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Economic costs of war

watson.brown.edu

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Re: Economic costs of war

#441

Post by mc32 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #435
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…

> This thinking has undermined our actions in every major war since then, with the exception of GWI. Kosovo? Bosnia?

That was a European problem which Europeans should have solved by themselves. Why did we have to piss abound there when they could have managed it themselves?

Let's say something came up in Puerto Rico... and then we have Europe come in and fix things instead of the US, does that seem the way it should work?

Re: Economic costs of war

#442

Post by spoonjim »

mc32 wrote: post #429
aiisjustanif wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not interested in intervening with infantry and all the necessary materiel unless it's to defend ourselves from grave danger. Especially avoid stupid the boondoggle of "nation-building". Not everyone wants democracy right now. It may come later. This short sightedness might cost more in lives globally and money loss from trade and resources being restricted.

While it seems crude, the way we used to do it, the way the Soviets used to do it, the way China does it now, seems to work best for this kind of interest. You invest in a despot let them have their little fiefdom and you let them run what's theirs and you get to take what you think is yours. Nation-building is hubris. Work with someone local who fits hand-in-glove. Is the unstable "stability" worth 6T and thousands…

It’s smart because the despot has already found product-market fit.

Re: Economic costs of war

#444

Post by titzer »

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…

It's hard for us to admit it. My own journey, after spending 7+ years living abroad, and recently completing a (most epic yet) cross-country roadtrip, it is clear that America is in decline due to generations of mal-investment. We've squandered blood and treasure in quixotic and wrong-headed misadventures and dumped gargantuan amounts of money into nothing but destruction. We've been led by bravado and glory, by craven merchants of death, and greedy megacorporations with no scruples. Our political leaders are corrupt, our institutions rotting. We should have printed out all those dollars and just set them on fire for goddsakes.

The partisan bickering over just 1.6 trillion in infrastructure spending, after having lit another 3 trillion on fire to prop up the stock and housing markets for another few years, losing money hand over fist, electric grids going down at the slightest breath, and overall decay and mismanagement of all our common infrastructure...America is past its peak, stumbling now, and all that remains is angry tribalism and finger-pointing. We can't even unite against a deadly enemy that is impossible to love or anthropomorphize--a virus.

We failed to invest in fundamentals for so long....

On some days I find myself, as an American, hoping we split up. We don't really want to live together anymore. We hate each other. Not a dollar for those bastards' kids!

Re: Economic costs of war

#445

Post by ineedasername »

cjsplat wrote: post #403
ineedasername wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression was that Obama wanted to be more progressive-- domestically if not internationally. But he got derailed spending 2 years of a supermajority on a single issue (healthcare) partly because more centrist democrats objected to the more progressive ideas, and partly due to special interests. After the midterms he had little chance at passing more progressive policies, leaving a fairly centrist foreign policy…

First, the ACA passed in March 2010, so not really 2 years on health care. The tweaks folded into reconciliation were not a major distraction. Second, if by super-majority you mean filibuster-proof, then in reality this was nowhere near 2 years. Al Franken (the 60th vote) was not seated until the court challenges finished on June 30th. Ted Kennedy died August 25. So that is about 8 weeks of super-majority. Paul Kirk…

You're correct, I meant filibuster proof. On everything else you mention, the major pieces of the ACA-- given it was a #1 priority-- could have been laid down well in advance so that things were ready to go once the people were in place.

I am probably being unfair though: cleaning up the end of the financial crisis took significant effort as well, so managing that and any single piece of significant legislation should be counted as a productive half-term. I suppose that even if all pieces of the ACA had been in place for the earliest possible vote, it still would not have left a lot of time for another significant bit of progressive legislation.

However I stand by my core point, which was perhaps not well expressed: Obama's campaign message conveyed a significant progressive agenda (at least on the domestic front). I don't think that was false on his part. I think the extent to which that agenda was not achieved is because after the mid terms there was no chance of passing progressive legislation.

Again, I think I botched my prior comment by not making that clear. I may have botched this one as well... Let me know, I like to know when I'm wrong.

Re: Economic costs of war

#446

Post by smegger001 »

sgregnt wrote: post #382
smegger001 wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Lobbying is only so much effective as the benefits outweigh the damage to a politician. In our tight election cycles the marginal differences are important, I would believe that politicians would jump to grab as much votes as possible to tilt the balance only even slightly. Maybe there is actually more support for large military spending than it appears to you?

Nope its not a wedge issue so they wont fight over it especally as they profit from it. The left will pay lip service to halting forever wars, but will sign the next military procurement bill because it ostensibly brings in vague nonspecific 'jobs' to their district. The right on the other hand, just gets hard at the idea of more and bigger guns and signs it without needing a excuse.

Re: Economic costs of war

#447

Post by pedalpete »

epistasis wrote: post #128
bamboozled wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

$6.4T into renewables and storage over the past 20 years would have decarbonized the US grid several time over, accelerated the tech curve drastically, nearly completely transitioned us to EVs, and we'd probably have decarbonized a good chunk of industry that is hard to decarbonize now. We'd have cheaper energy than we do today, and cheaper energy forever. We could have been looking at current levels of climate chang…

I wish I were able to take this a step further and postulate the benefit cheap renewable energies would have on countries like Afghanistan.

Anybody have a good summary of what we would expect? I'm making the assumption it would be a net positive for the region.

Re: Economic costs of war

#448

Post by joe_the_user »

jrsj wrote: post #374
swader999 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Allegedly the “government” of Afghanistan (its really just been a sham and a U.S. puppet state for the last 20 years) didn’t want this to happen because they wanted to avoid demoralizing the Afghan army which…subsequently refused to fight anyways. Or at least that’s how I understood some of what Biden said earlier today. For all we know that was the idea of our own military or intelligence community & now we are conv…

This is a plausible argument.

But even more, no matter what group was making the decision, no one could have admitted, no matter how much they expected it, that the whole structure was going to rapidly disintegrate. Because the structure was their product - they produced and managed the thing.

Re: Economic costs of war

#449

Post by alexose »

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.

At $100/ton (the currently accepted rate), that would have paid for the removal of 64 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere. Roughly two years worth of emissions.

Although at that scale, you wonder if you could get down to $10/ton... in which case you'd have removed all of the carbon emissions from 2001 until now.

Re: Economic costs of war

#450

Post by smegger001 »

issa wrote: post #331
smegger001 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why bring in hundreds of thousands of workers when China can pay the Taliban to force the Afgans to do it and just send some engineers and managers

I think this is the fundamental fallacy in this whole situation. "Taliban" and "Afghans" are not two separate groups.

one is a radical armed violent subset of the other.

in the same way that the klu kluk klan are american but America isn't the klan.

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