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

To: bentway who wrote (610204)	5/5/2011 2:59:47 PM
From: i-node	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574879

>> How about if we quit SPENDING what ALL the other countries in the world COMBINED spend on our military, and only spend, say, what the next 10 countries spend on the military? All but TWO of which are firm, long standing allies? I think we should make some cuts to our military toward the end of improving efficiency. I would not favor any cuts which would impact capabilities in a broad way. We need the military capability to win multiple wars on multiple fronts simultaneously. Whether that means 3, 4, 5 or more, I don't know.

To: bentway who wrote (610204)	5/7/2011 12:03:57 AM
From: TimF	2 Recommendations Respond to of 1574879

U.S. Military Expenditure: The Power of Factoids It is often asserted that the U.S. spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined, and until today I assumed it was true. Then, in an online exchange, someone posted a link to an estimate of the relevant figures. If correct--and it looks like an honest and reasonably accurate job--the U.S. spends on its military a little more than half as much as the rest of the world combined. I am reminded of a similar factoid that used to be in circulation to the effect that the U.S. had (small) x% of the world population, but (large) y% of world consumption; y, if I remember correctly, was 40. That turned out to be a true statement—about the situation immediately after the end of WWII, before Europe and Japan had recovered from the devastation of the war. I have not seen that one of late, but as best I recall it was in common use twenty years or more after it ceased to be true. Hence my title. A purported fact that is simple, memorable, and provides an argument for a position that some significant number of people want arguments for has a power almost entirely unrelated to its truth. All of which leaves me with an image of an office somewhere, containing a hard working inventor of factoids. Being a professional, he takes all customers. For feminists, a factoid about what percentage of female college students get raped. For conservatives, the number of people who die while waiting for critical operations in Canada. For the anti-smoking lobby, the lethality of second-hand smoke. daviddfriedman.blogspot.com