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

To: TimF who wrote (220363)	2/23/2005 1:05:29 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576400

You don't think an airbase is an investment? What about a ship? As I understand the term, both are investments in the military's infrastructure. They are not an investment in the normal sense of the word. They are not undertaken with the hope of getting a positive finacial return. They are an investment in the defense of the US. In turn, that allows Americans to lead a profitable/fruitful life. Companies buy state of the art equipment as investment in a company's future. Yes, I do think defense spending is an investment in the future of this country. And increased defense spending......from $52 million in 1962 to $454 million in 2004. At least social spending directly benefits the citizens of the US. 2 - Adjusted for inflation its didn't increase much. Who cares? In real dollars it increased 800%. In 1996 dollars its goes from $300 bil in 1962 and is less than $400 bil now. For comparison 1945 spending as 962.7 in 1996 dollars, from a much smaller economy. (1962 figures from cdi.org 3 - Social spending increased at a much faster rate. 4 - 1962 military spending was 9.2 % of GDP (1944 was 37.8), currently its somewhere in the high 3 to low 4 percent range. 5 - Military spending as percent of discretionary spending. 1962 72.9% 2003 49.0% And it needs to get smaller. ted