Economic costs of war
watson.brown.edu
Economic costs of war
1–10 of 618 posts
Re: Economic costs of war
#2There isn't an "opportunity cost" as the article discusses, there's no evidence that Congress would have spent that money on something else. It doesn't sit in an account and then they allocate it, they make it up on paper and then try (and fail) to cover it later.
Re: Economic costs of war
#3There isn't an "opportunity cost" as the article discusses, there's no evidence that Congress would have spent that money on something else. It doesn't sit in an account and then they allocate it, they make it up on paper and then try (and fail) to cover it later.
Ignore money. Think in terms of stuff. Metal that gets put into Humvees can't be put into something else. We threw away an insane amount of stuff.
And think in terms of people. People that spend a year as soldiers in Afghanistan can't spend that year doing something else. We threw an insane amount of people-time, and a tragically insane amount of people.
There is an opportunity cost in terms of both stuff and people. We can print money, but we can't print stuff or people.
Re: Economic costs of war
#4There isn't an "opportunity cost" as the article discusses, there's no evidence that Congress would have spent that money on something else. It doesn't sit in an account and then they allocate it, they make it up on paper and then try (and fail) to cover it later.
Ignore money. Think in terms of stuff. Metal that gets put into Humvees can't be put into something else. We threw away an insane amount of stuff. And think in terms of people. People that spend a year as soldiers in Afghanistan can't spend that year doing something else. We threw an insane amount of people-time, and a tragically insane amount of people. There is an opportunity cost in terms of both stuff and people.…
[deleted]
Re: Economic costs of war
#5Deaths 9/11 2,996
Deaths Covid-19 USA 621,000
207x
Lack of understanding of large numbers is a flaw in the human mind we have to figure out how to fix.
Re: Economic costs of war
#6Approximately $20,000 per person. $1000 a year would have made a nice universal basic income for the last 20 years.
Re: Economic costs of war
#7There isn't an "opportunity cost" as the article discusses, there's no evidence that Congress would have spent that money on something else. It doesn't sit in an account and then they allocate it, they make it up on paper and then try (and fail) to cover it later.
Ignore money. Think in terms of stuff. Metal that gets put into Humvees can't be put into something else. We threw away an insane amount of stuff. And think in terms of people. People that spend a year as soldiers in Afghanistan can't spend that year doing something else. We threw an insane amount of people-time, and a tragically insane amount of people. There is an opportunity cost in terms of both stuff and people.…
> Think in terms of stuff. Metal that gets put into Humvees can't be put into something else. We threw away an insane amount of stuff.
Much of that stuff has actually found itself in the hands of those it was made to fight against. This is significantly worse than throwing it away in my opinion.
Re: Economic costs of war
#8There isn't an "opportunity cost" as the article discusses, there's no evidence that Congress would have spent that money on something else. It doesn't sit in an account and then they allocate it, they make it up on paper and then try (and fail) to cover it later.
Ignore money. Think in terms of stuff. Metal that gets put into Humvees can't be put into something else. We threw away an insane amount of stuff. And think in terms of people. People that spend a year as soldiers in Afghanistan can't spend that year doing something else. We threw an insane amount of people-time, and a tragically insane amount of people. There is an opportunity cost in terms of both stuff and people.…
> People that spend a year as soldiers in Afghanistan can't spend that year doing something else.
The greatest asset the US has built up over the past twenty or so years fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is a reserve of soldiers with real world military experience. I’m not saying it justifies the cost. Far from it. But it’s not a complete wash from a mid term strategic analysis.
Re: Economic costs of war
#9Deaths 9/11 2,996 Deaths Covid-19 USA 621,000 207x Lack of understanding of large numbers is a flaw in the human mind we have to figure out how to fix.
Ah yes, but Haliburton couldn't spend money on a 'war against mask wearing', so they were the true victims here.
/s, of course.
It's been obvious early on that the whole motive for our ratfucking of the middle east had nothing to do with the "WMDs" nor 9/11... lest we would have not gone under false pretenses, actually had gone after the country who financed the ones who flew the planes, nor remained as long as we had after Bin Laden was found. Instead we spent more money than had ever been spent before on one thing in our country's history... but on another country.
That money went somewhere.
Defense contractors.
Meanwhile, infrastructure all across the US is derelict.
Case in point, 47,000+ bridges in the US are now considered 'structurally deficient.'
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/05/710364158/report-finds-more-t...
Bin Laden himself said what his end goal was.
> "We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy," bin Laden said in a taped statement. Only the smallest sign of al-Qaida would "make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations."
The article this quote was pulled from is from 2011. So, for at LEAST TEN YEARS, we knew the explicit goal was to prolong an unwinnable war in order to bleed the country dry.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/05/the-cos...
Why couldn't these defense contractors be paid to bring things up to snuff here instead of pissing it away on a 'war against terror' that we had no hope to win?
Bin Laden got what he wanted in the end.
Re: Economic costs of war
#10There isn't an "opportunity cost" as the article discusses, there's no evidence that Congress would have spent that money on something else. It doesn't sit in an account and then they allocate it, they make it up on paper and then try (and fail) to cover it later.
Ignore money. Think in terms of stuff. Metal that gets put into Humvees can't be put into something else. We threw away an insane amount of stuff. And think in terms of people. People that spend a year as soldiers in Afghanistan can't spend that year doing something else. We threw an insane amount of people-time, and a tragically insane amount of people. There is an opportunity cost in terms of both stuff and people.…
Blood, toil, tears, and sweat
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood,_toil,_tears_and_sweat