Pravda: American Decent Into Marxism

[PLC1]

I wouldn't say that really... Numerous popular American products have come out of military spending. For example, the Chemical DEET, which is universally the best insect repellent on the market, and used in dozens of products, was actually developed and used exclusively by the US Army.

Further, development of specific military hardware has directly resulted in other civilian products, notably the Hummer and the Jeep. Even the military hardware itself is sold internationally like the Bradley, which is sold to U.N., NATO, Israeli and Egypt and a few other locations.

There are some spin offs, yes. DEET is a great invention, if you go outside where there are mosquitoes, as I do. The Hummer is a good vehicle for the military, but not practical at all for civilian use, except perhaps to project some macho image at great personal expense. Jeeps are handy for traveling the back woods.

And, of course, there is the rationale behind the small conflicts described in 1984: To provide a use for excess industrial production, and so increase markets.

Overall, though, military spending is a net loss.

But all this aside, military spending isn't for the purpose of economic stimulation, rather it's just a noticeable side effect. The purpose is for defense of the nation.

Exactly. Further, spending more than is necessary for the defense of the nation is wasteful, and leads to their use as offensive weapons as well.

You may ask, well why didn't military spending stimulate the economy in the Soviet Union? You already know the answer if you think about it. Those businesses and companies had no ability do anything beyond what the central planners at the Kremlin told them to. There wasn't any capitalist incentive to create new products, or build consumer goods based on military investments, and thus no economic stimulation. Nor would they have been allowed to profit from it, if they had. So why bother?

Central planning, of course, is one of the major factors that brought down the Soviets. That is yet another lesson we haven't learned by watching them fall apart.

Oh I gotcha. Democratization was antithetical to the social structure, rather than it being somehow anti-economic.

Exactly.

I'm not sure how you tie over spending with trade. If I buy a Sony TV set on credit card, the problem isn't with international trade, but with me buying something I don't have the money for.

Similarly, international trade has nothing to do with national debt either. If the US government had say, cut two bailouts and a stimulus package, we would be $10 Trillion dollars less in debt, regardless of international trade.

Another thing that bugs me about this is that people flip flop on trade faster than Obama after his teleprompter breaks. For example, in Africa people routinely claim we are plundering them by buying commodities from there. Yet people claim China is plundering us for buying commodities from there.

In both Africa and China, we are buying from them. Yet supposedly Africa is losing, and China is winning.

Further, claims that trade deficit is oh so horrible, seem to ignore the fact that we've had a trade deficit since 1975. So in the last 34 years roughly, we've had this "end of the world" trade deficit, and yet nothing bad has happened. Further, our best years economically, have also had the highest trade deficits. 1987 was in the middle of the Reagan tax cut boom, and our trade deficit was the highest it had ever been. 1997 was just before the dot.com bust, and our trade deficit was high.

Yet in 1974, after the recession caused by price controls, our trade was a surplus. We had a trade surplus all during the great depression as well.

And all of this is very logical when you consider why trade deficits exist. It's really simple. When people have money, they buy things. When people are buying things, there's a market for foreign goods. The reason people are not buying imported goods, is because they can't afford it. So during an economic boom, you get a trade deficit. During a depression, you get a surplus.

Here's the bottom line. Trade has nothing to do with debt. Trade is inherently a positive thing for everyone involved, or they wouldn't do it.

You make a good case, and I hope you are right. We have had a negative trade balance for quite some time now. If it doesn't weaken our currency, as logic tells us it should, then maybe it isn't a problem

The analogy of spending in a retail store is flawed, however. If the individual had the capability of printing his own currency to use in said store, then it would work.

Our government obviously. We can't control any other government, only our own. If they deregulated our energy markets, prices would stabilize and drop.

No, we can't, and therefore, we can't control the price of energy. The best we can do is to try to develop our own sources of energy whenever possible.

Saudi Arabia can do more to control the price of petroleum than any other single nation, and it has a good strategy: Keep the price high enough to be profitable, but low enough to make other sources of energy too expensive (relatively) to be profitable. We simply don't have enough petroleum of our own to affect the world price, not unless we're willing to force the industry to sell to the domestic market only. I'm not so sure that would be a good idea, are you?

I read the article. Interestingly, there is no citation for the claim about trade. It says they tried to increase trade, that Carter blocked trade, that it as legalized in 1988, but there is no citations for the idea a trade deficit killed the Soviets. Further, the Foreign Trade and Soviet Union article, says that international trade was only 4% of the entire Soviet economy. Call me a skeptic, but I doubt that 4% of the economy wiped out the entire nation. I might contest the statement. Depends on if I can get any other information to dispute the article with.

Again, you make a good case. Still, what happens when more dollars go overseas than come back as other currencies? How can that not devalue the dollar? There still is that pesky supply and demand, as you know, and it does apply to world currencies as well as manufactured goods.

 

[PLC1]

What you said was that they built up the military "at the cost of domestic programs". Adding that conclusion makes all the difference in the premise of your statement. What I don't think you have given proper weight to is that they couldn't pay for any of it... just as we cannot pay for any of it. Whether they spent $1 billion on new tanks or $1 billion on new housing projects is irrelevent when they have to put the spending on credit or finance it through the printing of money.

Now, that is one lesson we didn't learn from the Soviets: Don't let the government spend more than it takes in.

Deficit spending does matter, despite what some of the "conservatives" of the past have told us.

Because there is no correlation there. I don't know of any conservatives who think military build up for the sake of having greater numbers is a useful national security strategy. Conservatives are the ones pushing for investments in next generation weapons technology, APC's that can withstand IED's and mines, Anti-Missile technology and satelite surveilance, just to name a few. We place quality above quantity, this is why the US armed forces can take on a numericaly superior force and come out with barely a scratch. And as far as fighting terrorism (or whatever you want to call it), $1 billion in military technology helps us far more in that mission than $1 billion in building our numbers of weapons and material.

OK, so spending on new technology can have a positive effect. As Andy points out, it can have some spinoff in the civilian markets as well.
The problem is overall spending. How much longer can we afford to spend seven times as much as Russia, the second place military spender in the world? As with domestic programs, we're spending money that we don't have.

The problem with socialism is that eventually, you run out of other peoples money. The soviet union was only able to perpetuate its existence through expansionist policies, by using the satelite nations they took over to help pull a cart that was always getting heavier. Wars of expansion are not Marxist in principle, but they are a pragmatic result of the Marxist ideology being put into practice.

Do you really think that they believed that taking over Afganistan would have a positive economic effect on their nation?

Maybe national delusion could be added to the list of reasons why their empire fell apart.

Again, I think most of your conclusion are erroneous because you are denying the correlative nature of cause and effect. No, the price of oil on the world market is not Marxist, but the inability to deal with the fluctuations of market prices in economic downturns is a direct result of the centralized planning that takes place in a Marxist command economy. Private interests innovate and adapt so they can continue to make (gasp!) a profit from their product or service. The Marxist economy just eats the losses in government subsidies and waits on their hands for the market to return.

Our capitalist economy didn't deal very well with the worldwide recession, either. It didn't deal very well with the OPEC oil crisis of the '70s, nor with the collapse of the mortgage industry more recently.

Sure, a capitalist economy is more resilient than a government controlled one, no doubt about it. Pure capitalism, sans government controls, hasn't proven to be very practical in the real world either has it?

Then you need to read more Marx... Marx saw a pure democracy as the epitome of Socialism. The elimination of the "state" and localized democratic rule was his idea of Utopian Socialism.

But, in the real world, has there ever been a Marxist nation with a pure democracy and a socialist economy? Does that really describe the Soviet Union? Does it describe the future or the goals of the United States? Such a utopia doesn't exist, and never will.

Trade imbalances had nothing at all to do with their downfall.

I have my doubts, but maybe you and Andy are right about that. I hope so, as we aren't willing to do anything about our negative trade balance.

