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Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

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Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#111

Post by [deleted] »

skh wrote: post #60
mikeash wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deal with Ukraine only requires us to defend them against nuclear attacks, and even then, the only requirement is to seek action in the UN. For conventional attacks, our only obligation is not to attack ourselves. This is such a common misconception. I wonder where it came from. The Budapest Memorandum is short and understandable. Is this just a game of telephone gone badly wrong, or is there propaganda at work?

Thanks for the correction. I suppose propaganda is at play in the misconception. Also it wouldn’t make sense for Ukraine to not want a better security guarantee given the history between Russia and Ukraine.

[deleted]

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#112

Post by simplecomplex »

beamatronic wrote: post #57
snow_mac wrote: post #42

This is so true. I went to Shanghai about 3 summers ago right when Denver was finishing up the "A Line" train from Downtown to the Airport. This project cost over a billion dollars and the damn thing can't run smoothly or stay operational. Tons of issues. Meanwhile we took the Maglev train from the Pudong Airport to the Shanghai City Center. The Maglev cost $1.2 billion dollars [1]. The train can travel up to 270 MPH…

We could have that too if our government had unchecked eminent domain power. Is that what we want? Seems to be one or the other.

Having a political party that wasn’t intent on destroying the government itself would be a start.

A president that isn’t a man child too.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#113

Post by ordinaryradical »

beamatronic wrote: post #57
snow_mac wrote: post #42

This is so true. I went to Shanghai about 3 summers ago right when Denver was finishing up the "A Line" train from Downtown to the Airport. This project cost over a billion dollars and the damn thing can't run smoothly or stay operational. Tons of issues. Meanwhile we took the Maglev train from the Pudong Airport to the Shanghai City Center. The Maglev cost $1.2 billion dollars [1]. The train can travel up to 270 MPH…

We could have that too if our government had unchecked eminent domain power. Is that what we want? Seems to be one or the other.

It seems like everyone forgets this when these kind of stories appear. Soft authoritarianism looks impressive in these kind of results, but its means are often ugly if not anathema to Western values.

Hitler built the autobahn, a road system that is still enviable to this day—doesn't mean we want the system of governance that guided this project into being.

This isn't a necessary dichotomy either, you can invest in infrastructure without being authoritarian. But I think we celebrate China forgetting how some of these projects are greased through the system and carried out.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#114

Post by danzig13 »

thisisit wrote: post #95

Whenever people talk about failures of government to build infrastructure I can't help but look back at the brilliant Wired documentary on Shenzhen. It depicts a boundary line between the city and urban village. And government had the power to relocate 150k in a snap to get the development going [1] How many countries can actually do that? Sure, couple of hundreds of people can be moved but 100k people, I am sure tha…

That scale would likely not be necessary in the U.S. Shenzen has a 50% larger population than New York and is like the 7-10th largest city in China.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#115

Post by Mizza »

mcculley wrote: post #70
beamatronic wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could have that too if our government had unchecked eminent domain power. Is that what we want? Seems to be one or the other.

I am not convinced that lack of unchecked eminent domain power is the only thing keeping the United States from building modern infrastructure.

I've been on the train that OP is talking about.

It's only possible because they built it through the slums, which are essentially in medieval conditions. The train terminates in the region where the people had enough political/actual capital to object to it going through their neighborhood.

But it is very, very fast.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#116

Post by achou »

Folks, realize that US military spending:

- backstops the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, which allows the US to have a large deficit with low risk to its economic system, which basically means the US can ship paper to other countries and they will send real stuff back to us in return. Let's not kid ourselves, this has a lot to do with the US' large military and financial advantage.

- makes opportunistic authoritarian governments around the world think thrice before invading their neighbors. Consider what it would be like if the charts here were moving up and to the right instead of flat: https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace

- ensures the relative safety and efficiency of international shipping routes and underpins global commerce

- provides funding for basic research has lead to many innovations. DARPA, anyone?

- keeps weapons expertise and manufacturing capacity within US borders, which creates US jobs and reduces the capability of other governments to develop competitive arms independently, which keeps them within the sphere of US influence and protection. Other countries look at our military budget and think "we could never compete, let's just buy their weapons, and make nice with the US". Think of what the alternative would look like.

We can debate the morality of the specific wars that the US has gotten entangled in. We can debate the relative size of the military budget, to some degree. But it would be foolhardly to ignore the upsides to military spending altogether.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#117

Post by Redoubts »

beamatronic wrote: post #57
snow_mac wrote: post #42

This is so true. I went to Shanghai about 3 summers ago right when Denver was finishing up the "A Line" train from Downtown to the Airport. This project cost over a billion dollars and the damn thing can't run smoothly or stay operational. Tons of issues. Meanwhile we took the Maglev train from the Pudong Airport to the Shanghai City Center. The Maglev cost $1.2 billion dollars [1]. The train can travel up to 270 MPH…

We could have that too if our government had unchecked eminent domain power. Is that what we want? Seems to be one or the other.

Given how far California has swung in the other direction; yes, yes I do.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#118

Post by aphextron »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98
aphextron wrote: post #71

>He said the U.S. has wasted over $14 trillion in fighting wars over the past 30 years rather than investing in infrastructure at home. The US spent $14 trillion upholding a world order of free trade and international maritime law which directly benefited China and was responsible for its own export based growth over the last 30 years. We're seeing that global order realign now, with things like Brexit and Trump, but…

> US spent $14 trillion upholding a world order of free trade and international maritime law I am a huge supporter of the U.S. Navy's freedom of navigation duties. It's expensive, and it's worth it. But carpet bombing Baghdad does nothing for our trade routes.

>I am a huge supporter of the U.S. Navy's freedom of navigation duties. It's expensive, and it's worth it. But carpet bombing Baghdad does nothing for our trade routes.

Every reasonable person thinks Iraq was a mistake in hindsight. Of course it was. But that does not negate the other 85% of all US defense spending which has been a shield against tyranny for the vast majority of humanity. Our support of NATO is the only reason eastern Europe is still independent. Our defense of South Korea is the only reason Seoul still exists. Yes there have been mistakes made with having this level of intervention in the world. But to give in to this kind of whataboutism rhetoric that sees the US as an evil empire, in a world full of Russias and Chinas, is just insanity.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#119

Post by cs702 »

It would be great if the US were to spend more to get better communication, transportation, and education infrastructure across the country... but doing so would require that politicians be willing to prioritize those expenditures over many others, and that they be willing to raise taxes significantly on large corporations and the wealthiest segments of the population. Those things seem unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#120

Post by syntaxing »

I really enjoyed this post from Reddit[1] that talks about the reasons behind such a large military spending. I personally didn't like how we increased the DOD budget this past fiscal year but this post really puts it in a different perspective.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/71bq8h/cmv_th...

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