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United States43350 Posts
On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet.
The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits.
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Expecialy when giving that money to NASA would ensure Americas interests much more efficiently. And be much more economically beneficial as a result.
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On September 20 2017 01:55 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 01:46 Aquanim wrote:On September 20 2017 01:36 Sermokala wrote:On September 19 2017 23:06 Aquanim wrote:
I do wish people (and there's more than one offender here) would stop making arguments about how X is bad, then when it is demonstrated that X wasn't bad at all they retreat to "oh but X has bad optics and that's what's important".
What X looks like is important - but by making the erroneous statement first, and then pretending that discussing the optics is in any way the same as discussing the reality, you confound discussion on both issues. This is the Us politics thread. Optics matter more then reality in politics especially in US politics. I don't understand what you would want otherwise. I didn't say "don't discuss the optics". I said "don't discuss the reality and then claim later you were discussing the optics". On September 19 2017 15:28 Sermokala wrote:...
Does it really matter why though? If Obama knew that Trumps campaign was being wiretapped indirectly thats a huge conflict of interest.
... This is clearly not discussing the optics. There is no clarity in abstract concepts like "optics" or "the reality of the station". There will always be a mix or blend of the topics when discussing the two even more so when discussing politics. Half the shit that the threads been about the last hundred or more pages has been about the optics and reality of racism. No ones asking for delineation of the two.
Those aren't really comparable though. Racism only exists in people's heads. If Obama is accused of something at least arguably illegal, the fact that he didn't do it is a super importsnt detail. If everybody thinks a statue is racist, it doesn't matter if it's "actually racist" whatever that would even mean.
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On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits.
Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size.
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On September 20 2017 02:01 Sermokala wrote:
Expecialy when giving that money to NASA would ensure Americas interests much more efficiently. And be much more economically beneficial as a result.
The (long term) economic benefits of increased college/uni access and reduction in student debt would also be pretty significant I imagine.
On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size.
A certain level of military funding is required to keep America at the top and protect its interests. Spending more then the the top 2-10 combined may not be necessary to accomplish that goal.
Would another 80 billion actually make America more safe? I think that is probably debatable.
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On September 20 2017 02:04 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 02:01 Sermokala wrote:
Expecialy when giving that money to NASA would ensure Americas interests much more efficiently. And be much more economically beneficial as a result. The (long term) economic benefits of increased college/uni access and reduction in student debt would also be pretty significant I imagine. Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size. A certain level of military funding is required to keep America at the top and protect its interests. Spending more then the the top 2-10 combined may not be necessary to accomplish that goal. Would another 80 billion actually make America more safe? I think that is probably debatable.
I feel like this sounds correct, but I don't actually know it is correct. How do we know that is correct? The more I learn about the upper echelon of the military, the more I hear about deep modeling and whatnot. I don't think they just spin a wheel and decide on that number. This is a difficult conversation to have because we are all just distant outsiders looking in and we don't really know anything, to be honest.
All these ideas make total sense on the surface, but the idea that the military spends like 5x as much as is needed while still staying on top doesn't sound reasonable. There are too many very smart people performing cost analysis in the military. We don't have access to any of that.
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United States43350 Posts
On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size.
No, it would not result in $1b of benefits. If you want to get $1b of benefits you would give $100 to the 10,000,000 poorest Americans and watch as they drove it straight back into the economy in the next few days.
I was responding directly to the claim that giving the military more money to waste isn't necessarily a waste because the military has been involved in some productive activities, such as materials science research. While that may be true there is no reason to think that another $80b would lead to gains there, and even if it were, it certainly would not be the optimal way of attaining those goals.
