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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (130189)	12/29/2000 7:58:14 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1580261

I took my cue from the star wars people...they determined that it would be nearly impossible to defend against a massive missile assault With the technology available in the 80s or even today it would be nearly imposible to defend against a massive missle assualt. However there is no reason to think it will be imposible for ever, and not all possible missle assaults would be massive. However in the post numbered 130155, Pete G. gives a fairly detailed account of what missiles can take out ICBMs....apparently one of them is the Nike-Zeus. Neither Nike-Zeus nor Safegaurd (another historical US ABM) is active or deployed. "We have no system that is active and deplyed that can take out an incoming ICBM." That's true. Well atleast that part of the argument is settled. It was starting to get repetitive. The payment for the star wars expenditure of $60 billion came out of the federal budget and not directly from the GNP. All the GNP is.....is a total of how much has been produced by the national economy. The budget is indirectly related...as the products are produced and sold they generate wealth for the owners and employees who, in turn, are taxed by the national gov't who then use the taxes to fund the national budget. Relating the defense expenditures to the GNP tends to dilute their impact....its how politicians sold us star wars. The GNP or GDP (not the same thing but close enough for this debate) is the sizee of the economy, it is the total value of goods and services produced by the economy. The burden on that economy is the percentage of the GNP. Changes in other government programs would change the % cost of defense if the actual amount spent on defense remains the same. However the changes in non-defense spending would not change the cost of the defense spending or its burden on the economy. If all non-defense spending totaled $0. Then the defense budget would be 1000% of the budget but it wouldn't cost any more then it does now. If non-defense spending doubled then defense spending as a % of the budget would be one half of what it is now but it would be stupid to argue that the cost or the impact of that cost had gone down 50%. (In fact it could be argued that the negative impact of the cost would go up because if the government spent more on non-defense programs the economy would be less able to handle the cost of the defense programs). Russia's paranoia caused them to take possession of the eastern bloc countries...the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland etc. It required a great deal of $$$ or rather rubles to maintain control over these countries. It was the cost of that control, coupled with their need to maintain missiles and nuclear war devices, and to support insurgent regimes in foreign countries as well as to be first in the race to space that broke the back of their economy.....not because Reagan was scaring the bejezus out of them....they knew how easy we were.....after all, it looks like we let them have the eastern bloc countries without much of a fight. Russia (or the USSR) took control of Eastern Europe after WWII. They were able to maintain that control for some time. There military capability far exceded what was needed to kkep control of those countries. They were also conserned about having the ability to defend themselves from any possible attack from the west and to have the potnetial capability to attack the west. We let the m have the eastern bloc countries because we were not prepared to have WWIII start immediately after WWII. Even with a crumbleing economy The Soviet Empire might have been maintained (for how long is another question but it is inconsievable that it could still exist if different decsions where made) by massive brutal repression. Fortunately Gorbachov chose not to go down that road. Get it, Tim; alot of wasted $$$ was spent because of Reagan's and other presidents' paranoia and bullsht.* The defense spedning increases help build our ability to defend Europe and other allies, and helped push the Soviet Union over the edge. The first could be considered a waste because the attack did not come but it is not 100% certain that without the spending the attack would not have come (it is very unlikely that it would have but not 100% certain), and are insurance payments a waste if you wind up not having any claims? The 2nd part was not a waste. Rome's military was still in place when the barbarians invaded....it was ineffective against them, because it had become corrupted and was driven only by $$$ and power. Would you not say that spending $1600 for a toilet is a sign of corruption? I never said that the Roman military did not exist. It had become week. The Romans in gneeral (in the military and out of it) cared less about the military (until the barbarians actually attacked). The curruption didn't occur because of defense budgets being to large. The $1600 toilet seats are a sign of stupid government regulation (which ofcourse effects the military spending as it is part of the government). Tim

To: tejek who wrote (130189)	12/29/2000 8:01:43 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 1580261

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but I wouldn't pay much attention to what Pete G. says. Nike Zeus is ancient, it predates the Safeguard system that was deployed for all of 6 months in the '70's, protecting a bunch of missile silos in North Dakota. There will, in all likelyhood, be some ridiculous ABM system deployed in the next 4 years, based on interceptors that have failed most of their test firings under ideal circumstances. If we're lucky, it'll cost hundreds of billions instead of trillions. I'm sure someone could come up with a more colossal waste of money, but I can't think of one offhand.

To: tejek who wrote (130189)	12/29/2000 10:36:16 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1580261

"Its my understanding that those expenditures do not benefit the economy dollar for dollar." Actually it is money put into the economy, it doesn't really matter how it is spent. The only difference is if the money winds up overseas, and even that has some benefit because it stimulates the world economy. Now there are arguments as to whether the money is more effective if it is targeted as opposed to being broadly spent, but that is a religious argument that I don't have a lot of interest in. I have felt for a long time that the best stimulus for the economy is to randomly pick people amongst the taxpayers and send them a check for, oh $10,000 or so. It would have the a similar effect as tax cuts or targeted programs, it would tend to benefit the middle class more that the poor or the rich, and it would be cheap to administer. But I suppose both the left and the right would oppose it because it doesn't fit into their religion. Oh well...