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On April 30 2026 23:36 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2026 22:08 Razyda wrote:On April 30 2026 20:34 Velr wrote:On April 30 2026 19:23 oBlade wrote:On April 30 2026 19:03 Simberto wrote:
Yeah, i know that republicans hate the idea of proportional representation, because it means that their minority can't win a minority of the seats through shady bullshit. That's uncommon. But there is nothing that stops Democrats from winning more House seats with fewer votes either. Representation is proportional because the same number of people are in each district. These conversations sure are somthing: A; "The system is idiotic for a miriad of reasons, here are some!" B: "It's a perfectly fine system because the other side can exploit the unecessary and undemocratic flaws in it too!" And earlyer: A: "The system is idiotic, here is a better one."B: "Thats also not perfect because of thing that barely ever happens! (and can happen because it was deemed the lesser evil)" But go on... To declare system better it needs to be factually better, rather than preferred by someone. As for " barely ever happens" it kinda starts feeling like " Pater Noster" of the left... Edit: added "for" You can’t define any electoral system as ‘factually’ better no. Can’t even ‘factually’ prove democracy in the abstract. But one can provide parameters of what x system is supposed to do, and how well it does it. Which one can actually address somewhat objectively and compare to other systems and come up with various empirical metrics. And ‘barely ever happens’ can simply just be a broadly correct observation.
If they adopted the popular referendum model like they did in Switzerland, they'd have to be more careful about how they govern.
That requires a baseline sanity level in society though. It could also just be done at the state level. Or both state and federal.
And it's not immune from the massive manipulation that is done by the owners of internet media that only listens to money. These trash cannon platforms are billionaire controlled. Aggressively used for propaganda even among people that don't want to use the crap.
Even independent media gets just bought up when they criticize them.
Complaining about Trump doesn't conceal that he's just the fall guy for the billionaire dictatorship.
Soaking up what' should be meant for them.
At least you can tell it's not Boeing who's after him.
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On April 30 2026 23:52 Jankisa wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2026 23:16 oBlade wrote:On April 30 2026 22:53 LightSpectra wrote:It's true that there's an element of subjectivity to the idea of electoral fairness. There's a whole host of fancy terms that electoral scientists have come up with to compare different voting methods, like Monotonicity, Majority loser, Clone independence, Reversal symmetry, Resolvability, and so on. The problem is the method most of the USA uses, gerrymandered districts/electoral college with simple plurality single-choice ballots, is the worst by basically all of the criteria. The U.S. Constitution was written and ratified in a time when electoral science was very primitive. After World War II, we helped Germany, Japan, and Italy write new constitutions that avoided the pitfalls we made in our own, but we can't fix those same design flaws because it would mean you can't own the libz anymore. Italy and Germany wrote their own constitutions and neither decided to have the people even elect their main leader at all. I like how oBlade is pretending like he's an electoral expert for Italian and German systems. When German and Italian political parties and coalitions are campaigning, they clearly state who the PM / Chancellor will be and the voters take that in to consideration when they vote. Both Mertz and Meloni were the PM candidates when they won their last elections. I'd know since my country's system and our constitution has largely been copied from German one, plus these 2 elections as some of our biggest economic allies are pretty important to us.
Yeah it doesn't take an expert to point out they avoided the "pitfalls" of the voters choosing the leader.
Want me to teach you about the US system?
In the US, I can vote for a candidate for one position, and a candidate for another position, and another for a third position. And they can be from several parties, or even no party! And they can all win! That means my country can choose a leader from one party, with a legislature of another party! And who can choose the candidates for leader, some party bigshots only (well, yes, for Democratic "superdelegates")? Nope, any citizens can walk into an open primary and choose who they think the candidate should be!
Amazing, isn't it.
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On May 01 2026 00:21 LightSpectra wrote:
tl;dr
Parliamentary system where you vote for an MP who then votes for the prime minister and cabinet: bad
Nobody said parliamentary systems are "bad."
There are advantages and disadvantages to many systems but saying we fixed presidential election by not even bothering and voting for parties instead is a cop out, obfuscation, or self-contradictory hypocrisy.