The military shouldn't get the money because it's a zero sum game, money from one area has to go to another. $80b is a fair chunk of what the UK spends on the NHS annually, for example. It's not about wasteful vs not wasteful. It's about how much you can get for the $. There are a shitton of options, from redistribution to lowering taxes to education to research to healthcare to infrastructure to student loans to the military etc, and I'm not convinced that the productivity from giving the $ to the military is the optimal route.Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
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On September 20 2017 02:09 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 02:04 Gorsameth wrote:On September 20 2017 02:01 Sermokala wrote:
Expecialy when giving that money to NASA would ensure Americas interests much more efficiently. And be much more economically beneficial as a result. The (long term) economic benefits of increased college/uni access and reduction in student debt would also be pretty significant I imagine. On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size. A certain level of military funding is required to keep America at the top and protect its interests. Spending more then the the top 2-10 combined may not be necessary to accomplish that goal. Would another 80 billion actually make America more safe? I think that is probably debatable. I feel like this sounds correct, but I don't actually know it is correct. How do we know that is correct? The more I learn about the upper echelon of the military, the more I hear about deep modeling and whatnot. I don't think they just spin a wheel and decide on that number. This is a difficult conversation to have because we are all just distant outsiders looking in and we don't really know anything, to be honest. All these ideas make total sense on the surface, but the idea that the military spends like 5x as much as is needed while still staying on top doesn't sound reasonable. There are too many very smart people performing cost analysis in the military. We don't have access to any of that.
we have access to enough public documentation to know that hte military spending is more a result of politics than of actual beneficial effects for society or truly worthwhile military investment.
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On September 20 2017 02:15 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 02:09 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 02:04 Gorsameth wrote:On September 20 2017 02:01 Sermokala wrote:
Expecialy when giving that money to NASA would ensure Americas interests much more efficiently. And be much more economically beneficial as a result. The (long term) economic benefits of increased college/uni access and reduction in student debt would also be pretty significant I imagine. On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size. A certain level of military funding is required to keep America at the top and protect its interests. Spending more then the the top 2-10 combined may not be necessary to accomplish that goal. Would another 80 billion actually make America more safe? I think that is probably debatable. I feel like this sounds correct, but I don't actually know it is correct. How do we know that is correct? The more I learn about the upper echelon of the military, the more I hear about deep modeling and whatnot. I don't think they just spin a wheel and decide on that number. This is a difficult conversation to have because we are all just distant outsiders looking in and we don't really know anything, to be honest. All these ideas make total sense on the surface, but the idea that the military spends like 5x as much as is needed while still staying on top doesn't sound reasonable. There are too many very smart people performing cost analysis in the military. We don't have access to any of that. we have access to enough public documentation to know that hte military spending is more a result of politics than of actual beneficial effects for society or truly worthwhile military investment.
I see this as true with things like senators from areas that build ships pushing for more ships. Military says they need x, but we insist on 3x because jobs. But for things like "what exactly should we be doing in the middle east", I have a harder time declaring with certainty the correct allocation of resources.
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On September 20 2017 02:11 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size. No, it would not result in $1b of benefits. If you want to get $1b of benefits you would give $100 to the 10,000,000 poorest Americans and watch as they drove it straight back into the economy in the next few days. I was responding directly to the claim that giving the military more money to waste isn't necessarily a waste because the military has been involved in some productive activities, such as materials science research. While that may be true there is no reason to think that another $80b would lead to gains there, and even if it were, it certainly would not be the optimal way of attaining those goals. The military shouldn't get the money because it's a zero sum game, money from one area has to go to another. $80b is a fair chunk of what the UK spends on the NHS annually, for example. It's not about wasteful vs not wasteful. It's about how much you can get for the $. There are a shitton of options, from redistribution to lowering taxes to education to research to healthcare to infrastructure to student loans to the military etc, and I'm not convinced that the productivity from giving the $ to the military is the optimal route. Show nested quote +Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
Yeah, I see what you mean. It is a lot easier to get value out of a singlepayer system than it is a tank. Or at least a lot more certain value. In that sense, I agree. I just struggle with this dilemma because I think there aren't any other actors to ease the US's role in global conflict. Europe isn't there yet and won't be, perhaps ever. China, no thanks. Russia, no thanks. South America kind of a mess. Africa really a mess. We need a moderator and I am not fond of our other options. I am probably overly forgiving of waste because I see that position as critical to world order.
