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On June 22 2018 22:33 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2018 19:19 iamthedave wrote:
I don't understand the US's blindness when it comes to defense spending. Every single time I hear one party or other whinging about not having enough money for something, I think 'can't you just knock a billion off your defense spending?'
That is just grotesque. Is America literally planning to invade earth? Who is America defending against?
I understand the financial incentives and the like, because there's so many other businesses that benefit. But don't the American people recognise that this is just a stupidly pointless waste of money? While I'd agree that defense spending is too high, defense spending is typically viewed in % of GDP terms. 2% is the NATO min target IIRC. Raw $$ matter too, but it's not odd that a large economy like the US outspends smaller economies. ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/XxqaAHt.png) Long-term, defense is a shrinking part of the budget. Typically people use past spending as a reference point to gauge if spending is 'high' or 'low'. In that context it's not hard to see why a lot of people would see current spending as 'low'.
The US is of course well above 2% and really doesn't need to be.
just because it's easy to point to reason why people would make a stupid mistake doesn't mean it's not a stupid mistake.
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%GDP is a really silly metric for how much of a government's resources are spent on the military anyway. It's far more relevant to examine % of government revenue spent on the military. E.g. a country with a tax base of 2% GDP that spends 2% of their GDP on the military is a horrific one.
Unless you have a privatized military, but fortunately we're not there yet.
For reference, the U.S. spends ~20% of its federal budget on the military. North Korea spends ~20% of its GDP on the military, and since they're a command economy that's basically 20% of their federal budget (well, at least in 80s the state expenditures were ~75% of the GNP, so let's be charitable and say that's 27% of their federal budget).
Or how many jets you'd have to not build to forgive an entire generation's student loans, that's a nice metric.
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On June 22 2018 23:34 TheTenthDoc wrote:
%GDP is a really silly metric for how much of a government's resources are spent on the military anyway. It's far more relevant to examine % of government revenue spent on the military. E.g. a country with a tax base of 2% GDP that spends 2% of their GDP on the military is a horrific one.
Unless you have a privatized military, but fortunately we're not there yet.
For reference, the U.S. spends ~20% of its federal budget on the military. North Korea spends ~20% of its GDP on the military, and since they're a command economy that's basically 20% of their federal budget (well, at least in 80s the state expenditures were ~75% of the GNP, so let's be charitable and say that's 27% of their federal budget).
Or how many jets you'd have to not build to forgive an entire generation's student loans, that's a nice metric.
Or maybe not build a super ultra mega triple stacked cheese aircraft carrier.
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On June 22 2018 23:53 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2018 23:34 TheTenthDoc wrote:
%GDP is a really silly metric for how much of a government's resources are spent on the military anyway. It's far more relevant to examine % of government revenue spent on the military. E.g. a country with a tax base of 2% GDP that spends 2% of their GDP on the military is a horrific one.
Unless you have a privatized military, but fortunately we're not there yet.
For reference, the U.S. spends ~20% of its federal budget on the military. North Korea spends ~20% of its GDP on the military, and since they're a command economy that's basically 20% of their federal budget (well, at least in 80s the state expenditures were ~75% of the GNP, so let's be charitable and say that's 27% of their federal budget).
Or how many jets you'd have to not build to forgive an entire generation's student loans, that's a nice metric. Or maybe not build a super ultra mega triple stacked cheese aircraft carrier.
I am weirdly Ok with them building aircraft carriers because they only do it to replace existing aircraft carriers. We are a trading nation and basically need a blue water navy, so it’s the high powered fighter jet that we will never use that bother me more. And the massive administrative budget that blows all equipment costs out of the water.
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On June 22 2018 23:34 TheTenthDoc wrote:
%GDP is a really silly metric for how much of a government's resources are spent on the military anyway. It's far more relevant to examine % of government revenue spent on the military. E.g. a country with a tax base of 2% GDP that spends 2% of their GDP on the military is a horrific one.
