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Economic costs of war

watson.brown.edu

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Re: Economic costs of war

#21

Post by Grakel »

Retric wrote: post #15
Grakel wrote: post #2

There 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.

The simplest way to look at it is the national debt would be 22.6T instead of 28.6T. That’s one option where nothing changes except war or no wars. Many people say national debt has zero impacts but eventually nobody is going to be lending the US money if we don’t pay our debt, which one way or another leads to a world of hurt. However, to get that debt we needed to borrowing money from someone and agree to pay them…

We're never going to pay it, and no we couldn't have gotten universal healthcare. If they had the votes, they would have done both, regardless of cost. They don't have the votes for universal healthcare.

Re: Economic costs of war

#25

Post by oh_sigh »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #11

But we can’t afford universal healthcare. Edit: Y’all, every other OECD country doesn’t have the healthcare challenges the US has, and they also don’t light trillions of $fiat on fire waging useless wars. You should care how tax dollars are spent.

Not with the current system. $6.4T over 20 years = $340B/yr. The US spends 2x that per year just for medicare, which only covers approximately 20% of the population.

Re: Economic costs of war

#26

Post by Grakel »

koolba wrote: post #8
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sadly it would be a big problem if we went 20 years without a war, the military would be greatly deteriorated.

Re: Economic costs of war

#28

Post by Johnny555 »

koolba wrote: post #8
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

The average term of enlistment in the USA military is 15 years, 11 years for officers. So that experience gets lost quickly unless we keep getting embroiled in new wars.

Re: Economic costs of war

#29

Post by Grakel »

Gravey wrote: post #7
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But much of the money went to American businesses and jobs. The stuff itself can easily be replaced.

Re: Economic costs of war

#30

Post by Retric »

Grakel wrote: post #21
Retric wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simplest way to look at it is the national debt would be 22.6T instead of 28.6T. That’s one option where nothing changes except war or no wars. Many people say national debt has zero impacts but eventually nobody is going to be lending the US money if we don’t pay our debt, which one way or another leads to a world of hurt. However, to get that debt we needed to borrowing money from someone and agree to pay them…

We're never going to pay it, and no we couldn't have gotten universal healthcare. If they had the votes, they would have done both, regardless of cost. They don't have the votes for universal healthcare.

Running out of people willing to lend us money is the ultimate risk. The more we borrow the sooner that happens.
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