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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GST who wrote (53102)	2/8/2006 4:10:47 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

I don't doubt that defense spending has changed in character. Our enemies have changed in character. Asymmetric warfare doesn't require the same kind of military equipment, training and personnel as the kinds of warfare we encountered in WWII and prior. I've done my time in tanks and helicopters. I was simply pointing out to you how much less of our national income we spend on defense now as opposed to a time that many would point to as peaceful. Post WWII, the Federal government's expenditures as a percentage of GDP has remained reasonably constant ranging from lows of 15% in the late 40s to 23% in 1982 and settling down in the 19-20% range. The mix of what we spend that money on has drastically changed from defense to transfer payments. If you want to know what happened to the money for schools and government R&D, I suggest you examine how tax revenues collected have been shifted to those above 65 over the past 50 years.