If you look through the works of Marx for where he called for such factors to be implemented as policy, you of course will not find them. The factors you listed were a pragmatic result of following the Marxist ideology. They had created so many problems by following the things you'd recognize as Marxist policy, they were "forced" to adopt pragmatic measures, such as wars of expansion, in order to prevent their country from failing. Once the Pragmatic means no longer worked, they collapsed and were forced to abandon the ideology.


Marxism crippled their ability to overcome, or resulted in the adoption of, the factors which led to their collapse.

If by Marxism, you mean an economy controlled by the central government, then you have a point.

The Marxist ideal simply doesn't exist, as I've said before.

I didn't say we should take it upon ourselves to bomb their facilities. However, removing the threat of force in the enforcement of laws results in lawlessness.

So, what should we do?

By "work with the rest of the world", you mean we should just accept that there is nothing to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons because there are no nations, including our own, willing to use force in order to stop them?

No, I mean that there is no practical way that we can stop Iran from developing nukes all by ourselves. We have to work with the rest of the world, including the Arab world.

So in your opinion, Iranian nukes are no threat to Israel or the rest of the world?

Once Iran gets the bomb (since nobody has the balls to stop them) whats to stop them from proliferating the technology to other countries? ...We (the international community) already established by virtue of letting them obtain nukes that we (the international community) will do nothing to stop them from proliferating the technology.

Iran having a nuclear bomb would be another threat to world peace, of course. What I meant was that they are so far from being able to win a war with Israel that there is no likely scenario in which they make good their nutcase president's threats to wipe it off of the map. Should Israel have to defend itself with nukes, Iran would become an uninhabitable radioactive wasteland rather quickly. Ahmadinajad might be crazy enough to risk that, but the real power is more sane.

Who says we go at it alone now? We need, at the very least, a massive Navy to protect sea lanes and shipping routes across the globe, we certainly cannot rely on our allies to perform such missions.

Who is with us in trying to police the world? What other nation stands with the US?

We really can't go it alone. We have to have the cooperation of he rest of the world, or we simply have to pull back and use our vast military as a national defense only.

So we shouldn't enforce the non proliferation policy through force... We should just let nuclear bomb technology go to any nation in the world and its none of our business? I guess that means the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is just another non-binding resolution that states follow based on the honor system and are free to ignore without fearing the use of force.

Trying to enforce it by unilateral force is not possible.

Its our treaties and international obligations to global security that make us the "policeman" of the world. If you no longer want us to play the role of policeman, then we must abandon some of our treaties.

What treaty have we signed that makes us the protector of the rest of the world?

I would like to see us stop protecting many nations of the world and leave them to defend themselves from the tyrants, dictators and military weapons they denigrate us for opposing with the threat of force.

So would I. That is the point I've been making all along. We can't protect the entire world. The best we can do is to protect ourselves, and help protect allies that are also willing to help protect us.

I can't imagine ANYONE here behaving in such a fashion..

Oh, me neither, me neither.

 

[GenSeneca]

How much longer can we afford to spend seven times as much as Russia, the second place military spender in the world?

Russia only has to protect itself within its boarders because they know America will keep open the trade routes necessary to economic trade. If Russia had the obligations and global interests that we have, and were left to secure them on their own, they would be spending 7 times what we would if we only had to secure our national boundaries.

Do you really think that they believed that taking over Afganistan would have a positive economic effect on their nation?

The expansion of the soviet state was their policy. The 7 or so million Afghans were looked upon as chattle by the Soviets and Afghanistan was (and still is) in a strategic location for other interests in the region.

Maybe national delusion could be added to the list of reasons why their empire fell apart.

We certainly suffer from that... Mass hysteria as well (oh-bam-uh).

Our capitalist economy didn't deal very well with the worldwide recession, either. It didn't deal very well with the OPEC oil crisis of the '70s, nor with the collapse of the mortgage industry more recently.

You mean our "mixed" economy? We are not now, nor have we been since before the civil war, operating on a Capitalist economy. If you take the time to look at the charts of recessions (I'm at work or I would post them), recessions that take place in era's of the least economic meddling by government are over the quickest. Those with the greatest government controls (Great depression, Carter years etc.) have taken the longest. There is no system that can eliminate the cycles of boom and recession... They are like the cycles of the seasons and we can no more end the season of winter than we can end the occurance of recessions.

Sure, a capitalist economy is more resilient than a government controlled one, no doubt about it. Pure capitalism, sans government controls, hasn't proven to be very practical in the real world either has it?

First, there has never been a purely captialist nation.
Second, my concept of Lassie Faire is where government's only role in the economy is to protect the public from force and fraud. Which is what I think the government should limit itself to in all areas of governance.
Third, you cite the abscense of government controls as having lead to problems that made capitalism not "very practical in the real world" but America is less than 250 years old and we have far surpassed countries that have been around for 2000 plus years.

But, in the real world, has there ever been a Marxist nation with a pure democracy and a socialist economy? Does that really describe the Soviet Union? Does it describe the future or the goals of the United States? Such a utopia doesn't exist, and never will.

We've been over this ground before. There are stark differences between the ideology and its actual practice. Fascism in Italy was not the same as it was in Germany. Marxism in Russia became Leninism, became Stalinism and that evolution of the Marxist ideology ended up no longer resembling the ideology or policies that Marx himself had proposed.

The same will be true for the United States. Look at the useful idiots who say we've "evolved" from the principles that founded our nation... We began with Capitalist society operating under a Federalist system with limited central government and strong states rights, we will see our end come with the Progressive Welfare state as it abrogates the rights of the states and people, centralized power in the federal government and puts ever greater conrtols on the economy and population in hopes of avoiding the inevitable collapse of their system... Which too will be 180 degrees from the principles that founded our natoin.

I have my doubts, but maybe you and Andy are right about that. I hope so, as we aren't willing to do anything about our negative trade balance.

The only time it matters is when you don't have the money to pay for the things you get through trade. Such is our case with China, we borrow money from them to buy their goods. That is not a trade imbalance, its a failed economic policy of national suicide.

If by Marxism, you mean an economy controlled by the central government, then you have a point.

Then I have yet another point.

No, I mean that there is no practical way that we can stop Iran from developing nukes all by ourselves. We have to work with the rest of the world, including the Arab world.

We've been over this before... The other nations of the world are content to do nothing. I fail to see how working with people who will never sign onto the use of any force can help the situation. Diplomacy is great, but without the threat of force, its just words.

Iran having a nuclear bomb would be another threat to world peace, of course. What I meant was that they are so far from being able to win a war with Israel that there is no likely scenario in which they make good their nutcase president's threats to wipe it off of the map. Should Israel have to defend itself with nukes, Iran would become an uninhabitable radioactive wasteland rather quickly. Ahmadinajad might be crazy enough to risk that, but the real power is more sane.

Ahmadinajad isn't interested in winning a war with Israel, only starting one. He has publicly said that he believes he is sent by God to bring about the 12th Imam (World chaos that will bring about the return of God), and what would stop him from arming his proxy-warriors of Hamas (whom the Administration is looking to remove from the list of terror groups) or Hezbola with a nuke and sending them to Israel? Such actions would give Iran some level of deniability in the situation and still result in the deaths of millions of jews.

Who is with us in trying to police the world? What other nation stands with the US?

UK and Canada are the two biggest. You can't site, save the somali pirates incident, a case where we have used military force unilaterally.

We really can't go it alone. We have to have the cooperation of he rest of the world, or we simply have to pull back and use our vast military as a national defense only.

We don't go it alone. What we don't have is a majority of the worlds nations on our side but the ones we do have ensure that we are never alone.

Trying to enforce it by unilateral force is not possible.

Which is why other nations step up to the plate only after we've made the decision to use force.

What treaty have we signed that makes us the protector of the rest of the world?

To name just one, Japan, who is barred from having a military force and limited strictly to a civil defense force. I shouldn't have to mention that they are neighbors to China, Russia and North Korea. Its only because of the US that China hasn't taken over Taiwan.

So would I. That is the point I've been making all along. We can't protect the entire world. The best we can do is to protect ourselves, and help protect allies that are also willing to help protect us.

