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Economic costs of war

watson.brown.edu

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Re: Economic costs of war

#201

Post by nradov »

khuey wrote: post #181
redandblack wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

He was pretty adamant about that in his speech today.

Did you happen to catch his press conference last week?

"The drawdown is proceeding in a secure and orderly way"

"I also assured Ghani that U.S. support for the people of Afghanistan will endure"

"I intend to maintain our diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, and we are coordinating closely with our international partners in order to continue to secure the international airport"

"the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable."

"The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable."

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/20...

Re: Economic costs of war

#202

Post by api »

Smoosh wrote: post #136
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 think of this when people say we can't afford to mitigate climate change.

If climate change were being caused by communists or Islamists to attack America we would have converted to post-carbon by now.

Human adversity pushes buttons in our brain stem that natural processes or random threats do not.

Re: Economic costs of war

#203

Post by supperburg »

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.

Can you provide a source for COVID deaths? Is there a source that gives the number of deaths that were caused by COVID and nothing else? They say that anyone who died and tested positive for the presence of COVID was considered a COVID death even if they got hit by a bus for example. And many elderly people died from it who were on the brink of death and were just as likely to die from some other minor insult. I wonder how many life hours were lost, I think that might be a more accurate metric.

Traffic deaths in USA over 2 years ~80,000. Nobody cares.

Re: Economic costs of war

#204

Post by lmilcin »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #162
slacktide wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they are the ones who lent the US the money. China is the #2 holder of US treasury bonds and currently own about 1T worth. (4% of the US national debt) Japan is the #1 holder at 1.2T. Source: https://ticdata.treasury.gov/Publish/mfh.txt

No one "lent" us money. It's a fiat currency with a self-imposed limit on new money creation.

> No one "lent" us money.

Obviously you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

BOND. Issued by US government. Is a promise that US will pay back the price of the bond at some predetermined future date and in the meantime it will also be paying interest in regular installments.

Others (including other countries) buy US bonds, which finances US spending. You know, whenever there is this big debate about whether to close US government or not?

So it is kinda stupid to say "no one lent us money", because, you know, they did.

Re: Economic costs of war

#205

Post by throwawaysea »

api wrote: post #199
throwawaysea wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also literally left giant weapon caches for the Taliban to use. We will pay for that, but in a different way.

Or not? Maybe it’s China’s turn to burn trillions in Afghanistan.

China is likely to gain trillions from their belt and road initiative expanding into Afghanistan and from getting involved with the mining of the $3T in mineral resources identified previously in Afghanistan. China has already recognized the new Taliban government and the Taliban previously welcomed a new relationship with China that would protect Chinese interests, as they put it. China literally met with the incoming Taliban leader earlier this year to forge that friendship.

Re: Economic costs of war

#206

Post by swader999 »

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…

Probably should have got the civilians out before the military but what do I know...

Re: Economic costs of war

#207

Post by hestefisk »

“Medicare for all”, the single payer universal healthcare system in the US, was projected to cost between $16-34T [1] over a decade. I know there are some big questions around the actual cost of US aggression / state terrorism since 9/11 (ie 6.4T vs 2T as per other entries in this thread). A rough 80/20 analysis suggests:

* We could have funded free healthcare to roughly one quarter of the US population for 10 years (see [1]) * We could have funded free medication for all US citizens for 20 years (assuming US spends an average $1100/yr per patient, approx double of other countries [2], viz a biz the estimated spend of $1K USD / yr per US citizen spent over 20 years on aggression since 9-11 mentioned above) * …

I quite like the following quote by Noam Chomsky on US international terror in Afghanistan (and Nicaragua, Iraq, Sudan and many other places):

“ The U.S. is officially committed to what is called “low–intensity warfare.” That’s the official doctrine. If you read the definition of low–intensity conflict in army manuals and compare it with official definitions of “terrorism” in army manuals, or the U.S. Code, you find they’re almost the same. Terrorism is the use of coercive means aimed at civilian populations in an effort to achieve political, religious, or other aims. That’s what the World Trade Center bombing was, a particularly horrifying terrorist crime. And that’s official doctrine. I mentioned a couple of examples. We could go on and on. It’s simply part of state action, not just the U.S. of course.” [3]

It sums up the meaninglessness quite well.

[1] https://www.crfb.org/blogs/how-much-will-medicare-all-cost [2] https://data.oecd.org/healthres/pharmaceutical-spending.htm#... [3] https://monthlyreview.org/2001/11/01/the-united-states-is-a-...

Re: Economic costs of war

#208

Post by SilverRed »

supperburg wrote: post #203
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.

Can you provide a source for COVID deaths? Is there a source that gives the number of deaths that were caused by COVID and nothing else? They say that anyone who died and tested positive for the presence of COVID was considered a COVID death even if they got hit by a bus for example. And many elderly people died from it who were on the brink of death and were just as likely to die from some other minor insult. I wond…

>Traffic deaths in USA over 2 years ~80,000. Nobody cares.

Many people do care about this and advocate for less car infrastructure, safer streets, better walkability and better public transport. Car centric design was the worst mistake of the last few decades.

Re: Economic costs of war

#209

Post by robomartin »

Smoosh wrote: post #136
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 think of this when people say we can't afford to mitigate climate change.

It isn't that we can't afford to mitigate climate change. We cannot mitigate climate change, period. In other words, you could throw all the money on the planet at it and it would not make a dent. No purported solution passes the math and physics tests.

It's easy to make a mess. This can be done with very little energy, resources and time. On the other hand, cleaning-up the mess takes far more energy, time and resourced than what went into creating it in the first place.

That's the problem.

We don't have it.

Energy, resources or time.

You are far more likely to kill everything on this planet than to fix climate change.

Re: Economic costs of war

#210

Post by whydoibother »

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…

Find me a terrorist attack on US soil that wasn't funded and planned by the FBI. Even the local militia movement here is filled with informants.

There was never a true threat of terrorism. Even 9/11 most likely could've been stopped. It is all FUD.

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