a super power defended smaller nations and expected nothing in return. The US taxpayer should enjoy some relief from foreign governments who want to be defended.

fatherzine 3y ago
They do pay tribute. Slightly obfuscated behind the financial order that comes with that 'protection'. Look up debt levels, or how ownership of strategic assets changed hands in the historical blink of eye since eg Eastern Europe joined NATO / EU.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  It they had paid enough the US wouldn't have trillions in debt from spending on defense.
  - vetinari 3y ago
    That's entirely different problem, and US-internal one: privatization of the profits and socializing of the losses.
atlantic 3y ago
The US is offering as much protection as the New York mafia offers local shopkeepers - protection from themselves. Sure, we need to pay tribute, but that's because we're vassal states, not because we get anything in return.

walkhour 3y ago

The US military budget is 12% of the total. > I want affordable housing. Affordable healthcare. High speed rail. Better zoning laws. New subway lines. Are you saying we only need 12% of the budget to fix these things? Note that coincidentally medicare is already accounting for ~12% of the total. Say the military budget goes to zero (which it can't), and we spend half of that on medicare (it would be 18%). Will it fix the problem? I think the problem is much deeper than wasting this 12%.

tkpk 3y ago
This would be true if the only way to improve healthcare was to throw more money at it. The US could have the best healthcare system if it chose to spend those 12% on something else than pharma's pockets.
- opo 3y ago
  There isn't some simple silver bullet here. While the US ends up subsidizing other industrialized countries for prescription drugs (and that should be stopped), it is a small percentage of overall healthcare costs: >While prescription drug costs only accounted for 8 percent of total U.S. healthcare spending in 2020, the price of such drugs has risen substantially over the last few decades. ... The U.S. spends twice as much on prescription drugs as other comparatively wealthy nations, on average. https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2022/11/how-much-does-the-united-states-spend-on-prescription-drugs-compared-to-other-countries https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2022/11/how-much-does-the-united-s...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
idontwantthis 3y ago
The government doesn’t need to and shouldn’t spend a dime on housing. It’s up to each state to just make it possible to build more homes. If the government can somehow compel that then great. We can fix the housing crisis and grow GDP at the same time.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago

kalleboo 3y ago

The US hegemony gives your country massive wealth. US GDP per capita is 30% higher than Germany. Europe is extremely poor compared to the US even when they're not paying for defense. The US has more than enough money to fix its domestic problems. There's just no political will. Nobody votes for the person who wants to fix difficult problems when you can just vote for the guy who points out flaws in the other guy's plan. (Europe is not really any different today - we're just lucky we got the big issues settled a few decades ago before social media gave everyone a voice)

tetris11 3y ago
GDP per capita requires just 1 multi-billionaire to bump those percentages up. You can't make such a QoL comparison that way.
- strangesmells06 3y ago
  Id like to see a median comparison or some other stats.
  - ttyprintk 3y ago
    It doesn’t change the argument much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income Off topic: China has done a great job pulling half a billion people out of poverty and it shows.
- kalleboo 3y ago
  Just look at Americans though - they drive expensive trucks, have huge homes, middle class people can even own boats to require those trucks to drive back and forth with from their homes that have much land they can park a boat on it. Europeans are stuck in tiny apartments in cramped cities and take the train, bus or ride a bike. The US may not be sustainable but it has massively better QoL, I have so many friends who have moved to the US because you can live so much better with the same job.
  - 3y ago

libertine 3y ago

> When you get defense for “free” from an overstretched US military, you obviously have more budget to develop your own country. Don't forget that is not "free", the US has benefited from a lot of perks due to the position they're in. But it is true sovereign countries should take care of their defenses beyond what the US has to offer, but that will also come at the cost of the US. You can't have the cake and eat it at the same time - which is what some people seem to be forgetting among all of those internal politics complaints, and the mixing of the US geoplitics with internal politics. Because you can't be the "leader of the free world" and get all the benefits from it, while you cherry pick what it entails. Now you might argue that you don't see the benefits of that position, which is fair, but a lot is going on more than just military bases in Europe. And the world will carry on, and those voids left by the US will be filled. China is very happy to fill those empty spaces.