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Economic costs of war

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Re: Economic costs of war

#151

Post by epistasis »

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.

I don't think there's any clause in US bonds that lets the US pay back the debt to avoid future coupon payments, like there is with a mortgage.

However, since there's an open market for t bills, the treasury could buy back a certain number of bonds that people are willing to sell.

However it's not quite the same. The only reason that problem don't calculate the cost of the mortgage over time is that they are more concerned with asset values, not because it's better accounting.

Re: Economic costs of war

#152

Post by SubiculumCode »

xyst wrote: post #114

Given the current state of Afghanistan, the return on investment is definitely not worth it. Our grandchildren will be paying for this debt. This is $2T that could have went towards this country’s dismal healthcare system, funding social security, public education, and miscellaneous social programs. Instead it has went directly to the DoD companies and private military contracting companies. $2T was literally stolen…

A debt denominated in a fiat currency AND we might have spent 2T on the wards, but the full accounting has to include the full cost benefits of those expenditures, some of which could have been positive (in terms of financials).

Re: Economic costs of war

#153

Post by flowerbeater »

randyrand wrote: post #130
flowerbeater wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 37% and 13.3% are on marginal income, as I'm sure you know. The effective tax rate is much lower. California and some other states also have required disability insurance that is taken out with the state income tax. It's 1% in CA. And I would count Social Security and Medicare too, equally 7.65%. But the SS part has a cap so the percentage goes down the more you make. All put together, someone making $250K pays a…

How much is also taxed on the employer payroll side?

The employer pays the same social security and medicare taxes as the employee and also has a cap on the social security part, plus in some cases an unemployment tax.

If you want to include employer taxes, to calculate if the employer wants to pay you 250K how much you would get, then it's be about 42%. At 100K, it'd be about 38% since you don't reach the SS cap.

Of course, there's a couple other tricks in there, like the government can embed some tax into the healthcare costs which are required for employers to buy, but then there's also deductions that are hard to turn into a percentage like this.

Re: Economic costs of war

#154

Post by sneak »

onelastjob wrote: post #104
dlp211 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except we don't just print money and give it away. The money is borrowed (backed by some asset), and this distinction matters. IOW, the money that gets printed is (generally) non-inflationary. Stop using what you learned in your Econ 1XX level courses to try and reason about government spending and money operations, especially, US government spending and money operations. What you learned is not applicable.

Seems like inflation is skyrocketing to me. Specifically asset inflation. Housing prices, stocks, bitcoin, etc. Basically dollar becoming worth less against these assets thanks to QE.

Dollars being worth less is obviously true. The well-defined link to this being a result of QE is less clear.

I keep hearing that it's supply shortages due to covid and wage increases due to unemployment aid.

Who knows if that is true, either.

Re: Economic costs of war

#156

Post by ineedasername »

baybal2 wrote: post #109
s5300 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I swear dude. I cannot understand just why it is that the average person seems to be so incapable at understanding statistics and large numbers. It's mind boggling. Ever since my freshman engineering stats class, it's like everywhere I look at where there's stupid bullshit happening, a large reason as to why the stupid bullshit is happening is because people have zero understanding of statistics and large numbers. It…

I can say so for politics. Average Americans don't understand American politics. To me, the transition from Bush to Obama was paradoxal. One thing, Obama marketed himself as a change man, as well pretty much everybody. It's very generic. On the other side, his true colours weren't even hidden, his electoral programme told very candidly about his national security views, views on civil rights, and etc for which he got…

My impression was that Obama wanted to be more progressive-- domestically if not internationally. But he got derailed spending 2 years of a supermajority on a single issue (healthcare) partly because more centrist democrats objected to the more progressive ideas, and partly due to special interests. After the midterms he had little chance at passing more progressive policies, leaving a fairly centrist foreign policy agenda.

Re: Economic costs of war

#157

Post by ClumsyPilot »

ineedasername wrote: post #141
runawaybottle wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some related numbers for just Afghanistan: American service members killed in Afghanistan through April: 2,448. U.S. contractors: 3,846. Afghan national military and police: 66,000. Other allied service members, including from other NATO member states: 1,144. Afghan civilians: 47,245. Taliban and other opposition fighters: 51,191. Aid workers: 444. Journalists: 72. https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-business-afgh…

Regarding perpetual war, I'm not sure that was inevitable. Without massive corruption, incompetent leadership, and Russia providing weapons to the Taliban things might not have been so bleak.

Without massuve corruption life in Russia would not be bleak.

Re: Economic costs of war

#158

Post by ClumsyPilot »

nostrademons wrote: post #48
teawrecks wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assume it will never be fixed. What's another solution?

Create a system where ignorance of the laws of large numbers means that you go bankrupt and have to work for someone else, thus putting the number-crunchers in charge. This is basically modern capitalism. It works, as a way of managing large numbers. Most people hate it, though, because it has a tendency of reducing humans to numbers.

"of reducing humans to numbers."

Or making them slaves, exploiting children, etc. If the laws allow such

Re: Economic costs of war

#159

Post by Spooky23 »

lucb1e wrote: post #68
thechao wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discretionary income for a lot of families is — functionally — zero. The result is that any sort of financial issue becomes a devastating (possibly lifelong) burden. Most of these issues are single-occurrence and probably fall in the 200–500$ range. A 1000$ a year UBI would be life-changing for them. And by "them" I mean, like, 50% of the country. I'm in Texas, and the maximum amount of cash assistance possible — mar…

> the maximum amount of cash assistance possible — married parents, multiple kids, demonstrated need, is something like 83$ a month; I think, once? Huh, but, then you basically die. You can't live with kids on $83 monthly, let alone one-time. Surely there's something else if you don't have a job?

That’s just cash benefits. Men and married couples by design don’t get most benefits.

Most safety net assistance isn’t in cash. There’s a stigma associated with the cash handouts — people typically seek food, health and rent assistance.

Re: Economic costs of war

#160

Post by sgregnt »

el_jay wrote: post #118

To those here riffing on the theme of “this misrepresents the volume and beneficiaries of the transactions involved” - you’re not wrong. Accurate representation of public info like this is a top organisational problem for our species at the moment. But I do think you miss the point, so aptly put by Mr Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a thef…

I feel this is not as simple as this. It's a nice appeal but very removed from reality.

If you didn't have strong enough army to protect you, then you might loose, schools hospitals and what not... Unfortunatly, in a real world a war is not a maybe question but a when question. The question is what amount of defense expenditure is adequate? And that a political question, with no right or wrong answers that for the voters to decide.

I hope humanity lives in peace some day and there will be no more need for armies but that is a distant future. Until then, you do need an armed force to protect all the good things the free society has created, how much force you need vs civilian infra? An open question...

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