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

To: tejek who wrote (217083)	2/3/2005 5:37:30 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572208

Ted, That would mean that defense is technically insolvent as well. Exactly, but defense is only 1/6 of the federal budget. Social spending is more than half of expenditures. Maybe we could take a portion of budget money intended for missiles, and invest it in the stock market. Sure, why not? While we're at it, let's also divert some of the funds going toward armored Humvees, unmanned spy drones, and other technologies that save the lives of our soldiers? Fight a war on the cheap, like Clinton used to do. Tenchusatsu

To: tejek who wrote (217083)	2/3/2005 8:36:29 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572208

That would mean that defense is technically insolvent as well. There is a difference between obligations in a pension or insurance fund and anticipated future spending. But then you might be surprised that I agree the whole "Social Security is bankrupt" theme has been overplayed. What is important is the fiscal state of the entire government. Social security and Medicare are a bigger part of government spending then defense and they have consistently grown, while defense has not. (In nominal dollars every major category of government spending grows, in real dollars defense growth isn't very consistent, it goes up and down, as a % of government spending or as a % of GDP defense has mostly been shrinking over the past several decades.) Tim