I'm fine with limiting our role to protecting our boarders and national interests abroad. We should not be playing the role of peacekeepers in countries of no value to our national interests and we should definately not be using our military to prop up leaders of other countries. Of course, the moment we don't use our troops for places like Darfur, we're hated for not helping. When we do help, we are hated for interferring. We are in a no win situation so we should ignore the complaints and use our forces to protect our assets at home and abroad.

 

[PLC1]

Russia only has to protect itself within its boarders because they know America will keep open the trade routes necessary to economic trade. If Russia had the obligations and global interests that we have, and were left to secure them on their own, they would be spending 7 times what we would if we only had to secure our national boundaries.


The expansion of the soviet state was their policy. The 7 or so million Afghans were looked upon as chattle by the Soviets and Afghanistan was (and still is) in a strategic location for other interests in the region.


We certainly suffer from that... Mass hysteria as well (oh-bam-uh).


You mean our "mixed" economy? We are not now, nor have we been since before the civil war, operating on a Capitalist economy. If you take the time to look at the charts of recessions (I'm at work or I would post them), recessions that take place in era's of the least economic meddling by government are over the quickest. Those with the greatest government controls (Great depression, Carter years etc.) have taken the longest. There is no system that can eliminate the cycles of boom and recession... They are like the cycles of the seasons and we can no more end the season of winter than we can end the occurance of recessions.


First, there has never been a purely captialist nation.
Second, my concept of Lassie Faire is where government's only role in the economy is to protect the public from force and fraud. Which is what I think the government should limit itself to in all areas of governance.
Third, you cite the abscense of government controls as having lead to problems that made capitalism not "very practical in the real world" but America is less than 250 years old and we have far surpassed countries that have been around for 2000 plus years.


We've been over this ground before. There are stark differences between the ideology and its actual practice. Fascism in Italy was not the same as it was in Germany. Marxism in Russia became Leninism, became Stalinism and that evolution of the Marxist ideology ended up no longer resembling the ideology or policies that Marx himself had proposed.

The same will be true for the United States. Look at the useful idiots who say we've "evolved" from the principles that founded our nation... We began with Capitalist society operating under a Federalist system with limited central government and strong states rights, we will see our end come with the Progressive Welfare state as it abrogates the rights of the states and people, centralized power in the federal government and puts ever greater conrtols on the economy and population in hopes of avoiding the inevitable collapse of their system... Which too will be 180 degrees from the principles that founded our natoin.


The only time it matters is when you don't have the money to pay for the things you get through trade. Such is our case with China, we borrow money from them to buy their goods. That is not a trade imbalance, its a failed economic policy of national suicide.


Then I have yet another point.


We've been over this before... The other nations of the world are content to do nothing. I fail to see how working with people who will never sign onto the use of any force can help the situation. Diplomacy is great, but without the threat of force, its just words.


Ahmadinajad isn't interested in winning a war with Israel, only starting one. He has publicly said that he believes he is sent by God to bring about the 12th Imam (World chaos that will bring about the return of God), and what would stop him from arming his proxy-warriors of Hamas (whom the Administration is looking to remove from the list of terror groups) or Hezbola with a nuke and sending them to Israel? Such actions would give Iran some level of deniability in the situation and still result in the deaths of millions of jews.


UK and Canada are the two biggest. You can't site, save the somali pirates incident, a case where we have used military force unilaterally.


We don't go it alone. What we don't have is a majority of the worlds nations on our side but the ones we do have ensure that we are never alone.


Which is why other nations step up to the plate only after we've made the decision to use force.


To name just one, Japan, who is barred from having a military force and limited strictly to a civil defense force. I shouldn't have to mention that they are neighbors to China, Russia and North Korea. Its only because of the US that China hasn't taken over Taiwan.


I'm fine with limiting our role to protecting our boarders and national interests abroad. We should not be playing the role of peacekeepers in countries of no value to our national interests and we should definately not be using our military to prop up leaders of other countries. Of course, the moment we don't use our troops for places like Darfur, we're hated for not helping. When we do help, we are hated for interferring. We are in a no win situation so we should ignore the complaints and use our forces to protect our assets at home and abroad.

To sum it all up:

There is no such thing as pure Marxism, nor is pure capitalism a practical and workable economic system. What works is a combination of government regulations (which, of course, we all hate but need) along with a free market. The debate really centers around how much government regulation is desirable.

An economy totally controlled by the central government doesn't work, as has been demonstrated in many nations around the world. A total laissez faire capitalist system isn't practical, either. As you said, we haven't had such a system in many years. Of course, there is a reason why we haven't, and it's the same reason no one has a truly Marxist system: It isn't practical.

To say that the US is going the way of the Soviet Union because we're applying more government control than has been the case in the past is not supportable. That position presupposes that we will continue to have more and more control until the government takes over everything, as it did in the Soviet Union. It's a "slippery slope" argument of the type that has shown to be unsupportable.

It is likely that the government is applying more controls than is really desirable currently. That is not to say that we're descending into a "Marxist" system that will fail us. What will fail us is the practice of spending more than is sustainable to support the government. You might want to use the term "Marxism" to describe that trend, but I'd argue that "statism" is a much better term. When Marxism is used, it supposes that we're in the process of creating the utopia that Marx described. That simply is not the case. What we are doing is creating an ever more expensive and powerful federal bureaucracy. What we need to do is to insist that said bureaucracy be pruned back to what is affordable and sustainable.

Of course, that won't happen until collapse is imminent, and it may be too late by that point.

The ever more powerful military is really another manifestation of statism (more and more powerful and expensive government). If we don't want the government to be running other things, why do we think that it can run the military well? We don't want to trust the government to bail out Chrysler, but we want to trust it when it says we need to invade Iraq and we want to trust the federal government to keep the whole world safe. That makes no sense. We are but one nation of many, including about 5% of the world's population, and we want to police the world? That simply isn't possible. We might want to have a world of laws, but we don't want to have a world government, or at least I don't think we do. The alternative is to continue to try to work with other nations, while maintaining enough military force to protect our shores.

We may want to have the rule of international law, but no one is really capable of enforcing that law just now, not even the US.

 

[GenSeneca]

A total laissez faire capitalist system isn't practical, either.

I disagree. But you already know that...

As you said, we haven't had such a system in many years. Of course, there is a reason why we haven't, and it's the same reason no one has a truly Marxist system: It isn't practical.

It was practical. The problem was that people came along who promised "Change", they promised to put an end to the boom and bust cycles of the economy, an end to recessions and promised steady, never ending growth... All they needed was more government control over the economy. Such promises gave us the Fed: Failure. Such promises gave us the NRA (national reconstruction administration): Failure. Such promises gave us the Carter era controls: Failure.

Laissez Faire Capitalism is not perfect, its just the least imperfect of all other systems. Because its not perfect, as no system is, power hungry politicians use the imperfections as an excuse to "fix" the system but as history shows, every "fix" creates more problems than it solves... So then they get re-elected to "fix" those problems and the cycle continues.

That position presupposes that we will continue to have more and more control until the government takes over everything,

Please, destroy the slippery slope argument and cite for me the last time the government gave up more control than it acquired. Even under Reagan, who wanted to do just that, he ended up growing the overall power of government.

What we need to do is to insist that said bureaucracy be pruned back to what is affordable and sustainable.

Of course, that won't happen until collapse is imminent, and it may be too late by that point.

We can agree on that all day. It will be too late though... People are in love with the idea of giving government power over the lives of everyone else and naive enough to think they will benefit, rather than suffer, as a result.

The ever more powerful military is really another manifestation of statism

I disagree. We first built a navy to protect our shores and trade routes from pirates. We were not a statist society at the time and as technology improved, our navy became ever more powerful.

If we don't want the government to be running other things, why do we think that it can run the military well?

I don't think they can. We should GTFO of Iraq and Afghanistan... Miranda and Constitutional rights for terrorists... What will they think of next? Pretty soon granting them full citizenship and lodging at a 5 star hotel on the taxpayers dime won't seem so far fetched.

we don't want to have a world government, or at least I don't think we do.