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United States43350 Posts
On September 20 2017 02:25 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 02:11 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size. No, it would not result in $1b of benefits. If you want to get $1b of benefits you would give $100 to the 10,000,000 poorest Americans and watch as they drove it straight back into the economy in the next few days. I was responding directly to the claim that giving the military more money to waste isn't necessarily a waste because the military has been involved in some productive activities, such as materials science research. While that may be true there is no reason to think that another $80b would lead to gains there, and even if it were, it certainly would not be the optimal way of attaining those goals. The military shouldn't get the money because it's a zero sum game, money from one area has to go to another. $80b is a fair chunk of what the UK spends on the NHS annually, for example. It's not about wasteful vs not wasteful. It's about how much you can get for the $. There are a shitton of options, from redistribution to lowering taxes to education to research to healthcare to infrastructure to student loans to the military etc, and I'm not convinced that the productivity from giving the $ to the military is the optimal route. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. Yeah, I see what you mean. It is a lot easier to get value out of a singlepayer system than it is a tank. Or at least a lot more certain value. In that sense, I agree. I just struggle with this dilemma because I think there aren't any other actors to ease the US's role in global conflict. Europe isn't there yet and won't be, perhaps ever. China, no thanks. Russia, no thanks. South America kind of a mess. Africa really a mess. We need a moderator and I am not fond of our other options.
And how many dollars will it take to fulfill the US's role in global conflict? At what dollar amount are we done?
This increase in the military budget is, by itself, more than the total amount spent by Russia.
At this point there is at most a very loose correlation between military spending and the ability to achieve the US's strategic goals.
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The US obsession with spending on the military is much easier to understand when you realize they are treating it like a jobs program for red states
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On September 20 2017 02:26 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 02:25 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 02:11 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size. No, it would not result in $1b of benefits. If you want to get $1b of benefits you would give $100 to the 10,000,000 poorest Americans and watch as they drove it straight back into the economy in the next few days. I was responding directly to the claim that giving the military more money to waste isn't necessarily a waste because the military has been involved in some productive activities, such as materials science research. While that may be true there is no reason to think that another $80b would lead to gains there, and even if it were, it certainly would not be the optimal way of attaining those goals. The military shouldn't get the money because it's a zero sum game, money from one area has to go to another. $80b is a fair chunk of what the UK spends on the NHS annually, for example. It's not about wasteful vs not wasteful. It's about how much you can get for the $. There are a shitton of options, from redistribution to lowering taxes to education to research to healthcare to infrastructure to student loans to the military etc, and I'm not convinced that the productivity from giving the $ to the military is the optimal route. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. Yeah, I see what you mean. It is a lot easier to get value out of a singlepayer system than it is a tank. Or at least a lot more certain value. In that sense, I agree. I just struggle with this dilemma because I think there aren't any other actors to ease the US's role in global conflict. Europe isn't there yet and won't be, perhaps ever. China, no thanks. Russia, no thanks. South America kind of a mess. Africa really a mess. We need a moderator and I am not fond of our other options. And how many dollars will it take to fulfill the US's role in global conflict? At what dollar amount are we done?
I am not remotely qualified to answer that. This is why I just kinda shrug my shoulders. My perspective, if it even is one, is that there are likely experts who are assigned to determining exactly that. They are probably paid well and they are probably good enough at their job. I don't know who those people are, but these budgets are assumed to not be random and have actual purpose outside of senators/congressmen trying to inject jobs through military spending into their districts/states.
In short, I don't know.
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On September 20 2017 02:23 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 02:15 zlefin wrote:On September 20 2017 02:09 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 02:04 Gorsameth wrote:On September 20 2017 02:01 Sermokala wrote:
Expecialy when giving that money to NASA would ensure Americas interests much more efficiently. And be much more economically beneficial as a result. The (long term) economic benefits of increased college/uni access and reduction in student debt would also be pretty significant I imagine. On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size. A certain level of military funding is required to keep America at the top and protect its interests. Spending more then the the top 2-10 combined may not be necessary to accomplish that goal. Would another 80 billion actually make America more safe? I think that is probably debatable. I feel like this sounds correct, but I don't actually know it is correct. How do we know that is correct? The more I learn about the upper echelon of the military, the more I hear about deep modeling and whatnot. I don't think they just spin a wheel and decide on that number. This is a difficult conversation to have because we are all just distant outsiders looking in and we don't really know anything, to be honest. All these ideas make total sense on the surface, but the idea that the military spends like 5x as much as is needed while still staying on top doesn't sound reasonable. There are too many very smart people performing cost analysis in the military. We don't have access to any of that. we have access to enough public documentation to know that hte military spending is more a result of politics than of actual beneficial effects for society or truly worthwhile military investment. I see this as true with things like senators from areas that build ships pushing for more ships. Military says they need x, but we insist on 3x because jobs. But for things like "what exactly should we be doing in the middle east", I have a harder time declaring with certainty the correct allocation of resources.