Unless you have a privatized military, but fortunately we're not there yet.
For reference, the U.S. spends ~20% of its federal budget on the military. North Korea spends ~20% of its GDP on the military, and since they're a command economy that's basically 20% of their federal budget (well, at least in 80s the state expenditures were ~75% of the GNP, so let's be charitable and say that's 27% of their federal budget).
Or how many jets you'd have to not build to forgive an entire generation's student loans, that's a nice metric.
I disagree that % gdp is a silly metric; I think it's a quite useful metric, albeit imperfect as most metrics are.
Because it's a measure of how much the society as a whole is spending on it (on something that is in general not productive, except insofar as it prevents loss due to hostile powers). %gov't revenue is heavily distorted by how involved the government is in the market/society; i.e. how large the government is.
PS shockey, I don't think anyone was making up numbers; though maybe I missed someones. good to have more fact links though.
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On June 22 2018 22:33 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2018 19:19 iamthedave wrote:
I don't understand the US's blindness when it comes to defense spending. Every single time I hear one party or other whinging about not having enough money for something, I think 'can't you just knock a billion off your defense spending?'
That is just grotesque. Is America literally planning to invade earth? Who is America defending against?
I understand the financial incentives and the like, because there's so many other businesses that benefit. But don't the American people recognise that this is just a stupidly pointless waste of money? While I'd agree that defense spending is too high, defense spending is typically viewed in % of GDP terms. 2% is the NATO min target IIRC. Raw $$ matter too, but it's not odd that a large economy like the US outspends smaller economies. Long-term, defense is a shrinking part of the budget. Typically people use past spending as a reference point to gauge if spending is 'high' or 'low'. In that context it's not hard to see why a lot of people would see current spending as 'low'.
It's too high, but not historical "OMG" high.
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On June 23 2018 00:13 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2018 23:34 TheTenthDoc wrote:
%GDP is a really silly metric for how much of a government's resources are spent on the military anyway. It's far more relevant to examine % of government revenue spent on the military. E.g. a country with a tax base of 2% GDP that spends 2% of their GDP on the military is a horrific one.
Unless you have a privatized military, but fortunately we're not there yet.
For reference, the U.S. spends ~20% of its federal budget on the military. North Korea spends ~20% of its GDP on the military, and since they're a command economy that's basically 20% of their federal budget (well, at least in 80s the state expenditures were ~75% of the GNP, so let's be charitable and say that's 27% of their federal budget).
Or how many jets you'd have to not build to forgive an entire generation's student loans, that's a nice metric. I disagree that % gdp is a silly metric; I think it's a quite useful metric, albeit imperfect as most metrics are. Because it's a measure of how much the society as a whole is spending on it (on something that is in general not productive, except insofar as it prevents loss due to hostile powers). %gov't revenue is heavily distorted by how involved the government is in the market/society; i.e. how large the government is. PS shockey, I don't think anyone was making up numbers; though maybe I missed someones. good to have more fact links though.
Huh. I actually prefer %government spending for all the reasons you stated; the masking goes the other way. To me the proportion of spending the U.S. government allocates to the military is heavily masked with a GDP-based metric. Say two places have the same GDP and the same % GDP military spending, but one has federal revenue of 10% GDP and one has federal revenue 5% GDP.
A GDP metric implies the two countries prioritize the military the same...but the governments clearly don't, and they're the sole source of military spending.
Something like healthcare, where much of the spending is private, is another matter.
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On June 22 2018 23:53 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2018 23:34 TheTenthDoc wrote:
%GDP is a really silly metric for how much of a government's resources are spent on the military anyway. It's far more relevant to examine % of government revenue spent on the military. E.g. a country with a tax base of 2% GDP that spends 2% of their GDP on the military is a horrific one.
Unless you have a privatized military, but fortunately we're not there yet.
