4 ms·

You aren't quite hitting the nail on the head. It's not about funneling money into the economy, it's about manipulating the systems of governance to make theft

by wahsd 12y ago

You aren't quite hitting the nail on the head. It's not about funneling money into the economy, it's about manipulating the systems of governance to make theft of public resources and money tenable. It's the same reason that we have predictable "unpredictable" "bubbles" in the economy and it is why we start wards who's sole purpose is justification to steal public money for private gains. In many ways, there is even a disincentive to winning a war or military conflict at all. Imagine if we had responded to the 9/11 attacks in a smart manner; it would have cost maybe upper double digit millions of dollars to apprehend or kill OBL, but going into Afghanistan like buffoon cost us no less than $1,000,000,000,000.00 in direct expenditures and probably about another trillion in opportunity cost and indirect costs. THAT's the name of the game. Stealing public money to enrich private individuals. As long as there is an incentive to manipulate America into blowing our money and efforts on military boondoggles, we will do exactly that.

Sven7 12y ago
So whats the solution?
- innguest 12y ago
  The solution to collectivism is individualism.
- wahsd 12y ago
  It's got to lie in creating consequences and re-associating incentives. As long as war makes people rich, it will be perpetuated and we will squander money that could have led us to far better outcomes. With wealth and income disparity becoming so hugely imbalanced, I expect things to only get worse though. Wealth and income disparity only exasperates the motivation to manipulating the system to thrust us into war and military spending, it's a positive feedback loop. Unfortunately, positive feedback loops are rarely, without deliberate action, halted prior to leading to disaster.
bduerst 12y ago
Could you elaborate on why it's theft? Your comment didn't really explain it other than saying the Afghanistan war could have been cheaper.
- myth_buster 12y ago
  > we start wars who's sole purpose is justification to steal public money for private gains. I think OPs argument is that this whole thing is a sleight of hand.
- noelwelsh 12y ago
  Were does the US military budget money get spent? A small portion goes on wages, but every soldier needs equipment, food, and requires infrastructure. This is mostly provided by private companies. "Defence" companies are in the top lobbyists by expenditure, at about $200M each per year. They lobby hard to get the lucrative contracts to provide all the above and more (e.g. the F-35 program). Who pays for all this? The government of course. And where does the government get its money? The tax payers. I.e. the public. So the reasoning goes that the industrial military complex exists to transfer money from the public, via the government, to private companies.
  - bduerst 12y ago
    So basically rent-seeking by the defense industry?
  - cgearhart 12y ago
    See the table on page one of chapter 5 (page 51 in the pdf) of http://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy2015/fy2015_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf http://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudge... Actual expenses in 2012 show that military pay and benefits accounts for 34.6% of the DoD budget, with total pay and benefits (including civilian) accounting for 47.8%. According to a CBO report I read in 2010, the growth in personnel costs for the military was one of the biggest concerns for long term budget planning. The vast majority of the military servicemen costs are due to the cost of providing healthcare, because the military isn't exempt or immune to the cost growth experienced in that sector. As an additional aside, expected outlays for the post-9/11 GI bill are much higher than initial estimates because the cost of college has grown so much and the benefits are transferrable.
alecco 12y ago
Mostly, yes. But there's part of it that goes back to the economy. Think the Internet, GPS, early Silicon Valley and early Texas tech hubs. Of course, that was privatized and state sponsored research turned into cash cows for the private sector. Even some big names like Google and Facebook had seed money from state-related groups.

by wahsd 12y ago

Sven7 12y ago

So whats the solution?

innguest 12y ago
The solution to collectivism is individualism.
wahsd 12y ago
It's got to lie in creating consequences and re-associating incentives. As long as war makes people rich, it will be perpetuated and we will squander money that could have led us to far better outcomes. With wealth and income disparity becoming so hugely imbalanced, I expect things to only get worse though. Wealth and income disparity only exasperates the motivation to manipulating the system to thrust us into war and military spending, it's a positive feedback loop. Unfortunately, positive feedback loops are rarely, without deliberate action, halted prior to leading to disaster.

bduerst 12y ago

Could you elaborate on why it's theft? Your comment didn't really explain it other than saying the Afghanistan war could have been cheaper.

myth_buster 12y ago
> we start wars who's sole purpose is justification to steal public money for private gains. I think OPs argument is that this whole thing is a sleight of hand.
noelwelsh 12y ago
Were does the US military budget money get spent? A small portion goes on wages, but every soldier needs equipment, food, and requires infrastructure. This is mostly provided by private companies. "Defence" companies are in the top lobbyists by expenditure, at about $200M each per year. They lobby hard to get the lucrative contracts to provide all the above and more (e.g. the F-35 program). Who pays for all this? The government of course. And where does the government get its money? The tax payers. I.e. the public. So the reasoning goes that the industrial military complex exists to transfer money from the public, via the government, to private companies.
- bduerst 12y ago
  So basically rent-seeking by the defense industry?
- cgearhart 12y ago
  See the table on page one of chapter 5 (page 51 in the pdf) of http://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy2015/fy2015_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf http://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudge... Actual expenses in 2012 show that military pay and benefits accounts for 34.6% of the DoD budget, with total pay and benefits (including civilian) accounting for 47.8%. According to a CBO report I read in 2010, the growth in personnel costs for the military was one of the biggest concerns for long term budget planning. The vast majority of the military servicemen costs are due to the cost of providing healthcare, because the military isn't exempt or immune to the cost growth experienced in that sector. As an additional aside, expected outlays for the post-9/11 GI bill are much higher than initial estimates because the cost of college has grown so much and the benefits are transferrable.

alecco 12y ago

Mostly, yes. But there's part of it that goes back to the economy. Think the Internet, GPS, early Silicon Valley and early Texas tech hubs. Of course, that was privatized and state sponsored research turned into cash cows for the private sector. Even some big names like Google and Facebook had seed money from state-related groups.