aye; it is much trickier in those cases; but there's still ample room to conclude that current spending is excessive and wasteful, by a sizeable margin, which is really the point here.
it's not just about building more ships for their own districts; it's that in general talking about the military, and giving money ot the military, wins elections, cuz some people like that; regardless of it being poor policy.
as to the middle east; there's lots of better ways imho to handle many things there. too much is spent on military, not nearly enough is spent on alternative ways of dealing with the problems (which are also more cost-effective)
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United States43350 Posts
On September 20 2017 02:30 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 02:26 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 02:25 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 02:11 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size. No, it would not result in $1b of benefits. If you want to get $1b of benefits you would give $100 to the 10,000,000 poorest Americans and watch as they drove it straight back into the economy in the next few days. I was responding directly to the claim that giving the military more money to waste isn't necessarily a waste because the military has been involved in some productive activities, such as materials science research. While that may be true there is no reason to think that another $80b would lead to gains there, and even if it were, it certainly would not be the optimal way of attaining those goals. The military shouldn't get the money because it's a zero sum game, money from one area has to go to another. $80b is a fair chunk of what the UK spends on the NHS annually, for example. It's not about wasteful vs not wasteful. It's about how much you can get for the $. There are a shitton of options, from redistribution to lowering taxes to education to research to healthcare to infrastructure to student loans to the military etc, and I'm not convinced that the productivity from giving the $ to the military is the optimal route. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. Yeah, I see what you mean. It is a lot easier to get value out of a singlepayer system than it is a tank. Or at least a lot more certain value. In that sense, I agree. I just struggle with this dilemma because I think there aren't any other actors to ease the US's role in global conflict. Europe isn't there yet and won't be, perhaps ever. China, no thanks. Russia, no thanks. South America kind of a mess. Africa really a mess. We need a moderator and I am not fond of our other options. And how many dollars will it take to fulfill the US's role in global conflict? At what dollar amount are we done? I am not remotely qualified to answer that. This is why I just kinda shrug my shoulders. My perspective, if it even is one, is that there are likely experts who are assigned to determining exactly that. They are probably paid well and they are probably good enough at their job. I don't know who those people are, but these budgets are assumed to not be random and have actual purpose outside of senators/congressmen trying to inject jobs through military spending into their districts/states. In short, I don't know.
Okay, let's put it another way.
Does it sound plausible that the US military would have been too poor to achieve its goals for the last 8 years and that everyone was just fine with that, including the military itself which requested a budget and got that?
And do you think there is any situation in which the US military is offered more money and turns it down because it has enough?
It's a money hole, no different to healthcare spending. There is no cap on how much they can spend, the only cap is diminishing returns per dollar. If you give them more money they'll simply take one of the projects that was previously too wasteful to fund and fund it.
