Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: tejek who wrote (329698)	3/21/2007 12:49:24 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574854

The issue being discussed was whether the military and/or the military industrial complex, was a bigger part of the country than it used to be. I am not comparing the US defense budget to transportation expenditures in Poland. I was comparing apples to apples. I didn't criticize you for comparing apples to oranges. But comparing the size of apple A to the size of apple B, isn't relevant to the issue of how how much apple A has grown over time, or what percentage of the Apple tree's production it represents. You where making an apples to apples comparison on another issue. As if I had said "I like Coke more than Pepsi", and you replied "but where spending more money in Iraq than we did in Vietnam". Apples to Apples? Yes. But still not relevant to the point being discussed. Whether the US military budget was 1% or 100% of total military spending on the earth, isn't relevant to the portion of the US economy and population that are involved in the military industrial complex. That portion has gone down greatly over time until recently when it has had a moderate increase. Even with the increase because of the war, the military industrial complex is a far smaller part of our country than it was in WWII, Korea, or Vietnam, and also smaller (if perhaps not "far smaller") than it was under Reagan. Or to put it another way the US is, in terms of the portion of money, and material devoted to the military, less militaristic, then it was in the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 80s and part of the 70s and 90s. In terms of people in the military its lower in absolute numbers than in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and part of the 90s. Here I'm not even talking about a percentage of an increasing population, but just the straight numbers. Clinton cut the army from 18 divisions to 10, cut 20 wings of aircraft from the Navy and Air Force, cut over 100 ships from the navy, and made other cuts. Overall the force was close to cut in half. Since Clinton increases in size have been very small. Even allowing for greater use of contractors, and for the call up of reserves, fewer people are working in military related jobs now than under Bush I. Not "a smaller percentage of the population", but straight out fewer people. During the Gulf War we sent over a half million military personnel to the theater as opposed to the 150K or so there now even with the "surge". So less people in an absolute sense. Less money as a percentage of our economy. No vast increase in weapons exports to soak up the difference. How is the military industrial complex a bigger part of the country than it used to be? Answer it isn't. how much the US spends on defense compared to other countries. Its a very meaningful comparison......it shows the greater emphasis we place on our military vs other countries. It affirms my POV of that the US has become a very militarisitic society. It affirms nothing of the sort. "has become" implies change over time. The change that has happened is the the military and support for the military has become a smaller part of the country over time. You might try to use the fact that the US spends more than other countries to assert that the US IS and has long been more militaristic than many other countries. Then at least you would be presenting relevant information. Of course the US is much bigger than most countries, and since your discussing spending, the relevant measurement of size is the size of the economy, and our economy is the biggest. We do spend more as a percentage of GDP than Europe or Japan, so if you want to use spending as a percentage of GDP as the measurement of how militaristic a country is than we are more militaristic then they are. But then if you want to use that measurement you would have to concede that we are less militaristic now than we were during most of the 20th century. Ad for your other post, I've already replied to it. It shows nothing about how militaristic a country is. A country with significantly greater population and wealth can spend more on the military but still be less militaristic. We have significantly greater population and wealth than we did during WWII or Korea or even Vietnam. Our population is over double what it was in WWII and about 50% greater than it was in Vietnam. In terms of GDP the differences are far greater. If you don't like % of GDP as a measurement, how about real dollars per person. That state doesn't reflect the point that people have more inflation adjusted dollars than they used to, so the difference isn't as great, but we still spend less by that measure than in WWII, Korea or Vietnam. Real spending per person in WWII would be well over twice as high, maybe more than 3 times as high. Even in Vietnam it would be higher than today.