For reference, the U.S. spends ~20% of its federal budget on the military. North Korea spends ~20% of its GDP on the military, and since they're a command economy that's basically 20% of their federal budget (well, at least in 80s the state expenditures were ~75% of the GNP, so let's be charitable and say that's 27% of their federal budget).
Or how many jets you'd have to not build to forgive an entire generation's student loans, that's a nice metric. Or maybe not build a super ultra mega triple stacked cheese aircraft carrier.
I think the idea behind the amount of our military spending is to maintain readiness to fight two wars at a time, anywhere in the world. And to maintain total dominance .
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As a small follow up to the Melania story... she wore the same jacket on her return trip. This was despite the fact the media storm around it was already raging (something she surely would have been told) and it was apparently extremely hot on the way back.
The only inference to be made from this is that it was an intentional message being sent, almost certainly in reference to her meeting. The question then is it directed at the kids/liberals or Trump on the issue. Since apparently she was planning this trip before Trump stopped the practice, I lean towards the latter. Though in either case it probably backfired.
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On June 23 2018 00:37 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2018 00:13 zlefin wrote:On June 22 2018 23:34 TheTenthDoc wrote:
%GDP is a really silly metric for how much of a government's resources are spent on the military anyway. It's far more relevant to examine % of government revenue spent on the military. E.g. a country with a tax base of 2% GDP that spends 2% of their GDP on the military is a horrific one.
Unless you have a privatized military, but fortunately we're not there yet.
For reference, the U.S. spends ~20% of its federal budget on the military. North Korea spends ~20% of its GDP on the military, and since they're a command economy that's basically 20% of their federal budget (well, at least in 80s the state expenditures were ~75% of the GNP, so let's be charitable and say that's 27% of their federal budget).
Or how many jets you'd have to not build to forgive an entire generation's student loans, that's a nice metric. I disagree that % gdp is a silly metric; I think it's a quite useful metric, albeit imperfect as most metrics are. Because it's a measure of how much the society as a whole is spending on it (on something that is in general not productive, except insofar as it prevents loss due to hostile powers). %gov't revenue is heavily distorted by how involved the government is in the market/society; i.e. how large the government is. PS shockey, I don't think anyone was making up numbers; though maybe I missed someones. good to have more fact links though. Huh. I actually prefer %government spending for all the reasons you stated; the masking goes the other way. To me the proportion of spending the U.S. government allocates to the military is heavily masked with a GDP-based metric. Say two places have the same GDP and the same % GDP military spending, but one has federal revenue of 10% GDP and one has federal revenue 5% GDP. A GDP metric implies the two countries prioritize the military the same...but the governments clearly don't, and they're the sole source of military spending. Something like healthcare, where much of the spending is private, is another matter.
The reasons I stated support my point though, and don't support yours.
I'd say in that case you describe the two countries do prioritize military spending the same; because as countries, that's how they allocate their overall resources. It's not that the one with smaller revenue has a higher priority on its military; it's that the government simply has fewer things to spend it on because more of the economy is privatized.
this heavily relates to stuff like healthcare: if healthcare is managed via nationalized medicine, then the % of federal revenue spent on military will be a lot lower than in a plcae where healthcare is managed via the private sector.
that doesn't mean a place with private healthcare cares more about the military than healthcare; it simply means they have a different setup for how they implement their healthcare.
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More bad news for Paul Manafort:
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/22/paul-manafort-money-laundering-charge-664793
A federal judge has rejected former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's attempt to toss out a money laundering charge stemming from his use of offshore bank accounts funded by a lobbying campaign he masterminded on behalf of political interests in Ukraine.
Manafort's defense team argued that the tens of millions of dollars he's accused of laundering didn't qualify as the proceeds of criminal activity because lobbying for a foreign entity in the U.S. is legal and the only crime Manafort may have committed in that regard is failing to register.
But U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson disagreed.