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On September 20 2017 02:11 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size. No, it would not result in $1b of benefits. If you want to get $1b of benefits you would give $100 to the 10,000,000 poorest Americans and watch as they drove it straight back into the economy in the next few days. I was responding directly to the claim that giving the military more money to waste isn't necessarily a waste because the military has been involved in some productive activities, such as materials science research. While that may be true there is no reason to think that another $80b would lead to gains there, and even if it were, it certainly would not be the optimal way of attaining those goals. The military shouldn't get the money because it's a zero sum game, money from one area has to go to another. $80b is a fair chunk of what the UK spends on the NHS annually, for example. It's not about wasteful vs not wasteful. It's about how much you can get for the $. There are a shitton of options, from redistribution to lowering taxes to education to research to healthcare to infrastructure to student loans to the military etc, and I'm not convinced that the productivity from giving the $ to the military is the optimal route. Show nested quote +Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
or just give it to the IRS where they get 3 dollars back in unpaid taxes for every dollar of funding they get (as much as people hate the IRS it's one of the few government entities that actually makes money)
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United States43350 Posts
On September 20 2017 02:49 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 02:11 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size. No, it would not result in $1b of benefits. If you want to get $1b of benefits you would give $100 to the 10,000,000 poorest Americans and watch as they drove it straight back into the economy in the next few days. I was responding directly to the claim that giving the military more money to waste isn't necessarily a waste because the military has been involved in some productive activities, such as materials science research. While that may be true there is no reason to think that another $80b would lead to gains there, and even if it were, it certainly would not be the optimal way of attaining those goals. The military shouldn't get the money because it's a zero sum game, money from one area has to go to another. $80b is a fair chunk of what the UK spends on the NHS annually, for example. It's not about wasteful vs not wasteful. It's about how much you can get for the $. There are a shitton of options, from redistribution to lowering taxes to education to research to healthcare to infrastructure to student loans to the military etc, and I'm not convinced that the productivity from giving the $ to the military is the optimal route. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. or just give it to the IRS where they get 3 dollars back in unpaid taxes for every dollar of funding they get (as much as people hate the IRS it's one of the few government entities that actually makes money)
Putting an artificial cap on IRS funding is a patently absurd policy. We give them $1, they come back with $10, they ask if they can give us $9 and use the remaining $1 to get us another $10, we say no and take all $10.
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On September 20 2017 02:36 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 02:30 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 02:26 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 02:25 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 02:11 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size. No, it would not result in $1b of benefits. If you want to get $1b of benefits you would give $100 to the 10,000,000 poorest Americans and watch as they drove it straight back into the economy in the next few days. I was responding directly to the claim that giving the military more money to waste isn't necessarily a waste because the military has been involved in some productive activities, such as materials science research. While that may be true there is no reason to think that another $80b would lead to gains there, and even if it were, it certainly would not be the optimal way of attaining those goals. The military shouldn't get the money because it's a zero sum game, money from one area has to go to another. $80b is a fair chunk of what the UK spends on the NHS annually, for example. It's not about wasteful vs not wasteful. It's about how much you can get for the $. There are a shitton of options, from redistribution to lowering taxes to education to research to healthcare to infrastructure to student loans to the military etc, and I'm not convinced that the productivity from giving the $ to the military is the optimal route. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. Yeah, I see what you mean. It is a lot easier to get value out of a singlepayer system than it is a tank. Or at least a lot more certain value. In that sense, I agree. I just struggle with this dilemma because I think there aren't any other actors to ease the US's role in global conflict. Europe isn't there yet and won't be, perhaps ever. China, no thanks. Russia, no thanks. South America kind of a mess. Africa really a mess. We need a moderator and I am not fond of our other options. And how many dollars will it take to fulfill the US's role in global conflict? At what dollar amount are we done? I am not remotely qualified to answer that. This is why I just kinda shrug my shoulders. My perspective, if it even is one, is that there are likely experts who are assigned to determining exactly that. They are probably paid well and they are probably good enough at their job. I don't know who those people are, but these budgets are assumed to not be random and have actual purpose outside of senators/congressmen trying to inject jobs through military spending into their districts/states. In short, I don't know. Okay, let's put it another way. Does it sound plausible that the US military would have been too poor to achieve its goals for the last 8 years and that everyone was just fine with that, including the military itself which requested a budget and got that?