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United States44367 Posts
On April 30 2026 21:22 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2026 20:34 Velr wrote:On April 30 2026 19:23 oBlade wrote:On April 30 2026 19:03 Simberto wrote:
Yeah, i know that republicans hate the idea of proportional representation, because it means that their minority can't win a minority of the seats through shady bullshit. That's uncommon. But there is nothing that stops Democrats from winning more House seats with fewer votes either. Representation is proportional because the same number of people are in each district. These conversations sure are somthing: A; "The system is idiotic for a miriad of reasons, here are some!" B: "It's a perfectly fine system because the other side can exploit the unecessary and undemocratic flaws in it too!" And earlyer: A: "The system is idiotic, here is a better one." B: "Thats also not perfect because of thing that barely ever happens! (and can happen because it was deemed the lesser evil)" But go on... If you summed the popular vote totals from Bundestag constituency votes it wouldn't match the final apportionment exactly either. So what? Maybe you "expected" it to match exactly? The system isn't wrong. That expectation was wrong. This is constantly the chess fallacy. It is a checkers player getting checkmated while having more pieces and going "How is that fair? I have more pieces." Yes, that's possible. The reason is chess prioritizes checkmate. The people who designed the US system knew they were prioritizing direct representation in the House. Because they had none in Britain. They even named it the House of Representatives. Not the House of Proportional Party Tallies Where A Bunch Of People Voting Red In Texas Means One Less Democrat From Virginia To Make Room For Those Texas Republicans. US system mogs Germany for independents also. Yes no matter what margin a district votes by, that district can't get more representatives than the one that already won. Your problem is being stuck on level 1 thinking the system is fundamentally broken when it was just built on a different value judgment than you expected.
Weird argument. They were so interested in avoiding the British system that they implemented constituency single plurality?
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Northern Ireland27463 Posts
On May 01 2026 00:46 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2026 21:22 oBlade wrote:On April 30 2026 20:34 Velr wrote:On April 30 2026 19:23 oBlade wrote:On April 30 2026 19:03 Simberto wrote:
Yeah, i know that republicans hate the idea of proportional representation, because it means that their minority can't win a minority of the seats through shady bullshit. That's uncommon. But there is nothing that stops Democrats from winning more House seats with fewer votes either. Representation is proportional because the same number of people are in each district. These conversations sure are somthing: A; "The system is idiotic for a miriad of reasons, here are some!" B: "It's a perfectly fine system because the other side can exploit the unecessary and undemocratic flaws in it too!" And earlyer: A: "The system is idiotic, here is a better one." B: "Thats also not perfect because of thing that barely ever happens! (and can happen because it was deemed the lesser evil)" But go on... If you summed the popular vote totals from Bundestag constituency votes it wouldn't match the final apportionment exactly either. So what? Maybe you "expected" it to match exactly? The system isn't wrong. That expectation was wrong. This is constantly the chess fallacy. It is a checkers player getting checkmated while having more pieces and going "How is that fair? I have more pieces." Yes, that's possible. The reason is chess prioritizes checkmate. The people who designed the US system knew they were prioritizing direct representation in the House. Because they had none in Britain. They even named it the House of Representatives. Not the House of Proportional Party Tallies Where A Bunch Of People Voting Red In Texas Means One Less Democrat From Virginia To Make Room For Those Texas Republicans. US system mogs Germany for independents also. Yes no matter what margin a district votes by, that district can't get more representatives than the one that already won. Your problem is being stuck on level 1 thinking the system is fundamentally broken when it was just built on a different value judgment than you expected. Weird argument. They were so interested in avoiding the British system that they implemented constituency single plurality?
It’s almost like oBlade is talking complete shite. Which I mean fair enough happens to us all on occasion, I’m certainly guilty myself.
I wouldn’t be too harsh though I mean this is a first offence and generally they talk good old, good-faith sense
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On May 01 2026 00:38 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2026 00:21 LightSpectra wrote:
tl;dr
Parliamentary system where you vote for an MP who then votes for the prime minister and cabinet: bad Nobody said parliamentary systems are "bad." There are advantages and disadvantages to many systems but saying we fixed presidential election by not even bothering and voting for parties instead is a cop out, obfuscation, or self-contradictory hypocrisy.