The Progs do.

The alternative is to continue to try to work with other nations, while maintaining enough military force to protect our shores.

Now you're the one suggesting the impractical. You've never explained what "working with other nations" will entail or accomplish, or ever has accomplished, if we're going to take the threat of force off the table.

We may want to have the rule of international law, but no one is really capable of enforcing that law just now, not even the US.

Just plant the white flag and surrender already. If we are powerless to stop rouge nations from getting nuclear weapons, and we are powerless to stop terrorists from acquiring them and using them inside our borders, then lets pack up the circus tent and call it a day in hopes that we're left alone.

 

[Andy]

There are some spin offs, yes. DEET is a great invention, if you go outside where there are mosquitoes, as I do. The Hummer is a good vehicle for the military, but not practical at all for civilian use, except perhaps to project some macho image at great personal expense. Jeeps are handy for traveling the back woods.

And, of course, there is the rationale behind the small conflicts described in 1984: To provide a use for excess industrial production, and so increase markets.

Overall, though, military spending is a net loss.

Why does it matter if you think a Hummer is practical or not? Most consumer goods are not there for practicality. I wager if I walked through the average America home, I could locate thousands of dollars in things others would suggest are not practical. Do people really need a 72" TV? Do you really need an iPhone? Do you really need a hot tube in the back yard? Do you really need a 1,000 Watt sounds system in your car? Do you really need a triple espresso latte every morning? Do you really need an expensive computer with a high speed internet connection? Do you really need satellite TV with all the news channels from Japan?

Again, there are hundreds of products and technologies that have military origins. You realize the first alternative fuel vehicles were military? They wanted a vehicle that could be powered by any energy source they could find, in case gasoline wasn't available. The internet itself was a military creation. Modern computers where a by product of military research. Hydrogen power, was a product of military research. GPS units all have their origin in military research. The list goes on and on.

Is it a net loss? Ah possibly. But when you include the social benefit of national security, no it is not.

Exactly. Further, spending more than is necessary for the defense of the nation is wasteful, and leads to their use as offensive weapons as well.

This is another one of those screw ball theories I've never understood. So... If I purchase another weapon... I already have two .357s. Since I only have two hands, by having a third weapon I can't use, I will suddenly go nuts and kill a bunch of people with the third weapon, because I only have two hands, and it's got to be used for something.... right?

This is just a really stupid theory of life. It spawns from the same theory that if we had no guns, we'd have no crime. A theory that's been proven false time and time again.

You make a good case, and I hope you are right. We have had a negative trade balance for quite some time now. If it doesn't weaken our currency, as logic tells us it should, then maybe it isn't a problem

Ok, explain the logic behind the idea it should weaken our currency? Do you think somehow that money given for imported products, doesn't turn right around and end up back in the US? I assure you that isn't the case.

No, we can't, and therefore, we can't control the price of energy. The best we can do is to try to develop our own sources of energy whenever possible.

Which is precisely what we are not doing. We have explored only a fraction of Alaska, a fraction of the mid-west, and worst yet, we have not tapped known reserves in the gulf and in California.

See we don't need to control the world market, just our own. You realize that every barrol of oil produced inside the US, costs a fraction of what imported oil does, right? This is why when oil prices go up, the cost at the pump doesn't not go up in direct relation. It's the cost blend between imported and domestic oil, that results in the over all price. You'll also see that the price swings at the pump have been increasing as we rely more and more on imported oil.

By simply increasing domestic production, and reducing expensive regulations, we can stabilize the price greatly. Now granted we'll never reach 100% independence of course... but the more we tip the import export ratio in our favor, the more insulated from world market price swings we can be.

Saudi Arabia can do more to control the price of petroleum than any other single nation, and it has a good strategy: Keep the price high enough to be profitable, but low enough to make other sources of energy too expensive (relatively) to be profitable. We simply don't have enough petroleum of our own to affect the world price, not unless we're willing to force the industry to sell to the domestic market only. I'm not so sure that would be a good idea, are you?

First, I disagree that we don't have enough petrol here in the US to affect world price. One problem is the idea of "reserves". Do you know how oil reserves work? Someone decides to drill down to check for oil. When he strikes oil... poof we have a reserve. The ANWR oil field was not discovered until 1980 when an assessment of it's oil potential was ordered. Of course they discovered oil. But realize before that there was no "oil reserve" in ANWR.

We say that Saudi Arabia has the largest oil reserves. Why? Because they have looked for them. We have not. Why have we not? Well there's a number of reasons. When we prevent companies from developing known reservoirs of oil, such as ANWR, we make it risky to bother investing in exploring. After all, how do they know we won't prevent them form developing whatever oil they discover?

Second, most of the lands where oil is likely to exist are under Federal control, and use a risky leasing system. Again, any company would be hesitant to invest thousands, if not millions into locating sources of oil on leased land, knowing the government could strip their lease at any moment.

Third, oil companies get sued constantly, and have to muddle through miles of governmental red tape. Although, there are large profits to be made once an oil field is established and productive, it's much more risky leading up to that point. As you know, Bush Jr, was the CEO of an Oil company, that through legal red tape and environmental lawsuits, was driven out of business.

The bottom line is this. The US Geological survey says that their is possibly 10 Trillion barrels of undiscovered oil in the US mainland alone. Enough to make us completely oil independent for roughly 10 years, at our current rate of increasing usage. That doesn't include Hawaiia, or Alaska, or the Gulf of Mexico, or in other US territories. Both of us, right now where we live, could be walking over massive undiscovered oil reserves, and not even know about it.

Again, you make a good case. Still, what happens when more dollars go overseas than come back as other currencies? How can that not devalue the dollar? There still is that pesky supply and demand, as you know, and it does apply to world currencies as well as manufactured goods.

I'm confused. Do you think other countries bury the money they get in the back yard? What do you think they do with those dollars? Psst: They end up back in the US.

 

[PLC1]

I disagree. But you already know that...

Yes, I do.

It was practical. The problem was that people came along who promised "Change", they promised to put an end to the boom and bust cycles of the economy, an end to recessions and promised steady, never ending growth... All they needed was more government control over the economy. Such promises gave us the Fed: Failure. Such promises gave us the NRA (national reconstruction administration): Failure. Such promises gave us the Carter era controls: Failure.

It gave us the FICA and no more runs on banks.

Laissez Faire Capitalism is not perfect, its just the least imperfect of all other systems. Because its not perfect, as no system is, power hungry politicians use the imperfections as an excuse to "fix" the system but as history shows, every "fix" creates more problems than it solves... So then they get re-elected to "fix" those problems and the cycle continues.

No, it isn't perfect, so some controls are necessary. The problem is that government needs controls as well. Ours is supposed to be controlled by the Constitution, the balance of power, and the vote of the people, but then, that won't work unless the people are aware of what the government is doing, understand and support the Constitution, and active in their civic duties.

Unfortunately, the people tend to ignore government until it bites them in the butt.

Please, destroy the slippery slope argument and cite for me the last time the government gave up more control than it acquired. Even under Reagan, who wanted to do just that, he ended up growing the overall power of government.

True enough. The problem boils down to the fact that the controls that are supposed to rein in the government aren't being applied. No government at all is still anarchy, which has to be the worst system of all.

We can agree on that all day. It will be too late though... People are in love with the idea of giving government power over the lives of everyone else and naive enough to think they will benefit, rather than suffer, as a result.

You got that right.

I disagree. We first built a navy to protect our shores and trade routes from pirates. We were not a statist society at the time and as technology improved, our navy became ever more powerful.


I don't think they can. We should GTFO of Iraq and Afghanistan... Miranda and Constitutional rights for terrorists... What will they think of next? Pretty soon granting them full citizenship and lodging at a 5 star hotel on the taxpayers dime won't seem so far fetched.

If we didn't have such a powerful military, maybe we wouldn't have gone in to Iraq and Afganistan to begin with.

A limited, international force in Afganistan and Pakistan would have been enough to have taken out Bin Laden (who is still out there somewhere, BTW) and his fellow cockroaches (who are still breeding) and go home. We might actually have been finished in six weeks or less, as Rumsfeld said we would.

