• About
  • Contact
  • Editorial
  • Policies
  • Archives
Angry Bear
Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.
  • US/Global Economics
  • Taxes/regulation
  • Healthcare
  • Law
  • Politics
  • Climate Change
  • Social Security
  • Hot Topics
« Back

The war is making you poor act

Dan Crawford | May 23, 2010 6:53 pm

Hat tip to Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism for Rep. Alan Grayson’s “the war is making you poor act”.

Comments (5) | Digg Facebook Twitter |
5 Comments
  • ilsm says:
    May 24, 2010 at 9:32 am

    The US military spending is more in inflation adjusted dollars than in 1970 at the height of the cold war and the massive intervention in Southeast Asia.

    The difference; there is far more capital involved and much of the labor is contracted out at huge profit rending expense.

    Money spent on the US war machine takes resources away from productive use and drives up the costs of materials and technical labor.

    Those aspect make it a political coin, good jobs at great pay for no benefit, tossed around and perpetuates the pillaging of the US economy.

    Not only the wars but the war machines are making the US poor.

    Empires die when the costs ruin them.

  • anamblaous says:
    May 24, 2010 at 5:12 pm

    uh.  not really … http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qve2Ds-cMvk/SQfHyKlOaWI/AAAAAAAAAhw/GXZEXD_UDp8/s400/Defense+spending+as+a+percent+of+gdp+1949+-+2009.gif

    defense spending is down from 80s.

  • ilsm says:
    May 24, 2010 at 8:44 pm

    The only thing down from the 80’s is the percent of GDP pillaged by the militarists.

    If you look at the warfare state as a growth industry and measure its success as pillaging the GDP then yes warfare welfare is down since the 1980’s, as a fraction of GDP.

    However, in the years since 1983 the Soviets who were occupying Poland, Czechoslavakia, HUngary and East Germany with 40,000 tank geared to smash through the Fulda Gap, those Russian guys evaportated.

    So, what happened is the warfare welfare lost ground as a part of GDP.  Not as good a plundering kind and the extra fraction of GDP went to the longest post war expansion in the US.

    But GDP grew quite a lot in the past 30 years and the threats all disappeared.

    The fact I relate is true the US spends more in constant dollars than in 1970, even though in 1970 it spent on the order of 7% of GDP that GDP was much smaller than today.

    Your factoid ignores the fact that defense needs to should be to implement strategy and not  get linked to GDP, unless you want to pillage social security for the warafre welfare state.

    Defense strategy in a non militarist state is linked to threats and the threats since 1970 or 1983 have declined by a huge factor.

    The only reason the US is spending as much today as it is, is the undue influence of the war profiteers.

    Percent of GDP declines but the GDP growth is such as to hide the fact that spending has increased significantly.

    Mike Kimel could have argued this much more quick than I.

    This linked chart has been rebuffed before.

    Go figure!!

  • Lyle says:
    May 24, 2010 at 11:54 pm

    The difference between the 1970 period and now is who gets taxed to pay for the war. In 1970 the draft put a tax on young men, requiring some period of service from them. Today we have decided that all should bear the burden. The contracting is required because unless you have a source of free labor (i.e. the draft and the very low wages attached to it) many of the tasks are to expensive to be done by military personel, for example cooking KP and laundry etc. So it has been decided that we will all bear the expense.
    Sooner or later we will have to do like the British did in 1960 and decide that some part of the world is not our responsiblity. Being world police is a route to the poor house at least the 3 major example (rome, Britian and US) suggest it.

  • ilsm says:
    May 25, 2010 at 7:36 am

    Make profits not draftees.

    There is good money made exporting south Asians to overseas US military bases to do KP.

    Yes, they outsourced the things that a buck private used to do so that Halliburton could make billions on the phony wars.

    These wars should be paid by taxing the kids who otherwise would have been sent to Iraq.

    Similar to buying their way out of conscription in the US War Between the Stats (1863).

Featured Stories

Macron Bypasses Parliament With ‘Nuclear Option’ on Retirement Age Hike

Angry Bear

All Electric comes to Heavy Equipment

Daniel Becker

Medicare Plan Commissions May Steer Beneficiaries to Wrong Coverage

run75441

Thoughts on Silicon Valley Bank: Why the FDIC plan isn’t (but also is) a Bailout

NewDealdemocrat

Contributors

Dan Crawford
Robert Waldmann
Barkley Rosser
Eric Kramer
ProGrowth Liberal
Daniel Becker
Ken Houghton
Linda Beale
Mike Kimel
Steve Roth
Michael Smith
Bill Haskell
NewDealdemocrat
Ken Melvin
Sandwichman
Peter Dorman
Kenneth Thomas
Bruce Webb
Rebecca Wilder
Spencer England
Beverly Mann
Joel Eissenberg

Subscribe

Blogs of note

    • Naked Capitalism
    • Atrios (Eschaton)
    • Crooks and Liars
    • Wash. Monthly
    • CEPR
    • Econospeak
    • EPI
    • Hullabaloo
    • Talking Points
    • Calculated Risk
    • Infidel753
    • ACA Signups
    • The one-handed economist
Angry Bear
Copyright © 2023 Angry Bear Blog

Topics

  • US/Global Economics
  • Taxes/regulation
  • Healthcare
  • Law
  • Politics
  • Climate Change
  • Social Security
  • Hot Topics
  • US/Global Economics
  • Taxes/regulation
  • Healthcare
  • Law
  • Politics
  • Climate Change
  • Social Security
  • Hot Topics

Pages

  • About
  • Contact
  • Editorial
  • Policies
  • Archives