Let me adjust that sentence for you:
There are advantages and disadvantages to many systems but saying we people the United States government sent to assist West German, Italian, and Japanese legislators to draft a new constitution for their own countries fixed avoided presidential election democratic unfairness by not even bothering and voting for parties instead voting for MPs instead of electoral delegates in a system explicitly created to give more power to slave owners is a cop out, obfuscation, or self-contradictory hypocrisy factually correct.
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On April 30 2026 23:56 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2026 23:27 dyhb wrote:
We should probably amicably divorce, where one country can go strictly proportional and elect everyone based on that principle, and the other can preserve a historical not-strictly-proportional method. The constitutional means to change it has failed every time for around 250 years. We could just hypothetically make the US President subject to a popular vote subject to how the role has clearly expanded over the years Or alternatively the cheques checks and balances could function as envisaged, and change becomes less appealing. America already has a bicameral legislature, one of which weights states over people, where the other is weighed the other way. And a Supreme Court If a President can basically bypass these checks depending on the lay of the land, and in particular domains as a national figure and head of state, it feels to me they should be elected in the same manner. On the flipside if other shit actually functioned properly, I don’t think the system is a bad one on paper. Indeed I actively like the American system in many ways. It probably works very well in other locales I think the hypothetical on a popular vote should consider the methods of achieving that.
The power of the executive is a separate topic to changing the way the president is elected. I wrote about it recently. I'm with you on re-asserting checks and balances as they were meant to be.
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On May 01 2026 00:46 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2026 21:22 oBlade wrote:On April 30 2026 20:34 Velr wrote:On April 30 2026 19:23 oBlade wrote:On April 30 2026 19:03 Simberto wrote:
Yeah, i know that republicans hate the idea of proportional representation, because it means that their minority can't win a minority of the seats through shady bullshit. That's uncommon. But there is nothing that stops Democrats from winning more House seats with fewer votes either. Representation is proportional because the same number of people are in each district. These conversations sure are somthing: A; "The system is idiotic for a miriad of reasons, here are some!" B: "It's a perfectly fine system because the other side can exploit the unecessary and undemocratic flaws in it too!" And earlyer: A: "The system is idiotic, here is a better one." B: "Thats also not perfect because of thing that barely ever happens! (and can happen because it was deemed the lesser evil)" But go on... If you summed the popular vote totals from Bundestag constituency votes it wouldn't match the final apportionment exactly either. So what? Maybe you "expected" it to match exactly? The system isn't wrong. That expectation was wrong. This is constantly the chess fallacy. It is a checkers player getting checkmated while having more pieces and going "How is that fair? I have more pieces." Yes, that's possible. The reason is chess prioritizes checkmate. The people who designed the US system knew they were prioritizing direct representation in the House. Because they had none in Britain. They even named it the House of Representatives. Not the House of Proportional Party Tallies Where A Bunch Of People Voting Red In Texas Means One Less Democrat From Virginia To Make Room For Those Texas Republicans. US system mogs Germany for independents also. Yes no matter what margin a district votes by, that district can't get more representatives than the one that already won. Your problem is being stuck on level 1 thinking the system is fundamentally broken when it was just built on a different value judgment than you expected. Weird argument. They were so interested in avoiding the British system that they implemented constituency single plurality?
Yeah you're right that would be a weird argument if someone made it.
On May 01 2026 00:54 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2026 00:38 oBlade wrote:On May 01 2026 00:21 LightSpectra wrote:
tl;dr
Parliamentary system where you vote for an MP who then votes for the prime minister and cabinet: bad Nobody said parliamentary systems are "bad." There are advantages and disadvantages to many systems but saying we fixed presidential election by not even bothering and voting for parties instead is a cop out, obfuscation, or self-contradictory hypocrisy. Let me adjust that sentence for you: There are advantages and disadvantages to many systems but saying we people the United States government sent to assist West German, Italian, and Japanese legislators to draft a new constitution for their own countries fixed avoided presidential election democratic unfairness by not even bothering and voting for parties instead voting for MPs instead of electoral delegates in a system explicitly created to give more power to slave owners is a cop out, obfuscation, or self-contradictory hypocrisy factually correct.
"Assist draft" is devoid of meaning. We drafted Japan's constitution. Germany and Italy wrote their own constitutions. Did the US get coffee for them? Possibly. Does that mean electing a president is democratic unfairness because a long time ago black people existed but weren't citizens who could vote so the citizens of where they lived wanted to count them as people, and their political opponents didn't want to count them as people? No, because there's no slaves and slave owners.
