US military dominance

[sailor]

@Simplicio

Most military spending goes into the US economy as well, though. Soldiers are paid, tanks are built on US assembly lines, etc. Which I expect is one of the reasons for our current overspending, lots of voters jobs depend on money from the DoD.

Ah, the old broken window fallacy clearly explained by Frederic Bastiat in the nineteenth century.

[Der_Trihs]

A somewhat relevant article

@Boston Globe

A senior Pentagon advisory group, in a series of bluntly worded briefings, is warning President-elect Barack Obama that the Defense Department’s current budget is “not sustainable,” and he must scale back or eliminate some of the military’s most prized weapons programs.

The briefings were prepared by the Defense Business Board, an internal management oversight body. It contends that the nation’s recent financial crisis makes it imperative that the Pentagon and Congress slash some of the nation’s most costly and troubled weapons to ensure they can finance the military’s most pressing priorities.

[Nava]

@Lumpy

…It would be wonderful if the EU and the Pacific Rim were more self-sufficient in their security, but that’s unlikely to happen. They’re mostly sitting back and letting the US pay to police the world; pretty much as we let Europe police the world up until WW2.

@Simplicio

This makes it sound like the choices are between having our current military or no military. I certainly think we should spend enough to ensure that we will over match any likely combination of enemies. But even by that standard, I have trouble believing our current rate of spending is justified…

An idea from the peanuts gallery: maybe if “the sheriff of the world” (the expression is not mine) spent less in bullets, his deputies would have to spend more themselves. It’s a bit of a vicious circle: you guys spend tons on it and do your best to be the ones leading the charge, so our guys decide they can afford to take some of that budget and move it to education and social services and let’s get lots of guys who don’t mind cleaning oil spills but not so many who are interested in blazing-gun charges, so your guys decide they need to reinforce things because you can’t count on our guys so…

[Nava]

Out of time:
The GI Bill can be described as “a fellowship system which carries the condition that one must be a soldier.” Less soldiers -> less people using the GI Bill. It’s possible to determine how much money this means and putting it back into fellowships which don’t require the recipient to be a soldier. After all, it is perfectly possible to be a good candidate for a PhD while being a lousy one for a commission.

[gonzomax]

@Captain_Amazing

1. Halliburtion is primarily an oil and natual gas company.
2. Halliburton’s main headquarters are in Houston.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258274,00.html Used to be true.