I'm not understanding what you are saying here lol 
On September 20 2017 02:36 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 02:30 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 02:26 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 02:25 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 02:11 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size. No, it would not result in $1b of benefits. If you want to get $1b of benefits you would give $100 to the 10,000,000 poorest Americans and watch as they drove it straight back into the economy in the next few days. I was responding directly to the claim that giving the military more money to waste isn't necessarily a waste because the military has been involved in some productive activities, such as materials science research. While that may be true there is no reason to think that another $80b would lead to gains there, and even if it were, it certainly would not be the optimal way of attaining those goals. The military shouldn't get the money because it's a zero sum game, money from one area has to go to another. $80b is a fair chunk of what the UK spends on the NHS annually, for example. It's not about wasteful vs not wasteful. It's about how much you can get for the $. There are a shitton of options, from redistribution to lowering taxes to education to research to healthcare to infrastructure to student loans to the military etc, and I'm not convinced that the productivity from giving the $ to the military is the optimal route. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. Yeah, I see what you mean. It is a lot easier to get value out of a singlepayer system than it is a tank. Or at least a lot more certain value. In that sense, I agree. I just struggle with this dilemma because I think there aren't any other actors to ease the US's role in global conflict. Europe isn't there yet and won't be, perhaps ever. China, no thanks. Russia, no thanks. South America kind of a mess. Africa really a mess. We need a moderator and I am not fond of our other options. And how many dollars will it take to fulfill the US's role in global conflict? At what dollar amount are we done? I am not remotely qualified to answer that. This is why I just kinda shrug my shoulders. My perspective, if it even is one, is that there are likely experts who are assigned to determining exactly that. They are probably paid well and they are probably good enough at their job. I don't know who those people are, but these budgets are assumed to not be random and have actual purpose outside of senators/congressmen trying to inject jobs through military spending into their districts/states. In short, I don't know. Okay, let's put it another way. And do you think there is any situation in which the US military is offered more money and turns it down because it has enough?
I thought this happened with tanks or something recently? Pentagon requested to not receive something that senate forced down their throat for jobs.
On September 20 2017 02:36 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 02:30 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 02:26 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 02:25 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 02:11 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 02:03 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:59 KwarK wrote:On September 20 2017 01:55 Mohdoo wrote:On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming). Is this really avoidable, though? As entity gets bigger --> waste gets bigger. Kind of like how big companies lose millions of dollars a year to accounting errors. Is there some nation that we know has an outstandingly efficient military while also being huge? I imagine not. I am sure a lot of work has been done to study "how do huge things not be wasteful?", but it does not seem to have been particularly successful yet. The point is that $80b in additional spending does not necessarily lead to anything like $80b in benefits. Would 1b result in 1b of benefits? It is unclear to me when the entity is considered too big and how the core principles of military competition factor into things. It's not like we're going to split up our "too big to fail" military or something like that. Saying the military shouldn't get more funding because it is used inefficiently doesn't make sense to me because it would still be hugely wasteful at half its size. No, it would not result in $1b of benefits. If you want to get $1b of benefits you would give $100 to the 10,000,000 poorest Americans and watch as they drove it straight back into the economy in the next few days. I was responding directly to the claim that giving the military more money to waste isn't necessarily a waste because the military has been involved in some productive activities, such as materials science research. While that may be true there is no reason to think that another $80b would lead to gains there, and even if it were, it certainly would not be the optimal way of attaining those goals. The military shouldn't get the money because it's a zero sum game, money from one area has to go to another. $80b is a fair chunk of what the UK spends on the NHS annually, for example. It's not about wasteful vs not wasteful. It's about how much you can get for the $. There are a shitton of options, from redistribution to lowering taxes to education to research to healthcare to infrastructure to student loans to the military etc, and I'm not convinced that the productivity from giving the $ to the military is the optimal route. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. Yeah, I see what you mean. It is a lot easier to get value out of a singlepayer system than it is a tank. Or at least a lot more certain value. In that sense, I agree. I just struggle with this dilemma because I think there aren't any other actors to ease the US's role in global conflict. Europe isn't there yet and won't be, perhaps ever. China, no thanks. Russia, no thanks. South America kind of a mess. Africa really a mess. We need a moderator and I am not fond of our other options. And how many dollars will it take to fulfill the US's role in global conflict? At what dollar amount are we done? I am not remotely qualified to answer that. This is why I just kinda shrug my shoulders. My perspective, if it even is one, is that there are likely experts who are assigned to determining exactly that. They are probably paid well and they are probably good enough at their job. I don't know who those people are, but these budgets are assumed to not be random and have actual purpose outside of senators/congressmen trying to inject jobs through military spending into their districts/states. In short, I don't know. It's a money hole, no different to healthcare spending. There is no cap on how much they can spend, the only cap is diminishing returns per dollar. If you give them more money they'll simply take one of the projects that was previously too wasteful to fund and fund it.
