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Economic costs of war

watson.brown.edu

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Re: Economic costs of war

#301

Post by smegger001 »

taf2 wrote: post #255
WaxProlix wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may or may not be true right now. Was it true 10 years ago? 20? 30? There exists a point at which it was not true, and we're talking about taking that investment over a 20+ year historical period, not as a lump sum right now. Lots of fossil fuel aligned people have pivoted from "everything is fine" to "there's nothing we can do now", and echoing the latter might be factually correct, but in the context it smacks…

I think nuclear is not a perfect solution but probably the fastest option we have.

so do I. But try to convince the NIMBY crowd of it.

Re: Economic costs of war

#302

Post by AtlasBarfed »

baybal2 wrote: post #263
mc32 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever since we reneged on the decision Kennedy made to pull out of VietNam by Johnson, we've thought continually we were dealing with another defeated Japan or defeated Germany --the enemy population would just comply to our wishes, so we kept on thinking we could "turn them into replicas of American government" This thinking has undermined our actions in every major war since then, with the exception of GWI. Gulf War…

> we've thought continually we were dealing with another defeated Japan or defeated Germany --the enemy population would just comply to our wishes, so we kept on thinking we could "turn them into replicas of American government" You though, but you did not did. In both prior cases US ran moderately competent occupation government, and by some accounts one better than their own. The model US followed in Vietnam was no…

Those countries knew they would be treated as equals on the economic world forum, not puppet states for resource extraction.

The only remarkable thing is that we treated Japan so well, considering how its fellow far east countries were treated as client states or worse for so long.

I think it was latent guilt of using the nuke on them.

Re: Economic costs of war

#303

Post by sonicggg »

The USA wasted 1 trillion just in that dumpster called Afghanistan, only to see its biggest rival, China, be the only one to secure mining rights with the Taliban. They really learned nothing from recent history.

This was a major defeat in the geopolitical chess game.

Re: Economic costs of war

#304

Post by markus_zhang »

rjzzleep wrote: post #273
heresie-dabord wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A nation has to work out its own problems for itself. This point being raised, it is time for the US to spend money on education to support its own democracy.

One could argue that the seeds of destruction are so far entrenched, that there might only be 1-3 cycles left before the destruction of its own democracy is ensured. The Iranian clerical leadership was rejoicing on twitter about Trumps election claims and January 6th. This has also been cannonfodder for the Chinese leadership and countless other countries. I'd say the US elites are still somewhat in denial of what ac…

US elites mostly only care about the trough. They know it but apres moi le deluge is the silent motto of many. The Democratic is no radical different from he Republicans, they simply have a nicer face.

Re: Economic costs of war

#305

Post by finnh »

liketochill wrote: post #117
finnh wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you will not owe the full amount of the accrued interest Yes, you will. "accrued interest" is "unpaid interest as of the time of ___"; at the moment you sell the house you will have paid all of the interest up to that moment. There's no early-payment penalty on mortgages, as of the last many decades; maybe that's what you mean?

I have early payment penalties on my mortgage. Would love it if there weren’t. I’m in Canada.

ugh. sorry to hear it - didn't realize that Canada was still up to those tricks

Re: Economic costs of war

#306

Post by smegger001 »

sgregnt wrote: post #184
SteveNuts wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not sure how this relates to what I wrote? Apparently USA voters do think the spending is adequate... or do you have a better way to decide on this? On a tangential: We can also try to compare the cost of 1 mile of subway in NY vs 1 mile in Shanghai. I didn't check but I would assume NY cost would be more than double. Services in US cost a lot. US innovates and a lot of other countries copy... while it seems that Chi…

do they? is there a transparent way to vote against it when both parties big parties support it tacitly if not publicly. I vote third party every election but they never when because they don't have the money that comes from donations of big lobbying industries like military contractors oil pharma etc

Re: Economic costs of war

#307

Post by systemvoltage »

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…

We should also see to it that US military is a good ol' defense business: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/02/mapped-americas-col...

Re: Economic costs of war

#308

Post by bitexploder »

redandblack wrote: post #179
NonContro wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You are being downvoted heavily and I know it’s against HN etiquette to meta comment like this, but it feels worthwhile. I don’t even think you are wrong. However clumsily this is going it’s not even hindsight to say this was a probable and even a more likely outcome. Realistically, there wasn’t much Biden could have done, unless we endorsed another trillion plus dollars to maybe effect some change that would let a more democratic government possibly survive. It was always a tall order. The military industrial complex thrives on this permawar and it’s a net loss because that machine is greased with blood and pain.

Re: Economic costs of war

#309

Post by risk000 »

Retric wrote: post #219
valzam wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, apparently they become economic superpowers because that is what all powerful nations with monetary sovereignty and fiat money have been doing under the guise of government debt. Hyperinflation largely happens in countries where the money wasn't really worth much to begin with because it's value was pegged to the price of gold or other currencies. Or because most of the economy functioned on foreign currency an…

Taxes are paid in a nations currency which creates demand for the currency scaled to their economy. Borrowing money is the only way to get spending > taxes without an exponential increase in the amount of money generated every year. That exponential growth then gets worse as the economy tanks and debt explodes. It’s been demonstrated repeatedly, things get out of control extremely quickly. There is a little wiggle ro…

There are better and deeper ways of understanding money. You think fiscally sovereign nations need to borrow their own currency, and that isn't correct. You think government spending necessarily precipitates a currency crisis, and this is not only incorrect but goes against the demonstrated history of the United States from the 40s until today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba8XdDqZ-Jg

It seems like you are conflating the role of private and public debt, which is a very common mistake. Private debt does cause economic crises, public debt is a misnomer - it's generally speaking not even correctly referred to as debt. It's referred to as a debt for historical reasons, its not owed to anyone, for example.

A paper by the CATO institute showed that world hyperinflations have not historically arisen from monetary policy changes. They have more to do with... eh, its complicated. Collapses of industry in wartime, famines, militarily-imposed foreign debts and single-resource economies living beyond their means. The understanding you are demonstrating is called the Quantity Theory of Money and its being more and more called into question. The Theory of Ricardian Equivalence is toast. Not sure if you know that those are the high-falutin names of the theories you are describing as being patent fact.

Re: Economic costs of war

#310

Post by azurezyq »

sgregnt wrote: post #184
SteveNuts wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not sure how this relates to what I wrote? Apparently USA voters do think the spending is adequate... or do you have a better way to decide on this? On a tangential: We can also try to compare the cost of 1 mile of subway in NY vs 1 mile in Shanghai. I didn't check but I would assume NY cost would be more than double. Services in US cost a lot. US innovates and a lot of other countries copy... while it seems that Chi…

I don't think 1/3 is "not far behind". https://www.statista.com/chart/16878/military-expenditure-by...

Actually you don't need US's level of spending if you are not "actively" into wars like ones in the middle east.

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