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Economic costs of war

watson.brown.edu

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Re: Economic costs of war

#171

Post by nerdponx »

lucb1e wrote: post #134
jandrewrogers wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic living expenses consume the entire income of ~15% of US households, per government and Federal Reserve studies. That's around 20 million households. For these people, an extra $1000 is a lot of money. $1000/year may not be UBI in a traditional sense but it also isn't nothing. In many parts of the US that is more than the average monthly rent for an apartment.

> more than the average monthly rent for an apartment Sure so you get, in a good case, 3 months' rent out of it and then you still need to eat. Yes it helps, yes it would be great in addition to other social benefits, but a UBI it is not unless I have a wrong impression of what a UBI is supposed to be.

3 months' rent can be the difference between spiraling into financial ruin and not, or between becoming homeless and not.

Re: Economic costs of war

#172

Post by _moof »

sgregnt wrote: post #160
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 vo…

You might want to look at this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_militar...

Re: Economic costs of war

#173

Post by Dylan16807 »

neither_color wrote: post #166
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #5

Deaths 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.

apples 2,996 oranges 621,000 I dont dispute your numbers at all...I just don't understand your point. They're just such vastly different situations managed by different sets of people for different reasons. The "war on terror" was excessive and over budget, but not 100% uncalled for. There WERE follow up terror attacks that happened(london bombing 2005, madrid bombing 2004, paris bataclan attack, etc) and there were…

Anti-terror efforts were called for. But there wasn't much overlap between what was called for and what we actually did.

Re: Economic costs of war

#174

Post by _RPL5_ »

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…

"This doesn’t even include the costs... "

that the locals paid.

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/

I am sure Brown exaggerates the number of people killed and displaced, but even a conservative estimate is probably a pretty large number.

Re: Economic costs of war

#175

Post by ivalm »

sgregnt wrote: post #160
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 vo…

We spend more on the military than the next few biggest spenders combined.

Re: Economic costs of war

#176

Post by epistasis »

sgregnt wrote: post #160
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 vo…

> If you didn't have strong enough army to protect you, then you might loose, schools hospitals and what not...

Who the hell is going to attack us before we can mount a response?! We lost a mere 3000 people and launched into 20 years of madness and insanity, all because we were unwilling to blame a president and a political party who was asleep at the wheel, who didn't even bother to pay attention to the terrorist attacks just a few years earlier. And then we let them overreact and waste how many more lives, for nothing? For absolute nothing?

I'm sorry, but your comment makes me absolute furious. It's so completely thoughtless and ignorant and exists only to service those who get wealthy off the blood of our soldiers.

We have lost more than a half million Americans to a pandemic that--given our prior leadership in the area--shouldn't have taken more than a few thousands, where the hell is our response to stop that tragedy again?

We need to cut the military to a tiny time fraction of its current level, almost nothing. Certainly no more than any other country. Redirect allll that spending into something productive.

Re: Economic costs of war

#177

Post by neither_color »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #173
neither_color wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

apples 2,996 oranges 621,000 I dont dispute your numbers at all...I just don't understand your point. They're just such vastly different situations managed by different sets of people for different reasons. The "war on terror" was excessive and over budget, but not 100% uncalled for. There WERE follow up terror attacks that happened(london bombing 2005, madrid bombing 2004, paris bataclan attack, etc) and there were…

Anti-terror efforts were called for. But there wasn't much overlap between what was called for and what we actually did.

What does that have to do with covid though? Im not here to justify the war on terror Im just wondering what the basis of comparison is. Covid has affected nearly 100% of the population in almost every country either directly and indirectly, either by getting sick or not being allowed to work or shop or show their face in public. The reach of covid response has gone far beyond having to take our shoes off in airports. Is OP upset that the nobody has calculated whether it has cost trillions yet?

Re: Economic costs of war

#178

Post by handedness »

SteveNuts wrote: post #169
sgregnt wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vo…

What you say is true, but I think people get pissed off when comparing US Military spending vs... basically the entirety of the world https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison This is so far beyond overkill it's sickening.

It's not (just) about overkill. Nobody else underwrites global free trade, and that's incredibly expensive:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23434640

Re: Economic costs of war

#179

Post by redandblack »

NonContro wrote: post #170
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…

In terms of cutting costs, the way we exited Afghanistan is the best way to do it. Pull out overnight, abandon all the equipment, and the rapid takeover by the Taliban means we don't need to keep running bombing missions to support a slowly retreating national army. In that regard I'd see the current situation as a success, not a failure. It also seems like the Taliban have chilled out a bit, since we're not seeing w…

in that sense Biden's legacy is cleaning up the mess and not leaving it to the future president

Re: Economic costs of war

#180

Post by nostrademons »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #158
nostrademons wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Same difference:

"Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things." -- Terry Pratchett

Slaves, exploited children, etc. are just resources whose dollar value you try to maximize and whose wages you try to minimize.

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