The Progs do.

The progs are wrong.

Now you're the one suggesting the impractical. You've never explained what "working with other nations" will entail or accomplish, or ever has accomplished, if we're going to take the threat of force off the table.

I didn't say we should take the threat of force off of the table. Force is a last resort, and should not be used except as a last resort.

Just plant the white flag and surrender already. If we are powerless to stop rouge nations from getting nuclear weapons, and we are powerless to stop terrorists from acquiring them and using them inside our borders, then lets pack up the circus tent and call it a day in hopes that we're left alone.

We are powerless to stop rogue nations from getting nuclear weapons if we attempt to go it alone.
That's why we need to work with other nations, even ones that disagree with us.

 

[PLC1]

Why does it matter if you think a Hummer is practical or not? Most consumer goods are not there for practicality. I wager if I walked through the average America home, I could locate thousands of dollars in things others would suggest are not practical. Do people really need a 72" TV? Do you really need an iPhone? Do you really need a hot tube in the back yard? Do you really need a 1,000 Watt sounds system in your car? Do you really need a triple espresso latte every morning? Do you really need an expensive computer with a high speed internet connection? Do you really need satellite TV with all the news channels from Japan?

Again, there are hundreds of products and technologies that have military origins. You realize the first alternative fuel vehicles were military? They wanted a vehicle that could be powered by any energy source they could find, in case gasoline wasn't available. The internet itself was a military creation. Modern computers where a by product of military research. Hydrogen power, was a product of military research. GPS units all have their origin in military research. The list goes on and on.

Is it a net loss? Ah possibly. But when you include the social benefit of national security, no it is not.

OK, so how much do we need to maintain that national security? Would it be enough to spend twice as much as any other nation on Earth? Three times as much?

How much do we need to spend in order to feel secure in this great and wealthy land?

And, should we spend more than we take in in taxes, even to maintain the most powerful military in the world?

This is another one of those screw ball theories I've never understood. So... If I purchase another weapon... I already have two .357s. Since I only have two hands, by having a third weapon I can't use, I will suddenly go nuts and kill a bunch of people with the third weapon, because I only have two hands, and it's got to be used for something.... right?

If you already have two .357 magnums, then you have one as a back up in case the first one fails.

If you can shoot two of those cannons at the same time, and actually control them with the recoil they have, I'd like to see a video of it. A third isn't going to make you any more secure, is it? Of course, it isn't going to make you more likely to go nuts and shoot someone. All it is going to do is to wast another few hundred bucks you could have used to buy beer or pay your mortgage.

The government, on the other hand, is more likely to start a war if they think they can finish it and win.

This is just a really stupid theory of life. It spawns from the same theory that if we had no guns, we'd have no crime. A theory that's been proven false time and time again.

No, it comes from a mistrust of government.

Ok, explain the logic behind the idea it should weaken our currency? Do you think somehow that money given for imported products, doesn't turn right around and end up back in the US? I assure you that isn't the case.

No, it doesn't turn around and end up back in the US. If we had a neutral balance of trade, then it would.

Let's look at your retail store analogy. You take money from your personal funds, and pay for groceries or a TV or whatever. You don't sell anything to the store, so you have a negative balance of trade.

Now, that's OK, so long as those personal funds are being replaced by, say for example, a paycheck. So long as that is happening, your finances are still secure. In effect, you don't have a negative balance of trade, as you are trading your skills and time for things you need.

But, if you have a personal negative balance of trade, then the money going out to those retail stores is not being replaced; more is going out than is coming in.

That situation is not sustainable over the long term, any more than continuing to buy more than you sell as a nation is sustainable over the long term.

It is much like living on credit cards, as way too many Americans have been doing.

Which is precisely what we are not doing. We have explored only a fraction of Alaska, a fraction of the mid-west, and worst yet, we have not tapped known reserves in the gulf and in California.

See we don't need to control the world market, just our own. You realize that every barrol of oil produced inside the US, costs a fraction of what imported oil does, right? This is why when oil prices go up, the cost at the pump doesn't not go up in direct relation. It's the cost blend between imported and domestic oil, that results in the over all price. You'll also see that the price swings at the pump have been increasing as we rely more and more on imported oil.

By simply increasing domestic production, and reducing expensive regulations, we can stabilize the price greatly. Now granted we'll never reach 100% independence of course... but the more we tip the import export ratio in our favor, the more insulated from world market price swings we can be.

So, does that mean that domestic oil should be sold only in the domestic market?

First, I disagree that we don't have enough petrol here in the US to affect world price. One problem is the idea of "reserves". Do you know how oil reserves work? Someone decides to drill down to check for oil. When he strikes oil... poof we have a reserve. The ANWR oil field was not discovered until 1980 when an assessment of it's oil potential was ordered. Of course they discovered oil. But realize before that there was no "oil reserve" in ANWR.

We say that Saudi Arabia has the largest oil reserves. Why? Because they have looked for them. We have not. Why have we not? Well there's a number of reasons. When we prevent companies from developing known reservoirs of oil, such as ANWR, we make it risky to bother investing in exploring. After all, how do they know we won't prevent them form developing whatever oil they discover?

Second, most of the lands where oil is likely to exist are under Federal control, and use a risky leasing system. Again, any company would be hesitant to invest thousands, if not millions into locating sources of oil on leased land, knowing the government could strip their lease at any moment.

Third, oil companies get sued constantly, and have to muddle through miles of governmental red tape. Although, there are large profits to be made once an oil field is established and productive, it's much more risky leading up to that point. As you know, Bush Jr, was the CEO of an Oil company, that through legal red tape and environmental lawsuits, was driven out of business.

The bottom line is this. The US Geological survey says that their is possibly 10 Trillion barrels of undiscovered oil in the US mainland alone. Enough to make us completely oil independent for roughly 10 years, at our current rate of increasing usage. That doesn't include Hawaiia, or Alaska, or the Gulf of Mexico, or in other US territories. Both of us, right now where we live, could be walking over massive undiscovered oil reserves, and not even know about it.

If we have so much oil of our own, as you think we do, then sure, we should exploit it. The whole "drill baby drill" mantra seems to suppose that we have huge reservoirs of oil that we could simply drill down and get and become energy independent without developing any alternative resources.

Unfortunately, that rosy scenario is not likely.
For one thing, much of the oil reserves would cost more to get out of the ground than the current price of petroleum.

Of course, back when the price of a barrel was somewhere over $120, all of that oil could have been recovered economically. So, why wasn't it?

The reason it wasn't is that it costs billions in venture capital to do so. Should the venture capitalists have ponied up those billions back when the price was high, they could be pumping petroleum for only $80 or $90 a barrel by now.

Can you see why such a venture might not have been profitable?

 

[GenSeneca]

It gave us the FICA and no more runs on banks.

Not worth the liberty we gave up.

No, it isn't perfect, so some controls are necessary.

What controls? I've said: Protect us from force and fraud. What controls do you see as necessary that don't fall into those categories?

No government at all is still anarchy, which has to be the worst system of all.

Why are you bringing up Anarchy? Laissez Faire does not equal Anarchy...

If we didn't have such a powerful military, maybe we wouldn't have gone in to Iraq and Afganistan to begin with.

That's absurd. We went into WWI and WWII with a piss poor military. The strength or weakness of our military has never been a deciding factor in our wars.

A limited, international force in Afganistan and Pakistan would have been enough to have taken out Bin Laden (who is still out there somewhere, BTW) and his fellow cockroaches (who are still breeding) and go home. We might actually have been finished in six weeks or less, as Rumsfeld said we would.

Bin Laden is a symptom of a larger problem that we're not addressing.

I didn't say we should take the threat of force off of the table. Force is a last resort, and should not be used except as a last resort.

We're the only nation willing to use force... You're not willing to act "unilaterally" and let the US take the lead in the use of force, so you've effectively taken force off the table.

We are powerless to stop rogue nations from getting nuclear weapons if we attempt to go it alone.