The system was not created to give more power to slave owners. The system was created at a time when humans lived together despite some of the humans belonging to others. So all of one compromise was arrived at to address the awkward question of the ones that belonged to others. The "Three Fifths Compromise." If the country had been created explicitly to give more power to slave owners, it would be called the "One Compromise." Because counting every slave as a full person, or even as ten or a hundred people each, would be the way to powermaxx the slave states.
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In other words (i.e. not the dumb as shit way you wrote it), the reason the electoral college exists instead of a popular vote for POTUS is because the South wanted increased representation from owning slaves without those slaves being allowed to vote.
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On May 01 2026 01:51 LightSpectra wrote:
In other words (i.e. not the dumb as shit way you wrote it), the reason the electoral college exists instead of a popular vote for POTUS is because the South wanted increased representation from owning slaves without those slaves being allowed to vote.
The electoral college does not exist instead of a popular vote.
The electoral college exists instead of Congress choosing the president.
Why do you think they add up to the same number of people?
You are stuck on the electoral college having the 3/5ths compromise. This is Huffingtonpost level thought. The electoral college mirrors Congress. The 3/5ths compromise was in Congress.
Now look, you are welcome to say Congress was explicitly created to give more power to slave owners also, it'd be consistent from a tear-down-the-West revolutionary view, it's just that the view is insane. It's like saying Congress was explicitly created to give more power to men because women couldn't vote for the first ~140 years. The choice wasn't between women voting or women not voting. Society wasn't there yet. The choice was between confederation or federal republic.
The popular vote was already out. Whether slaves would vote for president or not was never an issue, it was never in any of the possible cards because anyone voting for president in a popular vote was already out. They didn't reject national popular vote for president on the basis that they would have had to enfranchise slaves. That doesn't make sense. Read a book I beg you. They could always just withhold any rights from slaves. Because they were SLAVES.
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Canada11607 Posts
@oBlade obviously there are trade-offs to any system.
However, can you at least see that the current way of redistricting in the US is straight garbage? Or are you supportive of the status quo?
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On May 01 2026 02:08 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2026 01:51 LightSpectra wrote:
In other words (i.e. not the dumb as shit way you wrote it), the reason the electoral college exists instead of a popular vote for POTUS is because the South wanted increased representation from owning slaves without those slaves being allowed to vote. The electoral college does not exist instead of a popular vote.
"At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count."
https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/
I prefer when you say provably wrong shit that can be easily debunked. Much preferable to the recreational talking where you don't say anything falsifiable.
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As usual, a lot of reduction that basically becomes falsehood when pushed too far.
The Three-Fifths compromise did increase slave power in the EC compared to not counting slaves at all. It also did in Congress. Which was the first method of selecting the president they discussed. But of course they wanted full slave representation when counting for size. The compromise was required to get the union going, but it was that, a compromise. Not a sop to the South.
Second, there was a lot of discussion at the convention and debate. The large state small state dynamic was arguably (and I think obviously) more important than slavery. Maryland was a slave state. It voted in favor of the EC. Virginia was also a slave state (it was also the single largest state), it voted against the EC iirc. CT for, Delaware for. NC against. Again all by memory here. Georgia against, as it thought it was going to grow a lot in the following decades.
Or you can look at the timeline and the arguments. There was a lot of discussion and debate that did not have anything to do with slavery.
They debated a popular vote but rejected it and for reasons of what one might call "good government."
Edit: for a dem law professor, Amar is usually pretty good. He knows that Roe was wrong and Citizens United was right. But I think he is also an advocate of the NPVC and maybe that's why that article is, uh, a little light on argument and heavy on like 2 quotes lol.
Edit 2:
Moreover that article gives it away in the final line, asking if we still want a system from slavery basically. This argument has a gaping hole, mainly that we don't have the Three-Fifths compromise anymore! We have a system more closely tracking what those small states wanted back then. It is, quite frankly, very emotionally manipulative to use slavery against the EC when we don't even have it any more.
