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Economic costs of war

watson.brown.edu

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Re: Economic costs of war

#541

Post by drran »

anticodon wrote: post #538
xyzzyz wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USSR, Ukraine Many former USSR countries are doing quite well with their new democracies. Consider, for example, that Ukraine had basically as much democratic tradition as Poland had (big parts of it literally being parts of Commonwealth of Poland for centuries), and yet Poland’s democracy has been doing much better. I agree that culture and traditions matter, but with your examples, you are overstating your case.

I don't know about Poland, but Ukraine is certainly not a democracy. Starting from the fact that the presidents are appointed by oligarchs (you may call it a conspiracy theory, but it's true), the country is plagued by corruption. Ending with the fact that current president and his party are closing media of opposing parties (so much for "freedom of speech"). Nor does it help the Ukraine. All the industry was destroy…

> I don't know about Poland, but Ukraine

It looks like you know nothing about Ukraine too.

Re: Economic costs of war

#542

Post by drran »

anticodon wrote: post #540
Clubber wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is spot on. As aggravating as YouTube censorship is, it's given the power of the press back to the people, if not just for a little bit. This flew under everyone's radar I think and the powers who typically control the news have been scrambling to regain control.

No. YouTube actively blocks any discontent. You can say anything you want as long as it is something that not threatening "democracy" or "liberal discourse". E.g. probably you can upload a video stating that Earth is flat, but you'll be immediately blocked if you upload something criticizing LGBT* or other sensitive areas. I've seen it many times. Also, YouTube (and Google in general) manipulates search results. E.g.…

IMHO, it was a stupid idea to use US based services and servers for informational war against US.

Re: Economic costs of war

#543

Post by prehistoricdog »

anticodon wrote: post #538
xyzzyz wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USSR, Ukraine Many former USSR countries are doing quite well with their new democracies. Consider, for example, that Ukraine had basically as much democratic tradition as Poland had (big parts of it literally being parts of Commonwealth of Poland for centuries), and yet Poland’s democracy has been doing much better. I agree that culture and traditions matter, but with your examples, you are overstating your case.

I don't know about Poland, but Ukraine is certainly not a democracy. Starting from the fact that the presidents are appointed by oligarchs (you may call it a conspiracy theory, but it's true), the country is plagued by corruption. Ending with the fact that current president and his party are closing media of opposing parties (so much for "freedom of speech"). Nor does it help the Ukraine. All the industry was destroy…

typical Russian imperialistic brainwashed conclusions. I'm sorry.

I'm not going to discuss all of your wrong assumptions, just mentioning "closing media". Do you know the narrative those media were spreading? Do you know who is Medvedchuk? These media were pro-russia propagandists.

Re: Economic costs of war

#544

Post by anticodon »

prehistoricdog wrote: post #543
anticodon wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about Poland, but Ukraine is certainly not a democracy. Starting from the fact that the presidents are appointed by oligarchs (you may call it a conspiracy theory, but it's true), the country is plagued by corruption. Ending with the fact that current president and his party are closing media of opposing parties (so much for "freedom of speech"). Nor does it help the Ukraine. All the industry was destroy…

typical Russian imperialistic brainwashed conclusions. I'm sorry. I'm not going to discuss all of your wrong assumptions, just mentioning "closing media". Do you know the narrative those media were spreading? Do you know who is Medvedchuk? These media were pro-russia propagandists.

But am I wrong in the assessment of the economical situation and population decline in Ukraine?

Am I wrong that all the industry in Ukraine was destroyed (aviation, shipbuilding, cars and trucks, etc)?

Am I wrong that energy consumption in Ukraine is declining (means that industry and/or population are declining)?

Re: Economic costs of war

#545

Post by anticodon »

drran wrote: post #542
anticodon wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. YouTube actively blocks any discontent. You can say anything you want as long as it is something that not threatening "democracy" or "liberal discourse". E.g. probably you can upload a video stating that Earth is flat, but you'll be immediately blocked if you upload something criticizing LGBT* or other sensitive areas. I've seen it many times. Also, YouTube (and Google in general) manipulates search results. E.g.…

IMHO, it was a stupid idea to use US based services and servers for informational war against US.