We will never be alone. We just have to be the ones to act first, then others will follow.

That's why we need to work with other nations, even ones that disagree with us.

Other nations have taken force off the table. So once again, you need to explain how working with them will result in anything useful.

 

[Andy]

How much do we need to maintain that national security? Twice as much as any other nation on Earth? And, should we spend more than we take in in taxes, even to maintain the most powerful military in the world?

Again, I disagree with the presuppositions.
Federal Income $2.699 Trillion.
Military funding was $800 Billion.
That leaves $1.899 Trillion dollars.

Federal spending was $3.226 Trillion dollars.
The military is less than 1/4th of the US budget.
This doesn't include the Bailouts or the stimulus package, which will be an additional $10 trillion over the next 10 years.

It is the other 3/4th of the budget of over spending that is driving us into debt. Realize that most of that 3/4th is going to things that are unconstitutional to begin with.

Further, I find the the claim that we are spending twice as much as any other nation, to be a rather unimportant measurement of our military capabilities. For one thing, building the latest and most advanced weaponry costs money, money that other nations do not pay.

Our military invests heavily into research and design to keep us on the leading edge. Most other countries simply purchase military hardware made elsewhere, and invest little into R&D.

Example: Egypt purchases our Humvees. But our government paid the cost to research and design the Humvee. So while both the US and Egypt are using Humvees, only the US is footing the cost for development of the Humvee.

Moreover, the statical numbers themselves are very suspect. For example we include in "military spending", many things that are not military in nature. Like rebuilding parts of Iraq, and helping to train the Iraqi military force. Obviously that is not exactly military since it's neither the procurement of new hardware, nor the funding of additional troops. Other examples would include the GI bill, unemployment compensation for military personnel, and health care. For example French military personnel needing health care, would be covered by national health care, and the cost not included in French military funding, unlike the US.

Also, there are specific money expenditures that other nations would never have. For example the IED fund which is designated for those harmed by IEDs, and also the Defeat IED fund, which is specifically to find solutions and protection from IEDs.

If you can shoot two of those cannons at the same time, and actually control them with the recoil they have, I'd like to see a video of it. A third isn't going to make you any more secure, is it?

You remind me of a guy I knew from my parents church. He was an engineer, and was so practical-minded, he always wore the same outfit... well not the same outfit, but he purchased the same exact shirt 15 times over. There was no need to variety, and it wasn't practical. Every year he'd buy 4 pairs of the exact same shoes. He'd have one pair for walking around the house, and one for the office. When the office pair wore out, he'd toss the home pair away, and use the office pair for home, and grab a new pair from the closet for work.

He was so consistently dull, that at an office Halloween party, someone came dressed in the same shirt, pants and shoes as him as their costumes. They actually wrote a book about this guy.

Anyway... did it ever occur to you that a person might choose to purchase something because they like it? Or just want it, even without some practical reason behind the desire?

For the record, I do not own any pistols as of yet, and I will not be getting any .357 because it's just too hard to control as you rightly pointed out. I'll likely get a GLock 9 or 10 MM, simply because I have better aim with those.

The government, on the other hand, is more likely to start a war if they think they can finish it and win.

I agree completely. Now apply that to our enemies. When we have a much larger and stronger military, is it possible our enemies might not start a war they are not likely to win? Moreover, if we have a smaller, less advanced military, are they more likely to start a war they think they can win?

No, it doesn't turn around and end up back in the US. If we had a neutral balance of trade, then it would.

Ok, now we both are on the same page, in that I was completely confused by your prior statements. Now I understand your perspective, and can see the logic of your claims, even if I do not agree.

First do me a favor and think logically from the perspective of a Chinese business man. You are running a company that produces product X that is sold in America. You collect money in dollars. What do you do with them? The implication of your statement is that they are doing nothing with the money. So think that through... you are collecting US dollars, and doing nothing with them. Does this make sense to you? Obviously you can't pay your employees in US dollars, and you have already stated they are not coming back to the US. So they are... sitting on them? Have them buried behind the plant? Why would they bother to sell a product for currency that has no use to them?

Also, consider this... if what you claim is true, and nearly $800 billion has been sucked out of our national economy every year since 2005, and a total of no less than $8 Trillion dollars from 1991 to 2009, then why have we not experienced massive *deflation* during that time period? Yet deflation has not happened.

Well, the answer is the devil is in the details. I'd direct your attention to two articles.
Understatement of Export Merchandise Trade Data
Trade Deficit Review Commission

To give a quick run down the conclusions, the trade deficit numbers are not very accurate.

1. First, many companies fail to report all their transactions.
2. Second, many companies under-report their exports in order to avoid increased tariffs.
3. Third, Bureau of the Census ignores all exports valued less than $2,500, an important fact with companies that use just in time delivery of goods in small quantities.
4. Forth, exported services are often not included due to the difficult of quantification. For example, my uncle, an engineer for a corporation, flew to China, to propose a manufacturing system for glass cups. Although everything was paid for by the Chinese company, they ended up not purchasing the system or their services. The entire week, flight plus room and board, likely was not recorded as a service, since no services were purchased.

But it doesn't end there. There are a few other uncounted ways in which dollars come back to the US. One is through investments. When a Chinese firm purchases an investment like stock or land, and sadly, government bonds from an overspending government, that is not counted in the trade deficit. Another way would be through the purchase of consumables within the US. When a Chinese company purchases room and board for employees sent to the US on company business, this is not counted.

If you remember back in the early 90s, what was the big cry then? The Japanese are coming. Our trade deficit with Japan will wipe us out. Yet what happened? The Japanese turned around and invested heavily in the US. If you go back and read some of the new articles during that time, people were all freaked out that the Japanese would own the entire country. Of course, they were investing in our country, something we desperately need right now. The point again is, the money came back.

Here's some more evidence to chew on. This is a graph of the trade deficit history.
http://recession.org/library/graphs/us-trade-deficit-history
Note the follow years in which we were in a recession. 1975, 1981-1982, 1992, 2001, 2008. Fairly conclusive eh?

 

[Andy]

So, does that mean that domestic oil should be sold only in the domestic market?

Unnecessary. An open free market will cause the lowest price oil to be purchased regardless of origin. I don't want companies forced to purchased oil from an expensive well in Alaska, if there is a cheaper tanker available from Mexico. Further, the chance of this happening are not high given there will be the automatic cost of transportation for imported oil, that domestic oil will not have. A company would not likely purchase oil from Russia at a high transportation cost, instead of the Gulf of Mexico. But of course we have to allow them to drill in the gulf in order for that option to exist... right?

If we have so much oil of our own, as you think we do, then sure, we should exploit it. The whole "drill baby drill" mantra seems to suppose that we have huge reservoirs of oil that we could simply drill down and get and become energy independent without developing any alternative resources.

Palin was on the forefront of that push simply because the knowledge of oil in ANWR was available since the early 80s, yet only recently have we actually started the permit process for it. Again, we don't know if there are *more* large reservoirs because we have not explored. We have not explored because no one is going to look for oil, when we can't get what is already known. When people look for oil, they tend to find it.
Indiana man drills for backyard oil
Before he explored for oil, there was no "reservoir" because no one had looked. Now there is a reservoir, because they looked and found it.

Unfortunately, that rosy scenario is not likely.
For one thing, much of the oil reserves would cost more to get out of the ground than the current price of petroleum.

Of course, back when the price of a barrel was somewhere over $120, all of that oil could have been recovered economically. So, why wasn't it?

The reason it wasn't is that it costs billions in venture capital to do so. Should the venture capitalists have ponied up those billions back when the price was high, they could be pumping petroleum for only $80 or $90 a barrel by now.

Can you see why such a venture might not have been profitable?

First, again you are referring to known reserves of difficult to tap oil. The US Geological survey indicates there are roughly 10 trillion barrels of undiscovered oil reserves that may not be difficult to tap. But no one is going to look for other oil sources, when we already know the Gulf of Mexico has massive amounts of relatively easy to tap sources of oil, and are not allowed to get them.