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On May 01 2026 02:30 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2026 02:08 oBlade wrote:On May 01 2026 01:51 LightSpectra wrote:
In other words (i.e. not the dumb as shit way you wrote it), the reason the electoral college exists instead of a popular vote for POTUS is because the South wanted increased representation from owning slaves without those slaves being allowed to vote. The electoral college does not exist instead of a popular vote. "At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count." https://time.com/4558510/electoral-college-history-slavery/I prefer when you say provably wrong shit that can be easily debunked. Much preferable to the recreational talking where you don't say anything falsifiable.
This is the order:
1) Legislature chooses president (June)
2) 3/5ths compromise for slaves to count for representation (July 13th)
3) Great Compromise - House and Senate (July 16th)
4) Try direct election vote again and explicitly reject it (legislature chooses, including above slave buff that was already applied to the legislature) (July 17th)
5) First successful proposal for electors (July 19th)
6) "nvm" Legislature (still slave-buffed) chooses president again (August)
7) "Eureka" Electoral college chooses president (September)
The ingenuity of the electoral college was not that it allowed each southern state to count its slaves "with a two-fifths discount" as Time thinks. That had already been established. The ingenuity was that the electors could be appointed by however each state legislature approved, that it let the states decide without making the presidency a clique position managed by Congress.
The "quote" of Madison (it's a summary from meeting notes, it's not a verbatim quote from a stenographer and so is styled wrong again by Time) comes right from July 19th. It's around that time Wilson, the only guy who voted for direct election on the 17th, is looking hopeful as people are rejecting the idea of the legislature choosing the president. Madison's point from there is agreeing with everyone else that the legislature choosing the president is a recipe for disaster, they have to be independent from each other, and for that there are only 2 other alternatives: electors or direct election, and of course direct election is out so it must be electors. Direct election was never in because suffrage was asymmetric (It was easier for WHITE men to vote in some states than others). Instead they were arguing whether electors should do it or the legislature should do it. They flip-flopped and were open to considering anything but direct election never won once.
The savvy James Madison didn't reject it, the savvy "everyone except Wilson" rejected it. Gerry: "The popular mode of electing the chief Magistrate would certainly be the worst of all."
Read it here and the next page: https://www.loc.gov/resource/llscdam.llfr002/?sp=60&st=image
Even Wilson the most progressive guy there didn't want all white men in Pennsylvania to just have the right to vote automatically. Let alone women. (Which were counted for representation too despite not being *GASP* allowed to vote.) Like there was no force that you are imagining at the convention that the North was going "let's choose the president by direct election, then if we write 'there is no cow level' in our state law for universal suffrage we will trounce every election because our citizens and blacks and women can vote and the South's can't" and the evil racists blocked it.
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On April 30 2026 18:50 oBlade wrote:
Yeah mixing votes from Oregon with votes from Florida would not be a particularly good way to help people in Florida get representatives to represent them better. The Florida Republican Party and Arkansas Republican Party and Oregon Republican Party all have different interests, funding, goals, etc. The idea of voting for parties directly presupposes the existence and roles of parties which the US system doesn't. For good reason. Anyone can just run and win at any time.
Just a clarification: national vote doesn't exclude the existence of local parties nor of local campaigning. The Spanish national government is ridiculously dependent on the Catalan nationalist parties whose main raison d'etre is to declare independence from Spain. Yet they collaborate with the traditional national parties, not to gain full independence but to gain concessions of greater autonomy in exchange for voting in favor of things the government wants and they don't oppose. And Catalonia is a large region, but the Canary Islands have a local party in government too. Not only that, but local Andalusians will be in the PSOE and campaigning in Andalusia for things Andalusians are supposedly are more interested in, while Galician representatives campaign in Galicia for things of more interest to Galicia. And if people of a state feels the big parties don't represent local interests you get exactly what I described above: new parties that focus on locally relevant issues.
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The US has crossed the threshold of 100% debt to gdp ratio.
It's not a sure sign of disaster or anything but it's not great.
Historically it's only been this high for 2 years after WWII ended and 2020 during the dip in GDP from covid.
An interesting tidbit (that I don't really know if it's correct, I picked it up from a comment on an article) is that the US ran a 0 budget in 1999 and a surplus in 2000, and that it was projected in 2000 that the US could actually be debt free 2012 if it continued on that path.
It's hard to imagine how much money the US would have if it hadn't reacted to 9/11 with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the chronic budget deficits that followed (currently at 6%).
