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Technological progress should allow us to repeat ancient feats for cheaper. True excellence in engineering is being able to do amazing things within a limited

by eru 1y ago

Technological progress should allow us to repeat ancient feats for cheaper. True excellence in engineering is being able to do amazing things within a limited budget. (And overall, sending some primates to the moon should come out of our entertainment budgets. Manned space flight has been one giant money sink without much too show for. If you want to do anything scientifically useful in space, go for unmanned. > Today, the only thing we have money for is weapons and warfare. Huh? You remember the cold war? The US spends less of its total income on weapons and warfare than back then. Have a look at some statistics to find what the biggest items are these days.)

grafmax 1y ago
> Have a look at some statistics to find what the biggest items are these days. Note that if you attribute interest for military-related debt to military spending(roughly 40-50% of our interest payments) then it ends up climbing in the ranking. But it’s true that we have other major expenses as well.
- eru 1y ago
  Money is fungible. How do you decide what debt is military related? (And yes, the government can give labels to the debt, but that's more of a political exercise than fiscal reality.)
somenameforme 1y ago
> The US spends less of its total income on weapons and warfare than back then. Have a look at some statistics to find what the biggest items are these days. This is inaccurate. Here [1] is a nice table showing US military spending over time, inflation adjusted. Up, up, and away! And it's made even more insane because what really matters is discretionary spending. Each year lots of things are automatically paid - interest on the debt, pensions, medicare, social security, and so on. What's left over is in those giant budgetary bills that Congress makes each year that cover all spending on education, infrastructure, and all of the other things people typically associate government spending with. And military spending (outside of things like pension) is 100% discretionary, and it consumes about half of our entire discretionary budget! And this is again made even more insane by the fact that discretionary spending, as a percent of all spending, continues to decline. This is because we're an aging population with a terrible fertility rate. So costs for social security, medicare, and other such things are increasing sharply while new revenue from our children is barely trickling in. Notably this will never change unless fertility rates change. Even when the 'old people' die, they will be replaced by even more old people, and with even fewer children coming of age. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#/media/File:U.S_-_China_-_Russia,_Military_Spending.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...
- eru 1y ago
  You should adjust for GPD, not for inflation. Perhaps I wasn't quite clear when I said "spends less of its total income". I meant as as a proportion of GDP. I agree that the US has some weird distinction between discretionary and mandatory spending. And I also agree that much of the 'mandatory' spending needs a reform, and should probably not be on the government's balance sheet at all. Eg a fully funded pension system that invests globally is both off the government's balance sheet, and doesn't care about domestic fertility. (Of course, you still want to have a means tested welfare system to catch those people who couldn't earn enough for retirement and other poor people in general.)
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    I don't think percent of GDP is a meaningful metric. Dollar for [inflated] dollar we're spending a lot more on defense, and it eats up near to the majority of our discretionary spending. The distinction between mandatory and discretionary isn't weird - mandatory is payments that the government is legally required to make, discretionary is what they have the choice of spending. And so now a days near to the majority of what the government has the choice of spending, is spent on war. Sovereign wealth funds of the sort you're alluding to have a problem - governments can't ever control their spending, so the funds always end up getting plundered. The Alaska Permanent Fund is a great example. It was created after massive oil reserves were discovered in Alaska resulting in a huge windfall of money to the government. The government proceeded to completely waste all of that money with nothing to show for it, which made people less than happy. So the idea of the APF was to create a fund that could provide social dividends in both the present and even after the oil eventually runs out. But as the government started, again, blowing money, they started dipping into the fund and eventually changed the law to normalize it and it's gradually turning into a joke. This years dividend was $1000, compared to $3300 (inflation adjusted) at its peak in 1999. The problem with 'well just make it where you can't do that' is that the same people that make that law, are the exact same that can unmake that law and give themselves lots of other people's money, which they will do, sooner or later.

by eru 1y ago

grafmax 1y ago

> Have a look at some statistics to find what the biggest items are these days. Note that if you attribute interest for military-related debt to military spending(roughly 40-50% of our interest payments) then it ends up climbing in the ranking. But it’s true that we have other major expenses as well.

eru 1y ago
Money is fungible. How do you decide what debt is military related? (And yes, the government can give labels to the debt, but that's more of a political exercise than fiscal reality.)

somenameforme 1y ago

> The US spends less of its total income on weapons and warfare than back then. Have a look at some statistics to find what the biggest items are these days. This is inaccurate. Here [1] is a nice table showing US military spending over time, inflation adjusted. Up, up, and away! And it's made even more insane because what really matters is discretionary spending. Each year lots of things are automatically paid - interest on the debt, pensions, medicare, social security, and so on. What's left over is in those giant budgetary bills that Congress makes each year that cover all spending on education, infrastructure, and all of the other things people typically associate government spending with. And military spending (outside of things like pension) is 100% discretionary, and it consumes about half of our entire discretionary budget! And this is again made even more insane by the fact that discretionary spending, as a percent of all spending, continues to decline. This is because we're an aging population with a terrible fertility rate. So costs for social security, medicare, and other such things are increasing sharply while new revenue from our children is barely trickling in. Notably this will never change unless fertility rates change. Even when the 'old people' die, they will be replaced by even more old people, and with even fewer children coming of age. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#/media/File:U.S_-_China_-_Russia,_Military_Spending.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

eru 1y ago
You should adjust for GPD, not for inflation. Perhaps I wasn't quite clear when I said "spends less of its total income". I meant as as a proportion of GDP. I agree that the US has some weird distinction between discretionary and mandatory spending. And I also agree that much of the 'mandatory' spending needs a reform, and should probably not be on the government's balance sheet at all. Eg a fully funded pension system that invests globally is both off the government's balance sheet, and doesn't care about domestic fertility. (Of course, you still want to have a means tested welfare system to catch those people who couldn't earn enough for retirement and other poor people in general.)
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- somenameforme 1y ago
  I don't think percent of GDP is a meaningful metric. Dollar for [inflated] dollar we're spending a lot more on defense, and it eats up near to the majority of our discretionary spending. The distinction between mandatory and discretionary isn't weird - mandatory is payments that the government is legally required to make, discretionary is what they have the choice of spending. And so now a days near to the majority of what the government has the choice of spending, is spent on war. Sovereign wealth funds of the sort you're alluding to have a problem - governments can't ever control their spending, so the funds always end up getting plundered. The Alaska Permanent Fund is a great example. It was created after massive oil reserves were discovered in Alaska resulting in a huge windfall of money to the government. The government proceeded to completely waste all of that money with nothing to show for it, which made people less than happy. So the idea of the APF was to create a fund that could provide social dividends in both the present and even after the oil eventually runs out. But as the government started, again, blowing money, they started dipping into the fund and eventually changed the law to normalize it and it's gradually turning into a joke. This years dividend was $1000, compared to $3300 (inflation adjusted) at its peak in 1999. The problem with 'well just make it where you can't do that' is that the same people that make that law, are the exact same that can unmake that law and give themselves lots of other people's money, which they will do, sooner or later.