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Economic costs of war

watson.brown.edu

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Re: Economic costs of war

#71

Post by slacktide »

OJFord wrote: post #43
throwthere wrote: post #18

This title is completely wrong. The article estimates the US has accumulated around $2 trillion in war debt as of 2020. It goes on to estimate interest payments will equal $2 trillion by 2030 and $6.4 trillion by 2050.

If you buy a house with a mortgage, I think it's reasonable to say you 'spent' the booked value.

It's really not. If you buy a house with a mortgage, and later sell the house before the note is due, you will not owe the full amount of the accrued interest. Unfortunately the resale value of a secondhand war is very low.

Re: Economic costs of war

#72

Post by [deleted] »

mulmen wrote: post #61
Retric wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You mean the more we don’t pay back? Carrying debt generally increases credit rating.

[deleted]

Re: Economic costs of war

#73

Post by lucb1e »

brokencode wrote: post #53
lucb1e wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that wages are quite inflated in the USA and $1000/year is not a livable income (i.e. sufficient for cheap housing, cheap food, water, electricity, basic appliances like a fridge and washing machine, heating, and pretty much nothing else) even in Europe where I'm from. Or am I missing the point of a UBI?

$1000 per person is a big deal, and would cover rent or mortgage costs for most of the people I know. Though honestly, a lot my family members would squander it on things like new cars or electronics instead of paying off debt or investing for retirement..

GP was talking per year, not per month. This would be $83/month. Of course $1000 per month after taxes is a livable income (in Europe at least, I don't know what prices are like in the USA provided you're willing to move to a non-peak-price area) and does not merely cover housing, even if it's borderline poverty in richer countries with higher prices.

Re: Economic costs of war

#75

Post by epicureanideal »

Perhaps they should've spent this much on medical research instead. For the same money perhaps we could save a few million people dying of various diseases or cancer. It would take a whole lot of terrorist events to counter the benefits of significant R&D funding for medicine (or maybe a lot of other things).

Re: Economic costs of war

#76

Post by cyber_kinetist »

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.

Given how the army was incompetent in really doing anything from looking at released documents (https://twitter.com/richardhanania/status/120416649507430400...), I think the experience in Iraq and Afghanistan would have actually deteriorated the quality and morale of the army.

Re: Economic costs of war

#77

Post by lmilcin »

nabla9 wrote: post #63
lmilcin wrote: post #19

Nah... probably large portion of this was paid to US corporations and citizens. Spending on the level of government is counterintuitive. If you are government you hand out money but it gets back to you. Unfortunately, interest on that debt is real and is owed to other countries.

> Unfortunately, interest on that debt is real and is owed to other countries. Most of that debt is internal. Highlights from the March 2021 report * Federal Reserve and government: $10.81 trillion (December 2020) * Foreign: $7.07 trillion (in September 2020, Japan owned $1.28 trillion and China owned $1.06 trillion of U.S. debt, which is more than a third of foreign holdings) * Mutual funds: $3.5 trillion * Other ho…

That's 7 trillion dollars owed to other countries (about 1/3rd of all debt, by the looks of it). Nothing to sneeze at.

Re: Economic costs of war

#78

Post by OJFord »

slacktide wrote: post #71
OJFord wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you buy a house with a mortgage, I think it's reasonable to say you 'spent' the booked value.

It's really not. If you buy a house with a mortgage, and later sell the house before the note is due, you will not owe the full amount of the accrued interest. Unfortunately the resale value of a secondhand war is very low.

Of course you do, you're just typically rolling it into another mortgage on the next place.

Anyway I didn't say and didn't mean it's the only valid interpretation of 'spent', just that it is one.

Re: Economic costs of war

#79

Post by dane-pgp »

jaggederest wrote: post #6

Approximately $20,000 per person. $1000 a year would have made a nice universal basic income for the last 20 years.

For comparison, here is an article about a couple managing to spend only $900 per year each on food:

https://www.businessinsider.com/cheap-grocery-shopping-list-...

Re: Economic costs of war

#80

Post by Retric »

mulmen wrote: post #61
Retric wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You mean the more we don’t pay back? Carrying debt generally increases credit rating.

Only up to a point, try borrowing say 50 million dollars while making 50k. Before lending money people look at your existing debt load to determine if your likely to pay it back. The same thing happens to countries, though more smoothly as they first require higher interest rates.
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