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Economic costs of war

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Re: Economic costs of war

#451

Post by havelhovel »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #228
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.

Is it lack of understanding or simply a difference in priorities? It's very fashionable around here to call millions of people stupid for not sharing whatever the "right" opinion is.

There have been numerous studies demonstrating our inability to rationally assess terrorism relative to other threats. Acknowledging our psychological shortcomings is the first step toward self-improvement.

Re: Economic costs of war

#452

Post by sgregnt »

anyfoo wrote: post #416
sgregnt wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Restrictions on pollution would hinder economic development, which in turn would hinder scientific progress, so we will not invent new effective methods to fight pollution. "Debt" is unrestrained economic development, "college" is the research and added economic capacity that comes out of it. And profit are the new methods for removing pollution. But I don't necessarily believe in it. The point here is that, IMHO, fo…

Here is the data I know about, I don't think it's "a populist claim without data": https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

Thanks for sharing!

What I heard from the news is that they claim the temperature will raise by 1.5 degree in a near future. Unfortunatly I didn't read the report and don't know what are the proposed policy steps. If you or someone else can summarize (without populism or moto like claims), what's their proposed solutions are and what are the risks, that might be of a big service to the community. Since then we ca exchange data based opinions if the proposed solution seems viable or not and that can move a discussion forward.

Last time, I had a vacation and was able to listen to a in depth discussion of political steps to solve climate change was this https://youtu.be/nNIcHIjFNxs At the time my impression was that it is very hard to make a real progress in this.

Re: Economic costs of war

#453

Post by colordrops »

epistasis wrote: post #345
throwawaysea wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence do you have that Afghanistan was due to oil, and not due to the most direct motivations, like Taliban sheltering Al Qaeda (as they still do)? This seems like a conspiracy theory.

The purpose of invading Afghanistan was to enact revenge for the September 11th attacks. The reasons for the attacks that directly relate to the US are: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11... * US support for Israel (specifically Lebanon) -- support that the US gives as a strategic ally in the oil-rich Middle East. Without oil in the region, we would not be expending as much effort on this su…

> US support for Israel (specifically Lebanon)

Not sure what that means? For Israel to defend themselves against Lebanon?

Re: Economic costs of war

#455

Post by jonnycomputer »

908B64B197 wrote: post #393
boplicity wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That suggests that the Taliban, for good or ill, have more legitimacy in the eyes of Afghanis, No, I would say that the Afghanis were literally told that they were going to eventually lose the war and that the Taliban would eventually win. The people put in the position to fight the Taliban made the sensible choice to lose peacefully, as opposed to risking their lives for a lost cause.

> the sensible choice to lose peacefully, as opposed to risking their lives for a lost cause. I wonder how long they cashed their checks, knowing full well they were going to surrender immediately as soon as the US was going to pull out. Or better, despite not ever having the intention of fighting (or even agreeing with the Taliban), claiming persecution to hustle a western visa/passport when they would inevitably lo…

I've read that some families would send one son to fight for the Taliban, and the other to fight for the Afghan army or police as a kind of insurance policy: "The power of kinship led to a common arrangement whereby extended families have protected themselves by sending one son to fight with the government army or police (for pay) and another son to fight with the Taliban. This has been a strategy in many civil wars, for example, among English noble families in the 15th-century Wars of the Roses. It means that at a given point, one of the sons can desert and return home without fearing persecution by the winning side."

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/08/16/afghanista...

Re: Economic costs of war

#456

Post by pedalpete »

School-Cotton wrote: post #296
toomuchtodo wrote: post #11

But we can’t afford universal healthcare. Edit: Y’all, every other OECD country doesn’t have the healthcare challenges the US has, and they also don’t light trillions of $fiat on fire waging useless wars. You should care how tax dollars are spent.

> every other OECD country doesn’t have the healthcare challenges the US has Right, but they also don’t seem to have the same cost disease issues, or at least not to the same extent. The fact that Germany or Japan spends $x per capita on something doesn’t necessarily imply that it would be possible for the US to achieve the same result for the same price.

The US has the most expensive healthcare because of the healthcare system, not because of the diseases.

Canadians get the same medications as Americans, and for the most part the same treatment. Everything is more expensive the US because the healthcare system takes advantage of the sick, before treating them.

Re: Economic costs of war

#457

Post by _9rq6 »

foolinaround wrote: post #253

A point no one seems to be making is that the $6.4T - a good amount of it just did not vanish... it just found its way into the employees of the state , the war industrial complex seen in the posh houses around the beltway and beyond... it just did not reach all the Americans... those that made bank will no doubt be incentivized to keep up the charade.. the scary part to me is what they are going to cook up next to k…

Yes this is it. American taxpayer money went to americans mostly and some of its allies. 6.4T just did not go to poor communities of color.

Re: Economic costs of war

#458

Post by colordrops »

symlinkk wrote: post #341
foolinaround wrote: post #253

A point no one seems to be making is that the $6.4T - a good amount of it just did not vanish... it just found its way into the employees of the state , the war industrial complex seen in the posh houses around the beltway and beyond... it just did not reach all the Americans... those that made bank will no doubt be incentivized to keep up the charade.. the scary part to me is what they are going to cook up next to k…

I’ve never heard of “posh houses in the beltway” that are owned by people involved in defense, yet you and another poster both brought this up. Is this actually a thing?

Yes, my cousin lives in one. He used to be a soldier that went on several tours in the region, then transitioned to a private job in the industry that made him wealthy.

Re: Economic costs of war

#459

Post by mc32 »

spoonjim wrote: post #438
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…

Exactly. Basketcase governments are products of basketcase societies. Go in and topple the government and you now have the impossible task of developing a sustainable high quality government on top of a low quality society/culture.

Agreed.

It's the same for Russia or Ukraine as it is for Afghanistan or Libya. These people have been under a totally different form of government where they had very little agency. The hubris of thinking, yeah, the CPSU (or Bath, etc.) is dissolved, democracy will take over, it's people's destiny!

When you've known nothing of democracy, it's a foreign concept. You need the culture around democracy to form for it to be successful.

Re: Economic costs of war

#460

Post by jonnycomputer »

boplicity wrote: post #330
jonnycomputer wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But neither has there been a lot of resistance; most places surrendered without a fight, from what I can tell. That suggests that the Taliban, for good or ill, have more legitimacy in the eyes of Afghanis, than the government we created and supported for the last 20 years. But, Afghanistan has changed, and who really knows what is going to happen. Cell phones are ubiquitous. They hardly existed in 2001. A whole gener…

> That suggests that the Taliban, for good or ill, have more legitimacy in the eyes of Afghanis, No, I would say that the Afghanis were literally told that they were going to eventually lose the war and that the Taliban would eventually win. The people put in the position to fight the Taliban made the sensible choice to lose peacefully, as opposed to risking their lives for a lost cause.

Perhaps. But I'm not sure why Afghans would hold any particular allegiance to the rather corrupt government set up by a foreign occupying power.
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