"It is a crime to 'act' [as a foreign agent] 'unless' one has registered – the statute does not simply state that the failure to register is unlawful," Jackson wrote in a nine-page decision issued Friday. "These laws are not just about paperwork; their object is to ensure that no person acts to advance the interests of a foreign government or principal within the United States unless the public has been properly notified of his or her allegiance."
User was warned for this post
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His attorneys are just throwing shit at the wall at this point. The man's actions after being charged did so much damage to his case there is no coming back. The man should just flip and get it over with.
Edit: In other news, Robert's seems to be the Supreme Court Justice that has turned the tide on the "the digital world is a magic land that is free from normal laws." The sales tax and location data rulings real sets a clear picture of how the Court views the internet and the digital world right now.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/22/17493298/supreme-court-internet-sales-tax-congress-amazon-etsy-ebay
There are some complaints about the ruling and it will impact people, including my sister who runs an online business. But these are solvable problems that people never built the infrastructure for because they didn't have to care.
I sort of hope that someone challenges Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to reign in the blanket immunity websites and servers receive under that +20 year old law written in the age of dial up. This is the thing that prevents Youtube from suffering any consequences for hosting Alex Jones's bullshit and paying for this bandwidth. Of course some level of liability protection is required to keep the internet the way it is, but billion dollar companies needs to be forced to give a shit about what they publish on their site.
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On June 23 2018 01:52 Plansix wrote:
His attorneys are just throwing shit at the wall at this point. The man's actions after being charged did so much damage to his case there is no coming back. The man should just flip and get it over with.
He probably knows he's screwed and has known so for a while. But until the fat lady sings, fight, fight, fight. He wouldn't be trying to tamper with witnesses if he didn't know he needed to. He took a huge risk by trying that. I think it was a "what do I have to lose?" sorta deal.
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He is delaying in the hope that Trump comes through (tho that may change since he is in prison now). He also just lost a request to throw out whole file cabinets worth of documents (some labeled Ukraine lol) he was hiding in a storage locker which were taken by authorities.
The guy is going to spend the rest of his life in prison unless he gets pardoned or he flips. Seems to be his only options.
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On June 23 2018 01:56 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2018 01:52 Plansix wrote:
His attorneys are just throwing shit at the wall at this point. The man's actions after being charged did so much damage to his case there is no coming back. The man should just flip and get it over with. He probably knows he's screwed and has known so for a while. But until the fat lady sings, fight, fight, fight. He wouldn't be trying to tamper with witnesses if he didn't know he needed to. He took a huge risk by trying that. I think it was a "what do I have to lose?" sorta deal.
I think it is much simpler to assume Paul Manafort has no plan and is, in fact, completely out of his depth. He got away with this for so long he was stupid enough to assume the charges would go away. Or that Trump will save him with a pardon that won't apply to all those state charges. People have unlimited capacity to delude themselves.
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Not fond of that supreme court ruling on sales tax issues; though I'd have to delve into it deeper to be sure I don't like it.
5-4 rulings ni general are trouible, especially when they overturn something.
I can understand the need to implement fixes to address real problems; but it's rather annoying that people don't go through the proper venue to fix them, and end up forcing the courts to address it by making sketchy rulings.
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What's sketchy about the ruling?
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Worth noting in that SCOTUS 5-4 that it was not purely ideological. Ginsburg joined Kennedy's majority and Roberts wrote the dissent.
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Regarding the talk about the spending of tax dollars, I don't think "what percent is spent where?" is the primary issue. Certainly it does come into play, but I think the real is waste. How efficiently is the money being used? Are the expenditures reasonable in cost? Are they in the best interest of the american people?
Remember that a huge amount of the money that is pumped into the military almost immediately goes back into the economy. It is a problem, however, when big chunks of that money end up in the coffers of the wealthy, never to be seen again by the american people.
All of this is, of course, not taking into account anyone's stance on the morality of the war machine.
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EPT
