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Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

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Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#141

Post by marnett »

aphextron wrote: post #138
marnett wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure we can all acknowledge those are all deeply complex and intertwined facts about the U.S. and its military strategy and spending. Foreign policy, both diplomatic and militaristic, are also not democratic - I think some people just want to call out "the worlds exemplar of democracy" spending the largest portion of its budget on undemocratic means. We The People want to see something more meaningful domestically fr…

>We The People want to see something more meaningful domestically from our tax dollars and public debts - if the elite know better, then drop the facades. I think this is what people don't get about US military spending. From the moment you wake up every single day you are directly benefiting from it as an American. The fact that you, as a normal middle class person, are able to step out of your brand new house purch…

I said that We The People want to see something more meaningful. This would include political policy covering relatively standard democratic ideals: (to keep it extremely simple) health and education. I am aware our public dollars go towards defending the private-enriching capitalistic system you just described. It is ironic you listed all of those things as "benefits" to me - they are exactly what I am saying I do not want. Public expenditures for private gains? I did not vote for that. I want public dollars going to defending something for the majority, not the few.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#142

Post by etrautmann »

m_fayer wrote: post #139
etrautmann wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are multiple points in the parent's post. While I agree that the idea of unnecessary military spending is noxious, the impact of safe global shipping and the unmeasurable deterrent effects for global stability may still be important. It's not clear to me how we measure and assess the value of this vs. hypothetical and more desirable alternatives.

If we weren't maintaining safe global shipping and other elements of global stability on the sly and with a self-serving twist, maybe the vacuum would have caused the global community to come together to achieve the same ends, in a more transparent and less lopsided and brutal (one can only hope) way.

While I agree that sounds nice, my intuition suggests that the incentives and scale would tend to lead towards conflict. It might be interesting to model the stability of systems like this, though it's a hard problem to model chaotic nonlinear dynamical systems. It's not even clear what the state variables should be, but I'm curious if anyone has tried this.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#143

Post by jjeaff »

m_fayer wrote: post #127
achou wrote: post #116

Folks, realize that US military spending: - backstops the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, which allows the US to have a large deficit with low risk to its economic system, which basically means the US can ship paper to other countries and they will send real stuff back to us in return. Let's not kid ourselves, this has a lot to do with the US' large military and financial advantage. - makes opportunistic a…

Thinking that this spending is ok based on your reasons amounts to a tacit acceptance of a huge amount of dishonesty, I find it quite cynical. This is a totally ass-backwards way to do stimulus and domestic investing, with the upside that it lets you do stimulus and domestic investing while pretending you're not doing it, but doing something macho and patriotic instead. This is a way to maintain US economic and diplo…

>all those soldiers busy getting killed and wounded

Combat deaths in the US military are lower on average than roofers, steel workers, fisherman, loggers, and quite a few other professions.

So I don't think that argument holds water. There are actually some theories that the specific group of young males that join the military are safer than if they didn't due to traffic accidents and other stupid things that young males do when they've got too much free time and too little discipline.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#144

Post by sbmthakur »

achou wrote: post #116

Folks, realize that US military spending: - backstops the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, which allows the US to have a large deficit with low risk to its economic system, which basically means the US can ship paper to other countries and they will send real stuff back to us in return. Let's not kid ourselves, this has a lot to do with the US' large military and financial advantage. - makes opportunistic a…

Basically, this goes well with "America First" attitude. I don't have a problem with it but things doesn't work out when all big countries keep themselves first.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#145

Post by helen___keller »

SigmundA wrote: post #54

While I agree with the sentiment the reality is much more complicated and nuanced. Both the US interstate system and the Internet came from military roots. Its all about motivation, war and fear of war seems to be great motivators for funding and building infrastructure.

But when is the US gonna join in on that public transit & high speed rail cold war though?

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#146

Post by excalibur »

barbecue_sauce wrote: post #87
excalibur wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, completely on point regardless of source. History has proven trickle-down economics to be ineffective, and Michael Douglas' "greed is good" to be objectively false.

Attributing "greed is good" to Michael Douglas is like attributing "Soon the world will feel the loving grip of the Pax Bisonica!" to Raúl Juliá.

Obviously I'm aware that he didn't write it, and that it doesn't necessarily reflect his personal views. I was being lazy, but it's also true that when most people read those words they picture them coming out of his mouth.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#147

Post by tekkk »

achou wrote: post #116

Folks, realize that US military spending: - backstops the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, which allows the US to have a large deficit with low risk to its economic system, which basically means the US can ship paper to other countries and they will send real stuff back to us in return. Let's not kid ourselves, this has a lot to do with the US' large military and financial advantage. - makes opportunistic a…

So you're saying we, the rest of the world, are funding your inefficient military budgets and troops sitting in garrisons around the world, doing push-ups, playing with guns and yelling each other? Had US policymakers little more sense in their heads I'm sure they could achieve the same result (dictators around the world not willing to invade their neighbours) and get actually working infrastructure. But nope, let's waste the money on teaching people how to kill and neglect the actually productive projects for the sake of global "peace". And how's that been working so far?

Sure it's hard to assess how much military spending is the "right" amount and how much US prevents unrest on global scale. But let's not kid ourselves, we'd all be better off if we didn't have to spend money on keeping armies. They produce next to nothing on economic growth or scientific progress. We'd be having colonies on Mars if US had spent a part of that money on NASA.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#148

Post by aduong »

dgudkov wrote: post #123

While he has a point, it's worth noting that at the same time China's military spending have tripled over the last 10 years [1]. Did Jack Ma say anything about that? Or is he, as a member of the China Communist Party allowed to criticize only US government? He is an extremely talented person and smart entrepreneur, but it's hard to believe that his US foreign affair statements have no background agenda. It also could…

It is also worth noting that China's GDP tripled in the last 10 years. In the same Wikipedia article, the second graph shows a fairly flat military budget as a percentage of GNP over time as of late.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#149

Post by rohit2412 »

EGreg wrote: post #77
Matticus_Rex wrote: post #21

The US wasted trillions on warfare period -- they could have just not spent it, and either not run up the debt or left that money in private hands.

Although I totally agree we shouldn't have spent trillions on war, I have a question about this whole "our country spent on X rather than Y" Most of the money CIRCULATES in a country. So it's not like it's one shot and done. The money was paid to some people who then spent it back into the economy and it went round and round. So at most we diverted a certain number of hops of a huge amount of money to a thing. I look…

But just saying money is still circulating is very short sighted. Is the velocity is the money the same? Is it circulating among rich or poor?

Taxation is normally for taking money from the rich and spending on the poor. In this case however, money was taken from the middle and lower working classes, and given to the rich stock owners. And the country got nothing in return, not bridges, trains, or roads.

If you give rich people tax breaks and they spend it purchasing and bubbling real estate, your gdp might show good numbers, but money is just circulating among the rich.

Re: Jack Ma: US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

#150

Post by mpwoz »

syntaxing wrote: post #120

I really enjoyed this post from Reddit[1] that talks about the reasons behind such a large military spending. I personally didn't like how we increased the DOD budget this past fiscal year but this post really puts it in a different perspective. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/71bq8h/cmv_th...

Thanks for sharing that, it gave me a lot to think about. Always good to see things from another perspective.
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