Yes I know about Shale oil, and why it's not tapped yet. It is exactly as you stated. If they had started a $200 Billion dollar shale oil project, and the price is now at $35 a barrel, the company would have lost all their investment.

But just like the Indiana guy above, there is likely trillions of barrels of easy cheap to pump oil under foot that we don't know about. As soon as he drilled, he struck oil. He struck oil because he looked. Companies are not going to risk high cost exploration when they could be sued out of existence like Bush Jr was. Or when the government can step in and place the whole area off limits like the Gulf of Mexico.

As long as that's the way it works in the US, we are going to be ever more dependent on foreign oil, and subject to world market price swings.

 

[PLC1]

Again, I disagree with the presuppositions.
Federal Income $2.699 Trillion.
Military funding was $800 Billion.
That leaves $1.899 Trillion dollars.

Federal spending was $3.226 Trillion dollars.
The military is less than 1/4th of the US budget.
This doesn't include the Bailouts or the stimulus package, which will be an additional $10 trillion over the next 10 years.

It is the other 3/4th of the budget of over spending that is driving us into debt. Realize that most of that 3/4th is going to things that are unconstitutional to begin with.

Federal income - 2.699 trillion
Federal spending - 3.226 trillion

Leaving a deficit of 0.527 trillion.

And that's not counting the money stol... I mean borrowed from SS.

I'm not sure what year your figures are for, as the deficit for the current year is widely reported to be a lot more than that, but nevertheless:

If the goal is to balance the budget, then we can't have any sacred cows; every item in the budget has to be on the chopping block.

Further, I find the the claim that we are spending twice as much as any other nation, to be a rather unimportant measurement of our military capabilities. For one thing, building the latest and most advanced weaponry costs money, money that other nations do not pay.

Actually, it is more like seven times as much as second place Russia. Were we to cut that back to only twice as much, shouldn't we still have the world's most powerful military?

Our military invests heavily into research and design to keep us on the leading edge. Most other countries simply purchase military hardware made elsewhere, and invest little into R&D.

Example: Egypt purchases our Humvees. But our government paid the cost to research and design the Humvee. So while both the US and Egypt are using Humvees, only the US is footing the cost for development of the Humvee.

Then, why not make other nations pay the cost of developing weaponry that we sell to them? Why operate on a loss?

You remind me of a guy I knew from my parents church. He was an engineer, and was so practical-minded, he always wore the same outfit... well not the same outfit, but he purchased the same exact shirt 15 times over. There was no need to variety, and it wasn't practical. Every year he'd buy 4 pairs of the exact same shoes. He'd have one pair for walking around the house, and one for the office. When the office pair wore out, he'd toss the home pair away, and use the office pair for home, and grab a new pair from the closet for work.

He was so consistently dull, that at an office Halloween party, someone came dressed in the same shirt, pants and shoes as him as their costumes. They actually wrote a book about this guy.

I'm not sure what the point of that is. Should we develop new military hardware in order to be stylish?

Anyway... did it ever occur to you that a person might choose to purchase something because they like it? Or just want it, even without some practical reason behind the desire?

Of course. There is nothing wrong with that, so long as the individual can afford it.

For the record, I do not own any pistols as of yet, and I will not be getting any .357 because it's just too hard to control as you rightly pointed out. I'll likely get a GLock 9 or 10 MM, simply because I have better aim with those.

I must have misunderstood your post. If you want a pistol, or a couple of pistols, then by all means go and buy them. I understood you to say you wanted yet another .357 magnum, just to be more secure.

If you are going to purchase those pistols the way the feds purchase military hardware (and anything else), then you should use your MasterCArd, then pay the minimums.

I agree completely. Now apply that to our enemies. When we have a much larger and stronger military, is it possible our enemies might not start a war they are not likely to win? Moreover, if we have a smaller, less advanced military, are they more likely to start a war they think they can win?

If we were to spend only twice as much as any other nation on the military, then we should be able to have a defense that would make anyone think twice about starting a war with us, don't you think? If we can't, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the way that money is being spent.

Ok, now we both are on the same page, in that I was completely confused by your prior statements. Now I understand your perspective, and can see the logic of your claims, even if I do not agree.

First do me a favor and think logically from the perspective of a Chinese business man. You are running a company that produces product X that is sold in America. You collect money in dollars. What do you do with them? The implication of your statement is that they are doing nothing with the money. So think that through... you are collecting US dollars, and doing nothing with them. Does this make sense to you? Obviously you can't pay your employees in US dollars, and you have already stated they are not coming back to the US. So they are... sitting on them? Have them buried behind the plant? Why would they bother to sell a product for currency that has no use to them?

Also, consider this... if what you claim is true, and nearly $800 billion has been sucked out of our national economy every year since 2005, and a total of no less than $8 Trillion dollars from 1991 to 2009, then why have we not experienced massive *deflation* during that time period? Yet deflation has not happened.

Well, the answer is the devil is in the details. I'd direct your attention to two articles.
Understatement of Export Merchandise Trade Data
Trade Deficit Review Commission

To give a quick run down the conclusions, the trade deficit numbers are not very accurate.

1. First, many companies fail to report all their transactions.
2. Second, many companies under-report their exports in order to avoid increased tariffs.
3. Third, Bureau of the Census ignores all exports valued less than $2,500, an important fact with companies that use just in time delivery of goods in small quantities.
4. Forth, exported services are often not included due to the difficult of quantification. For example, my uncle, an engineer for a corporation, flew to China, to propose a manufacturing system for glass cups. Although everything was paid for by the Chinese company, they ended up not purchasing the system or their services. The entire week, flight plus room and board, likely was not recorded as a service, since no services were purchased.

But it doesn't end there. There are a few other uncounted ways in which dollars come back to the US. One is through investments. When a Chinese firm purchases an investment like stock or land, and sadly, government bonds from an overspending government, that is not counted in the trade deficit. Another way would be through the purchase of consumables within the US. When a Chinese company purchases room and board for employees sent to the US on company business, this is not counted.

If you remember back in the early 90s, what was the big cry then? The Japanese are coming. Our trade deficit with Japan will wipe us out. Yet what happened? The Japanese turned around and invested heavily in the US. If you go back and read some of the new articles during that time, people were all freaked out that the Japanese would own the entire country. Of course, they were investing in our country, something we desperately need right now. The point again is, the money came back.

Here's some more evidence to chew on. This is a graph of the trade deficit history.
http://recession.org/library/graphs/us-trade-deficit-history
Note the follow years in which we were in a recession. 1975, 1981-1982, 1992, 2001, 2008. Fairly conclusive eh?

OK, you make a good point. I sincerely hope you are right, as no one seems willing to do anything to address the negative balance of trade.

 

[Andy]

Federal income - 2.699 trillion
Federal spending - 3.226 trillion

Leaving a deficit of 0.527 trillion.

And that's not counting the money stol... I mean borrowed from SS.

I'm not sure what year your figures are for, as the deficit for the current year is widely reported to be a lot more than that, but nevertheless:

If the goal is to balance the budget, then we can't have any sacred cows; every item in the budget has to be on the chopping block.

2009, according to the budget submitted by the president. Of course it doesn't include bailouts and stimulus package.

That's the proposed deficit including borrowed money from Social Security. Of course it is not actually stealing, it's simply how the system is designed to work. They are supposed to put the money into a stable trust fund, right? Well from governments perspective, a government bond is the most stable investment. Plus they get extra money in the general budget.

There's a difference in my book. Military is in fact a constitutional duty. I am not opposed to military cuts, provided we are first cutting things that are unconstitutional to begin with. Of course if we did that, there would be no need for military cuts. The problem is, as soon as we agree to cut the military, we end up needing the military, while in the mean time they tend to jack up unconstitutional spending, and blame the military spending for the deficit. Sorry, but homey don play dat anymore.

Actually, it is more like seven times as much as second place Russia. Were we to cut that back to only twice as much, shouldn't we still have the world's most powerful military?

