Jay, re the USA having huge military budgets. < am getting the feeling that unless the US can keep the peace (given its military budget is equal to the next twelve largest national military budgets), resist protectionism and keep WTO on track, spread the wealth, grow the pie, the world will become messier, and in turn poorer, including the US, as in messier and poorer.>
I don't know what the proportions are, but keep in mind that each American soldier is paid something like 50 x an Indian soldier's pay and 20 x a Chinese one [very rough guesses by me]. So, they can spend a huge amount of money and not get much bang for their buck.
They also pay very expensive mechanics to maintain their trucks, tanks, aircraft, boats, administrators [each soldier no doubt has about 100 supervisors and hangers on].
Steel in China costs a LOT less than steel in the USA, so a ship costs a lot more to build in the USA than in China. Also, the welders get paid a lot less in China, so they get more ships welded for a given amount of money.
But then there's the hedonics factor = a tank isn't just a tank, a rocket a rocket and a fighter aircraft a standard design. A Silkworm missile goes awry. A Tomahawk flies in the front door. A smart bomb lands in the chimney; Saddam's land all over the place on a Scud [the Israelis couldn't shoot them down because they were so wobbly the Patriot missiles missed - that's my theory anyway].
Mqurice |
