Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 207 posts

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

#191

Post by cannonedhamster »

seandoe wrote: post #130
baby wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you mean waiters in the US?

Waiters and service industry people have done pretty well in every state I've lived in... minimum wage plus tips would equate to $20-$30/hr or more. But I could see it being tougher in states where the minimum wage is far less for service industry jobs.

Waiters and some service industries where tips are expected are not paid standard minimum wage typically. They are paid a separate, lower minimum wage which essentially pays the tax and are taxed on income expected even if they don't receive 15% tip.

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

#192

Post by cannonedhamster »

peisistratos wrote: post #154
achou wrote: post #116

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 a…

> US military spending...provides funding for basic research Someone has to really have drank the kool-aid to even comprehend that statement, never mind believe it. What does military spending have to do with basic research? If what you mean is that the US has a convoluted, wasteful system where workers work, get taxed, the money is sent to the Pentagon, and physicists at universities have to write out fantasy-laden…

Japan has a large portion of their military spending covered by the United States. It's not a fair comparison. You would need to compare another global superpower such as USSR, Great Britain before the empire waned, Spain, etc. Most of the world's advances have been funded by military resources or wealthy private individuals. I wish it wasn't true because I personally think we'd be better served on cancer research than almost any research into better bombs, soldier exoskeletons, jet packs, etc.

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

#194

Post by snow_mac »

77pt77 wrote: post #73
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…

> Meanwhile we took the Maglev train from the Pudong Airport to the Shanghai City Center This has been operational since 2002/2004 so about 15 years ago.

precisely. The Denver train was brand new and went 1/6 the speed as a 15 year old train!

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

#195

Post by Haga »

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.

Like in Europe?

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

#196

Post by CathayRe »

1. Missing 2017 in the title.

2. Jack Ma is a Member of the CCP. US spending less on military has a direct benefits to China.

3. US infrastructure sucks. To the point it may be barely better than many developing countries. But it has very little, or if anything to do with billions invested in DOD.

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

#197

Post by chillacy »

I read somewhere that communist countries tend to invest more in infrastructure: communication and mass transit that bring people together and allow information to flow faster, since decision making is centralized. Of course China is no longer a planned economy and this applied more to the 20th century than now.

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

#198

Post by mythrwy »

donaldknuth123 wrote: post #53
mythrwy wrote: post #26

Jack Ma is exactly right. We put a huge pile of money on the ground and lit it on fire killing a bunch of people in the process. Maybe someone smarter than me can explain how this was a good idea but I just don't get it.

Good idea for whom is what you should be asking. That money wasn't burned, it was sent to the bank accounts of major stockholders in Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Halliburton etc... Lets be very clear, there are people who benefited and still benefit greatly from US Military spending.

As there are people who benefit from bank robbery. After all, the money is still around to be spent by the bank robbers.

But it's still theft from the system and is a transfer of purchasing power from those who produce to those who do not. Or in case of military contractors, from those who produce to those who destroy. Professionally.

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

#199

Post by barrow-rider »

cannonedhamster wrote: post #191
seandoe wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waiters and service industry people have done pretty well in every state I've lived in... minimum wage plus tips would equate to $20-$30/hr or more. But I could see it being tougher in states where the minimum wage is far less for service industry jobs.

Waiters and some service industries where tips are expected are not paid standard minimum wage typically. They are paid a separate, lower minimum wage which essentially pays the tax and are taxed on income expected even if they don't receive 15% tip.

In VA that was $2.13/hr + tips, with tips to be declared at the end of the shift. Obviously, you could declare lower tips than what you made, but if the customers paid by credit cards then you could get nailed if/when you got audited; cash was a different story.

If your hours + declared tips were less than minimum wage then they had to pay you minimum wage. That only happened at one large chain I worked at but not at the local, one-off places. Tips were large enough on weekends that it didn't matter much, or at least not enough to risk your job complaining.

The locally run bars I worked at didn't care about tip ratios, but the corporate chains expected you to average 18% tips and would penalize you if you were pulling less than 13% for several weeks -- cuz it either meant you were absolutely terrible at your job, or else you were lying.

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

#200

Post by barrow-rider »

lamarpye wrote: post #174
m_fayer wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we weren't maintaining safe global shipping and other elements of global stability on the sly and with a self-serving twist, maybe the vacuum would have caused the global community to come together to achieve the same ends, in a more transparent and less lopsided and brutal (one can only hope) way.

Maybe and Hope are the usually the best plans.

The planning equivalent of Thoughts and Prayers.

To speak to the parent's points -- WW1 happened and the League of Nations failed to prevent an even worse conflagration.

Say what you will about US v USSR, or the post-Cold War US hegemony, there has been no WWIII.

Post reply on HN