What is an example of such a project?
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On September 20 2017 01:42 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 01:38 LegalLord wrote:On September 20 2017 01:17 Gorsameth wrote:On September 20 2017 01:00 LegalLord wrote:WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton criticized Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, telling a packed theater Monday night in the nation’s capital that the U.S. media got “played” and joking that she ran against both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin last year.
Clinton, who is on a media tour promoting her new book, “What Happened,” was introduced at the event to thunderous applause as having won “3 million more votes than the Republican nominee.” Trump now lives in the White House, but Washington remains a Democratic stronghold in which more than 90 percent of the district voted for Clinton last year.
Onstage, Clinton recapped the “infamous” day last October when the Obama administration announced Russia was behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee, the Washington Post broke the “Access Hollywood” tape story, and Clinton’s campaign chairman’s emails began getting released on WikiLeaks. The U.S. intelligence community later accused the Kremlin of feeding the emails to WikiLeaks.
“John Podesta’s emails were stolen — I hate the word ‘hacked’; they were stolen,” Clinton said of her former campaign chairman. She sarcastically called it “such an amazing coincidence” that WikiLeaks dumped his emails within an hour of the Washington Post publishing the tape of Trump boasting about groping women. And she insisted that people close to Trump “certainly” knew about Russia’s interference.
She said that the Russians and their allies — “whoever they turn out to be” — sent the press on a “wild goose chase” over Podesta’s emails because releasing them “created the illusion of transparency.”
“If you think you’re getting something from behind the screen maybe it’s more legitimate even though you’re being played by a bunch of Russians,” Clinton said of the media’s attitude. (Clinton has also recently said that Trump is being “played” by Putin, Russia’s president.) www.yahoo.comShe really needs to know when to back off lest she reveal the Russia matter for the scapegoat-seeking farce that it is. Ah yes, the Hillary mind control technology that allowed her to get Trump to work with so many foreign Russian agents and then lie about it. A really amazing piece of technology. its not like investigators found actual written proof of Russian contacts meeting with Trumps staff in Trump tower to discuss Russia helping him get elected. How fortunate that we have a Russian, living in the US, pretending to be British to help us see to the core of this matter You really ought to cut down on the hyperbolic strawmen in pretty much all of your posts in recent history. It gets sort of stale after the 100th time you do it. I will happily respond seriously when you start posting serious. Rather then trying to claim Hillary invented Trump's Russian collusion.
Yeah that's not what's being said and you know it. You do this with pretty much every post you don't like, giving an obtuse interpretation based on a lack of reading comprehension. Fuck, if you acknowledge yourself you have nothing meaningful or serious to add then why talk at all? It's about the productivity of pro-Hillary meming like "but her emails!"
The Russia matter is indeed a farce. Maybe not the events, some of which may have happened and others not, but the way it's used in order to try to imply the lack of legitimacy of the president that they just don't like. Hillary reveals it quite well by going and showing that the whole "respect democracy" idea was just relevant only when she won by doing one of her classical flip-flops on legitimacy of the election.
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On September 20 2017 01:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2017 01:41 LegalLord wrote:
A lot of genuinely interesting and productive stuff that we have developed only saw light first as military developments. The military has never been shy about creating new and useful technologies when necessary. They still do, so at least that money does have something to show for the effort. Unfortunately, it still seems wasteful when incredible sums of money are spent inefficiently on things that are completely unnecessary or erroneously paid for in the military. Furthermore, the service members rarely see this money. It sure as hell isn't in our wages, It rarely turns into new benefits (I can't tell you how many times I've been told, "sorry, that benefit was cut recently, you can't get it anymore"), living conditions are routinely poor (I could tell you quite a few stories about the barracks that I just came from and the galleys I had to eat in), and the gear is substandard (during my recent training, my flak jacket didn't fit and my rifle couldn't fire more than a single round without jamming).
Got a better way to spend that money, efficiently or otherwise? Even if inefficient it does get real technological results. Most other things don't get that.
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EPT
