FirmhandKY
Posts: 8948
Joined: 9/21/2004
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael
Actually, I am pretty sure I never mentioned oil. I still haven't figured out what Cheney's end game is. I have had a couple of theories but events keep shooting them down. I can't believe this is all the result of sheer incompetence because even idiots manage to get something right once in a while and they have yet to do that. Cheney is a very very smart guy, he is playing everyone for some endgame. At this point, I will mention oil (which if it is about oil, isn't about oil for you or I but about them making money off of oil and you and I footing the bill).
Cheney was up to his eyeballs in the whole Iranian hostage deal and the Iran Contra mess. He does a lot of business with Iran through a Halliburton subsidiary. So now the focus is on Iran. I wonder if they didn't make a mess of Iraq wanting to draw Iran in but Iran either didn't fall for it didn't act as they expected. So now they need to provoke and or come up with another "pearl harbor" deal to provide a reason to go to war with Iran. The Iranian oil is mostly along the coast as well as in shallow offshore deposits. The coast is heavily populated with marsh arabs not ethnic Persians. This would be the excuse to pry a bunch of the oil away from Iran. However, this is a big undertaking so who knows. Anyway, NOW I brought up oil but I don't think I did before.
It wasn't weak, you just don't know enough to understand the point without me spelling it out more deeply.
...
Oh and thanks for finally asking an actual question.
All of this is so much posturing, conspiracy theories unworthy of serious comment, and just plain ole BS not deserving any substantial comment.
The rest of your post is interesting, however, and actually kinda well thought out, even if not well supported. I'll simply ignore your pointed jabs and sarcasms, and discuss the your main points.
quote:
ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael
quote:
ORIGINAL: FirmKY
When I point out the main weakness of your orginal thesis - that the per capita and GDP percentage costs of current military operations hardly approach US military costs during the peace time years of the Cold War, or during any of the post WWII conflicts
The ratio of GDP to military spending is interesting but unimportant for a couple of reasons. More importantly is the level of spending related to taxes, between the military outlays (much of which is distorted and hidden) and the massive amount of civilian spending for boondoggles like homeland security. We are racking up massive debt, debt we did not incur in prior wars, what debt their was and the interest paid on it (most relevant to wwii) went BACK into the economy and to US citizens, thus IMPROVING the economy.
This is really the only paragraph that directly relates to your original thesis, but I'll work through the others as well.
From this first paragraph I take it that you think that it isn't the Defense Budget per se, but the difference between tax revenue coming in, and the amount of money spent (for Defense, and Homeland Security combined, plus any "black budget" items as well as the rest of the US budget).
This difference is generally called the "deficit". Deficits not paid in the year that they are incurred are added to the Federal dept.
It is really immaterial to your argument where the federal government spent the money. According to your own words, it simply boils down to the size of the federal debt. Debt that was supposedly not incurred in previous wars, and debt that, when paid back, became money available to for in the civilian economy to fund a growing economy.
The first problem with this thinking is that mostly it simply isn't true.
According to the relationship between the size of the economy and the size of the debt, the current US debt is still less than half of what it was during WWII (chart). If you figure it on a per capita basis, it's even lower by at least half (1940 census was about 135 million, the 2000 census was about 280 million)
And you seem to be blaming the war - therefore military expenditures - for a large percent of the current debt. Yet, as I said before, the military budget is lower today as a percentage of GDP than in most of the "peaceful" Cold War period (charts and graphs). My references are to data as of 2003, and while there is a slight rise, it still doesn't change the truth of my statement.
I think if you wanted to find and add in the excess amount over the normal budgets of the predecessor organizations that now make up the Homeland Security Department, you'd still be hard pressed to make the argument that US Military spending is exceptional high in historical terms.
The only part of your above quoted paragraph that merits serious attention is:
... what debt their [sic] was and the interest paid on it (most relevant to wwii) went BACK into the economy and to US citizens, thus IMPROVING the economy.
This deserves some serious research and time to frame a decent reply, and I don't have time to do so, but I'm willing to admit you may have something of a valid point, although I don't think you are taking into account a lot of issues about money supply, the advantage of having foreign, non-American holders of T-bills and other Federal debt hold low-interest loans for the US.
My gut, based on past research and thinking is that any reasonable increase in the money supply can be a good thing. But reducing taxes has the same effect. Too much money pumped into an economy can cause inflation and an over-heated economy that would inevitably lead to a bust.
Additionally, as for tax cuts, I'm always for a reduction in the size and expense of government, and government programs, just on philosophical grounds, so I'm not trying to defend Bush's complete federal budgets. As I mentioned in another thread, I don't think he has ever seen a government program he didn't want to fund.
quote:
ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael
Speaking of economy, after WWII we were the only country with an intact industrial base and we put all those returning GIs to work cranking out products to feed the domestic market and to rebuild the world and that process roared along until the late 1960s. Wages have been flat since then and fallen under Bush, that is in real dollars in case you didn't realize that.
It is widely recognized by historical economists that the US's explosive economic growth after WWII was due to its shielding behind two oceans, and being just about the only solvent industrial nation that didn't have it's infrastructure destroyed.
However, there is also a common belief that the German and Japanese "economic miracles" after the war was due to the fact that all new infrastructure had to be built, and the latest technologies and techniques were incorporated into that infrastructure.
Part of the 1970's economic slow down in the US, (along with the continued growth our new allies who suffered devastation during the war) is seen as the tipping point where the antiquated US economic infrastructure had passed it life span and required massive investments to modernize. The oil shocks only exercerbated this economic reality.
quote:
ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael
However, in 2007 nobody can afford American products, almost all of our industries face serious international competition, bottom line, we don't make a hell of a lot of stuff anymore, there will be no economic boom to pick up the slack and pay off the debt. That debt is only partly governmental. Policies were put into place to allow people to qualify for vastly more expensive homes than they could before. Classic inflationary process, more money chasing the same goods, prices flew up. Combine that with a policy of cheap money and people felt very safe borrowing money against a home that was suddenly worth two or three times what they paid for it (but that new price wasn't "real" it was a creating of governmental inflationary real estate policies) and they then fueled the economy with that debt. Our economy isn't being fueled by new technology like it was during the internet bubble (the bubble wasn't all false, LOTS of REAL money was made) there is no new industry that we are world leaders in, we were not reinvesting in infrastructure or education, or even on setting ourselves up to deal with the coming energy crunch and the technology that would make us world leaders again.
1. That debt is only partly governmental. Do you have any figures to quantify this?
2. Policies were put into place to allow people to qualify for vastly more expensive homes ... : Other than lower interest rates, what "policies" do you mean?
3. here is no new industry that we are world leaders in,: I don't agree, but I'd have to do a little research before making any claims. However, off-hand, the industries of the future are more high tech, more informationally related, and less steel and mortar related than previously. I think the medical field, nano-technology and information technologies are still pretty strong US fields.
4. we were not reinvesting in infrastructure or education: You have figures to back these claims up?
5. or even on setting ourselves up to deal with the coming energy crunch and the technology that would make us world leaders again. : Again, do you have specifics?
quote:
ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael
SO, it ain't like after wwii, there will be no boom to "fix" things, so comparing today to then is like saying battleships are good again.
Give me some hard figures to support your claims and we can discuss if this sentence makes sense.
FirmKY
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Some people are just idiots.
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