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Economic costs of war

watson.brown.edu

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Re: Economic costs of war

#51

Post by [deleted] »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #49
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.

Playing devil's advocate because I don't think cost is the main reason we don't have universal healthcare in the US: Bernie Sanders (who is probably the most pro-universal healthcare politician in the US so his numbers might be on the low side) estimated that Medicare For All would cost $3-4 trillion per year. The war in Afghanistan was about 10x cheaper per year.

[deleted]

Re: Economic costs of war

#52

Post by thechao »

lucb1e wrote: post #37
jaggederest wrote: post #6

Approximately $20,000 per person. $1000 a year would have made a nice universal basic income for the last 20 years.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that wages are quite inflated in the USA and $1000/year is not a livable income (i.e. sufficient for cheap housing, cheap food, water, electricity, basic appliances like a fridge and washing machine, heating, and pretty much nothing else) even in Europe where I'm from. Or am I missing the point of a UBI?

Discretionary income for a lot of families is — functionally — zero. The result is that any sort of financial issue becomes a devastating (possibly lifelong) burden. Most of these issues are single-occurrence and probably fall in the 200–500$ range. A 1000$ a year UBI would be life-changing for them.

And by "them" I mean, like, 50% of the country.

I'm in Texas, and the maximum amount of cash assistance possible — married parents, multiple kids, demonstrated need, is something like 83$ a month; I think, once?

Re: Economic costs of war

#53

Post by brokencode »

lucb1e wrote: post #37
jaggederest wrote: post #6

Approximately $20,000 per person. $1000 a year would have made a nice universal basic income for the last 20 years.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that wages are quite inflated in the USA and $1000/year is not a livable income (i.e. sufficient for cheap housing, cheap food, water, electricity, basic appliances like a fridge and washing machine, heating, and pretty much nothing else) even in Europe where I'm from. Or am I missing the point of a UBI?

$1000 per person is a big deal, and would cover rent or mortgage costs for most of the people I know. Though honestly, a lot my family members would squander it on things like new cars or electronics instead of paying off debt or investing for retirement..

Re: Economic costs of war

#54

Post by mikeodds »

glitchc wrote: post #40
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.

It’s not the what, but the how. A terrorist attack on home turf is a slap in the face of every American. Outrage is to be expected.

Take a look at how many people die from domestic shootings in the US

Re: Economic costs of war

#55

Post by yunohn »

Grakel wrote: post #2

There isn't an "opportunity cost" as the article discusses, there's no evidence that Congress would have spent that money on something else. It doesn't sit in an account and then they allocate it, they make it up on paper and then try (and fail) to cover it later.

> there's no evidence that Congress would have spent that money on something else

“Reality is unchangeable, so we can’t know the unknown”

So what? It definitely could’ve been spent better than decade’s killing hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Re: Economic costs of war

#56

Post by ketralnis »

dlp211 wrote: post #31
jonthepirate wrote: post #17

Sure glad my taxes are 55%

Since this is based on US spending I am assuming you are talking about US taxes, in which case, no you are not paying 55% in taxes.

The top US tax bracket is 37% and top California bracket is 13.3% for a total marginal rate of of 50.3%. If you're self-employed or a contractor you'll have the employer side too so I could see that hitting 55%. And that's just income tax; property and sales tax could easy push higher than that.

A poor person isn't paying that rate, but a wealthy person may well

Re: Economic costs of war

#57

Post by [deleted] »

mulmen wrote: post #46
lmilcin wrote: post #19

Nah... probably large portion of this was paid to US corporations and citizens. Spending on the level of government is counterintuitive. If you are government you hand out money but it gets back to you. Unfortunately, interest on that debt is real and is owed to other countries.

How is it owed to other countries?

[deleted]

Re: Economic costs of war

#58

Post by dlp211 »

onelastjob wrote: post #14
Grakel wrote: post #2

There isn't an "opportunity cost" as the article discusses, there's no evidence that Congress would have spent that money on something else. It doesn't sit in an account and then they allocate it, they make it up on paper and then try (and fail) to cover it later.

You can only print so much money though before the dollar becomes worthless, so there is an opportunity cost since you can't print infinite dollars

Except we don't just print money and give it away. The money is borrowed (backed by some asset), and this distinction matters. IOW, the money that gets printed is (generally) non-inflationary.

Stop using what you learned in your Econ 1XX level courses to try and reason about government spending and money operations, especially, US government spending and money operations. What you learned is not applicable.

Re: Economic costs of war

#59

Post by antattack »

lmilcin wrote: post #19

Nah... probably large portion of this was paid to US corporations and citizens. Spending on the level of government is counterintuitive. If you are government you hand out money but it gets back to you. Unfortunately, interest on that debt is real and is owed to other countries.

Wrong US companies got the money, like BlackRock that owns 9trillion dollars in US assets, invests in weapons, including cluster munitions [2] and are untouchable[1]:

[1]https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren...

[2]https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-fea...

Re: Economic costs of war

#60

Post by hn8788 »

Johnny555 wrote: post #28
koolba wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People that spend a year as soldiers in Afghanistan can't spend that year doing something else. The greatest asset the US has built up over the past twenty or so years fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is a reserve of soldiers with real world military experience. I’m not saying it justifies the cost. Far from it. But it’s not a complete wash from a mid term strategic analysis.

The greatest asset the US has built up over the past twenty or so years fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is a reserve of soldiers with real world military experience. The average term of enlistment in the USA military is 15 years, 11 years for officers. So that experience gets lost quickly unless we keep getting embroiled in new wars.

There's no way the average term of enlistment is 15 years. Very few people choose to re-enlist after their first term, or are even allowed to. In 2016, there were almost 200k Marines, and they were struggling to get 10k people to re-enlist after their first 4 years[1].

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2015...

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