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It's because it's not worth the expense. Vanity is a hell of a drug, but it has its limits.
by pfdietz 11mo ago
It's because it's not worth the expense. Vanity is a hell of a drug, but it has its limits.
- squidbeak 11mo agoA large part of the lifestyle Americans enjoy is owed to its control of the world.
- pfdietz 11mo agoHow is that? Are we taking stuff at the point of a gun? The benefits would seem to flow to those countries that would have been swallowed up without Pax Americana.
- danmaz74 11mo ago> How is that? Are we taking stuff at the point of a gun? No, but the USA is getting a lot of stuff in exchange for $$ which it can print for basically free. Consumers in the USA have benefitted a lot from this, which partly compensated the fact that more and more of the pie is going to the richest instead of the average American.
- pfdietz 11mo agoDollar holdings outside the US come to about $1 trillion. What you are talking about there are holdings of debt. Yes, US prosperity has been propped up by borrowing increasing amounts of money. This is not sustainable. One can view Trump's tariff actions as preparatory for US debt default. This would crash the dollar and make imports much more expensive.
- mattmaroon 11mo agoIt’s not that it’s not worth the expense, it’s that we’re unable to continue funding global peace and prosperity ourselves. And we shouldn’t have to. I don’t agree with Trump about much but he’s correct that the other liberal democracies have been more than happy to have us foot the bill for keeping the wolves at bay while looking down on us for doing it.
- pfdietz 11mo ago> It’s not that it’s not worth the expense, it’s that we’re unable to continue funding global peace and prosperity ourselves. And we shouldn’t have to. That's just explaining why it's not worth the expense.
- mattmaroon 11mo agoWell, it’s worth it, we just can’t.
- justin66 11mo agoYou've done the arithmetic on that, have you?
- mattmaroon 11mo agoOur national debt is $38 trillion, no arithmetic needed.
- justin66 11mo agoThe reason what you're doing here - pointing to the national debt as a reason not to spend on a particular thing - is so fallacious is twofold: 1. There is always a national debt 2. There are always things we spend money on, nevertheless What this fallacy avoids is the necessary question of prioritization. Some things we'd like to spend money on are more important than others. In truth, there's always money for any given thing. There's never money for everything we might desire to spend money on. "Well, it’s worth it, we just can’t" is just nonsensical. It's either worth it or not, and making that decision requires some work. It's a fallacy that's used by politicians all over the political spectrum, and it's highly useful for them. "We cannot possibly afford that thing you are asking for" is a lot less alienating to voters than "it's either that thing you are asking for, or this thing my donors have demanded."
- 11mo ago
- zelphirkalt 11mo agoThey'll only realize what they lost, when they lost it. When their influence all over the world crumbles away, because of disrespectful treatment of other nations, and negligence in maintaining good relations. The bad awakening comes, when most of the good relations are gone, and the people feel consequences domestically.
- pfdietz 11mo agoThis sounds like vanity again. Oh noez, others think less of me.
- lloda 11mo agoThe US military budget hasn't been reduced and the adventurism is going on as strong as ever, so that doesn't seem to be the reason.