Discontent of any origin is banned, including discontent coming from US citizens.

Re: Economic costs of war

#546

Post by cnlevy »

baybal2 wrote: post #242
api wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Taliban are smart they won’t do reprisals but instead will offer amnesty in exchange for service. The dumbest thing we did in Iraq was to do the functional equivalent of the Taliban doing reprisals by disbanding the military, government, and Ba’ath party. It created a mass unemployment problem and swelled the ranks of the opposition with listless now unemployed people.

Disbanding Baath was far from a dumb thing, the dumb thing was disbanding them, and then just letting them go

Removing the heads of power is one thing. Disbanding an entire administration is always a bad thing to do. It only creates chaos. Show me one change of power that disbanded the administration which was successful.

Re: Economic costs of war

#547

Post by kwere »

new_realist wrote: post #478
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…

Total U.S. assets amount to about $225 trillion. Spending 1/700th of that per year for the past 20 years to protect those assets seems a reasonable investment. That’s not to say this money was spent wisely, in hindsight (which is always 20/20).

those number are inflated and the efficacy of that spending is very low, more a feelgood waste

Re: Economic costs of war

#548

Post by kwere »

bamboozled wrote: post #98
epicureanideal wrote: post #75

Perhaps they should've spent this much on medical research instead. For the same money perhaps we could save a few million people dying of various diseases or cancer. It would take a whole lot of terrorist events to counter the benefits of significant R&D funding for medicine (or maybe a lot of other things).

Climate change will destabilize the world more than any "terrorists" could. Also would've been nice to have seen 6.4 trillion go into renewables tech and investments ~ 20 years ago.

boomers would have preferred tax cuts

Re: Economic costs of war

#549

Post by lmilcin »

octodog wrote: post #365
lmilcin wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, 34th Rule of Acquisition clearly states, "War is good for business". EDIT: I don't like when the parent removes his entire comment and replaces it with something else, so now your comment seems stupid and off topic. I leave mine because I like DS9

True enough. But don't forget the 35th Rule of Acquisition - "Peace is good for business".

I set it up for this comment:)

Thanks.

Re: Economic costs of war

#550

Post by Pius_IX »

watwut wrote: post #537
Pius_IX wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course Germany had democratic traditions, going back to the early/middle of the 19th century. The Frankfurter Nationalversammlung at 1848, while it failed quite spectacularly, consisted of people from all over Germany debating. Even before that in many of the smaller kingdoms the people had achieved some representation and constitutions they guaranteed them the basic democratic rights of assembly, speech and a par…

Weimar was forced on them and was seen as disorderly mess by population. Yes, they had parliament pre-WWI and they still were not democracy. They were monarchy run by royal families. They were also highly militarized country at that too. Some debates and some representation does not constitute "democratic tradition".

Weimar was forced on Germany? The Kaiser had abdicated, there were revolutions all around Germany, the navy was in full on mutiny. Of course it was seen as disorderly mess but it was in no way forced upon the population from outside and instead was the result of a dozen different forces inside of Germany pulling and pushing to achieve their own personal goals. While it started with bloodshed (Mainly between the communists and the democratic left) in the following elections the social democrats where elected with a wide majority, which in large parts was a testament to the level of public support they and their democracy had.

And I am really curious what would constitute a "democratic tradition" in your opinion. By 1945 the German people had been organizing themselves for around a hundred years in different parties, unions, parliaments. They had newspapers discussing everything from politics, culture, society and democracy. They had organized countless nationwide strikes and participated in two revolutions. The first chancelor of Germany after 1945 had been a democratically elected mayor of Cologne for around 15 years. Was part of a political party since 1907.

Maybe look at the Kapp Putsch. Right wing politicians and militias occupied Berlin in 1920. The democratically elected government called for a general strike and for the next couple of days the whole country stood still. No trains. No work in any factory. No news paper. No telephone. In Berlin there was no water. No electricity. Absolutely nothing. This doesn't happen in a nation with an apathetic populace which has no democratic tradition and just wants it's Kaiser back.

Democratic tradition doesn't just consist of having a parliament as the highest authority in your country if you ask me.

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