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On May 01 2026 06:25 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
The US has crossed the threshold of 100% debt to gdp ratio.
It's not a sure sign of disaster or anything but it's not great.
Historically it's only been this high for 2 years after WWII ended and 2020 during the dip in GDP from covid.
An interesting tidbit (that I don't really know if it's correct, I picked it up from a comment on an article) is that the US ran a 0 budget in 1999 and a surplus in 2000, and that it was projected in 2000 that the US could actually be debt free 2012 if it continued on that path.
It's hard to imagine how much money the US would have if it hadn't reacted to 9/11 with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the chronic budget deficits that followed (currently at 6%).
This may not be the whole picture and the entire cost, but:
"The Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, taken together, will be the most expensive wars in US history – totaling somewhere between $4 to $6 trillion. This includes long-term medical care and disability compensation for service members, veterans and families, military replenishment and social and economic costs. The largest portion of that bill is yet to be paid." https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/financial-legacy-iraq-and-afghanistan-how-wartime-spending-decisions-will-constrain
"A report from the Costs of War project at Brown University revealed that 20 years of post-9/11 wars have cost the U.S. an estimated $8 trillion and have killed more than 900,000 people." https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
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United States44367 Posts
On May 01 2026 07:09 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2026 06:25 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
The US has crossed the threshold of 100% debt to gdp ratio.
It's not a sure sign of disaster or anything but it's not great.
Historically it's only been this high for 2 years after WWII ended and 2020 during the dip in GDP from covid.
An interesting tidbit (that I don't really know if it's correct, I picked it up from a comment on an article) is that the US ran a 0 budget in 1999 and a surplus in 2000, and that it was projected in 2000 that the US could actually be debt free 2012 if it continued on that path.
It's hard to imagine how much money the US would have if it hadn't reacted to 9/11 with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the chronic budget deficits that followed (currently at 6%). This may not be the whole picture and the entire cost, but: "The Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, taken together, will be the most expensive wars in US history – totaling somewhere between $4 to $6 trillion. This includes long-term medical care and disability compensation for service members, veterans and families, military replenishment and social and economic costs. The largest portion of that bill is yet to be paid." https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/financial-legacy-iraq-and-afghanistan-how-wartime-spending-decisions-will-constrain "A report from the Costs of War project at Brown University revealed that 20 years of post-9/11 wars have cost the U.S. an estimated $8 trillion and have killed more than 900,000 people." https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
If it cost $8t to remove the Taliban from Afghanistan then it was a price worth paying.
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On May 01 2026 07:13 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2026 07:09 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 01 2026 06:25 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
The US has crossed the threshold of 100% debt to gdp ratio.
It's not a sure sign of disaster or anything but it's not great.
Historically it's only been this high for 2 years after WWII ended and 2020 during the dip in GDP from covid.
An interesting tidbit (that I don't really know if it's correct, I picked it up from a comment on an article) is that the US ran a 0 budget in 1999 and a surplus in 2000, and that it was projected in 2000 that the US could actually be debt free 2012 if it continued on that path.
It's hard to imagine how much money the US would have if it hadn't reacted to 9/11 with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the chronic budget deficits that followed (currently at 6%). This may not be the whole picture and the entire cost, but: "The Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, taken together, will be the most expensive wars in US history – totaling somewhere between $4 to $6 trillion. This includes long-term medical care and disability compensation for service members, veterans and families, military replenishment and social and economic costs. The largest portion of that bill is yet to be paid." https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/financial-legacy-iraq-and-afghanistan-how-wartime-spending-decisions-will-constrain "A report from the Costs of War project at Brown University revealed that 20 years of post-9/11 wars have cost the U.S. an estimated $8 trillion and have killed more than 900,000 people." https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar If it cost $8t to remove the Taliban from Afghanistan then it was a price worth paying.
I appreciate your clever tongue-in-cheek conditional ("if... then..."), because it's not the case that the Taliban is gone from Afghanistan (they've been back for several years):
"The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, twenty years after their ouster by U.S. troops." https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/taliban-afghanistan
"Afghanistan under the Taliban, the Sunni Islamist group that retook power in 2021"
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45122
I wonder if we'll throw another few trillion into that void, or find a different void before Trump's presidency has ended!
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EPT