I don't buy those numbers. Russia has always kept secret how much they really spend on the military. Further, I highly doubt that a country with the second largest military in the world could possibly create the worlds largest nuclear bomb, largest fuel-air bomb, most advanced fighter craft, and spend only $80 billion a year. I would hazard a guess at about 5 times that. Or that that number is only operation and maintenance.

There is no way the Soviet Union could have had economic problems due to military spending, if it was anywhere close to that low.

Then, why not make other nations pay the cost of developing weaponry that we sell to them? Why operate on a loss?

I'm out of my field on this. I'm an economics guy, not a military policy guy. I wager BigRob would be more able to give an accurate answer. But I'll give you what I have pieced together from articles I've read.

First, many development designs happen in private firms which charge the government for R&D. Obviously the government is not going to allow them to charge a government for R&D, then turn around and charge another country for the same R&D.

Second, we never sell new technology. The F-22 fighter jet is the latest greatest fighter jet we have in production. We generally do not allow our top of the line, best that there is, to be sold to other countries for a few reasons.

1. We want to be the only ones with the best that there is.
2. By giving out our best weapons, we run the risk of someone examining those weapons, and discovering weakness, or reverse engineering our stuff, and copying it.

In any case, we keep it to our selves during the time when it's most expensive. 10 to 20 years later, the R&D has all been recouped by the manufacture, and in the mean time newer ways of making the same product for a lower cost have been developed. This is why we sell F-15 and F-16s to Israel, when we developed those in the mid-70s.

Further, we can't recoup the cost of R&D on a 20 year old aircraft, anymore than GM can recoup the R&D cost by selling a 1970s Cadillac as a new car. No one is going to pay top dollar for 20 year old tech. Nor is Israel going to pay billions for F-15 designed in the 70s.

Lastly, even if we did try and recoup R&D costs by jacking up the price of F-15s, that will simply drive buyers to Russia who would undercut us by just selling over cost of production. Hugo Chavez has started purchasing Mig SU-30s instead of F-15s, and North Korea buys all their fire arms from China.

I'm not sure what the point of that is. Should we develop new military hardware in order to be stylish?

Sorry. That was supposed to be a quasi-humorous response to a pattern I see in your posts that everything must have a practical purpose. No one can, or should be allowed, to do anything for the sake of wanting to do it. I shouldn't buy a third pistol because I only have two hands. I shouldn't buy a Hummer because it uses more fuel. Anyway, moving along...

If we were to spend only twice as much as any other nation on the military, then we should be able to have a defense that would make anyone think twice about starting a war with us, don't you think? If we can't, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the way that money is being spent.

Sure, just as soon as we handle the trillions in unconstitutional spending. Then we'll worry about the military cuts.

OK, you make a good point. I sincerely hope you are right, as no one seems willing to do anything to address the negative balance of trade.

I'm a bit cynical, but I think they are pushing this theory on purpose. Did you ever wonder why this "Trade deficit will weaken the dollar" theory came out now?

We didn't hear it in the 80s, nor the 90s, nor in the last 8 years. Now I've heard that the trade deficit is bad and it will kill jobs and some other nonsense. But this idea it will harm the dollar seems fairly new. Why now?

Especially right now. The trade deficit has reduced to half of what it was a year ago. Again, deficit = economic growth. Reduced deficit = recession. The historical pattern remains true.

I think it's because the government is printing money right now. The government is broke, the T-bills arn't selling because interest rates are too low, and people are against more taxes. So... they are printing money. We all know what happens when a government prints money... inflation.

So this is simply a cover for their actions. This way when inflation strikes, the public will say "oh they were right. The trade deficit weakened the dollar!", when in reality it was government cranking out cash.

Of course, this is opinion plus my extreme cynicism about anything government. But if I was in their place, this is a perfect plan. Instead of being blamed for causing the inflation, I'll be hailed as being the first to warn of the impending doom of the trade deficit that wiped out the dollar. And you want these people in charge of health care? Ugh....

 

[PLC1]

2009, according to the budget submitted by the president. Of course it doesn't include bailouts and stimulus package.

That's the proposed deficit including borrowed money from Social Security. Of course it is not actually stealing, it's simply how the system is designed to work. They are supposed to put the money into a stable trust fund, right? Well from governments perspective, a government bond is the most stable investment. Plus they get extra money in the general budget.

If the feds were to have invested the surplus SS money in stable, long term stock and bond portfolios instead of spending it, that fund would have plenty of money to meet its obligations. I could be wrong, but I believe that the practice of putting the SS funds into the general fund and then "investing" the excess in government deficits dates to the Johnson administration and their guns and butter policies of pursuing an unconstitutional war against Vietnam while expanding the welfare state in that other ill advised war, the "war on poverty."

There's a difference in my book. Military is in fact a constitutional duty. I am not opposed to military cuts, provided we are first cutting things that are unconstitutional to begin with. Of course if we did that, there would be no need for military cuts. The problem is, as soon as we agree to cut the military, we end up needing the military, while in the mean time they tend to jack up unconstitutional spending, and blame the military spending for the deficit. Sorry, but homey don play dat anymore.

Of course, cutting the military while increasing the welfare state isn't going to balance the budget.

All government spending needs to be cut back, and all unconstitutional spending needs to be eliminated altogether.

I don't buy those numbers. Russia has always kept secret how much they really spend on the military. Further, I highly doubt that a country with the second largest military in the world could possibly create the worlds largest nuclear bomb, largest fuel-air bomb, most advanced fighter craft, and spend only $80 billion a year. I would hazard a guess at about 5 times that. Or that that number is only operation and maintenance.

Here are some figures to chew on.

According to the above, the US is in first place with close to half of the world's spending. It looks like I was wrong about Russia being in second place, as that is occupied by those (irony on) socialistic, surrender monkeys, the just lay down and let them *** us or depend on the US to protect us (irony off) Europeans.

Sure, it's possible that Russia, not exactly being open and democratic, could be spending more than they say they are. That spending should manifest itself in numbers of soldiers and amount of military hardware, which is hardly a secret in this day and age, however.

There is no way the Soviet Union could have had economic problems due to military spending, if it was anywhere close to that low.

You're talking apples and oranges. The old Soviet Union is gone, and one of the reasons for its demise is overspending on the cold war, which we won due to having a stronger economy that suffered less damage due to overspending on the military.

It was a kind of pyrreac (how do you spell that, anyway?) victory.

I'm out of my field on this. I'm an economics guy, not a military policy guy. I wager BigRob would be more able to give an accurate answer. But I'll give you what I have pieced together from articles I've read.

First, many development designs happen in private firms which charge the government for R&D. Obviously the government is not going to allow them to charge a government for R&D, then turn around and charge another country for the same R&D.

Second, we never sell new technology. The F-22 fighter jet is the latest greatest fighter jet we have in production. We generally do not allow our top of the line, best that there is, to be sold to other countries for a few reasons.

1. We want to be the only ones with the best that there is.
2. By giving out our best weapons, we run the risk of someone examining those weapons, and discovering weakness, or reverse engineering our stuff, and copying it.

In any case, we keep it to our selves during the time when it's most expensive. 10 to 20 years later, the R&D has all been recouped by the manufacture, and in the mean time newer ways of making the same product for a lower cost have been developed. This is why we sell F-15 and F-16s to Israel, when we developed those in the mid-70s.

Further, we can't recoup the cost of R&D on a 20 year old aircraft, anymore than GM can recoup the R&D cost by selling a 1970s Cadillac as a new car. No one is going to pay top dollar for 20 year old tech. Nor is Israel going to pay billions for F-15 designed in the 70s.

OK, that makes sense.

Lastly, even if we did try and recoup R&D costs by jacking up the price of F-15s, that will simply drive buyers to Russia who would undercut us by just selling over cost of production. Hugo Chavez has started purchasing Mig SU-30s instead of F-15s, and North Korea buys all their fire arms from China.

I really don't think we want to sell arms to the likes of North Korea. We don't even want to sell arms to the government of Iran, as doing so created the biggest political scandal of the 20th. century, but then, that's yet another story.

Sure, just as soon as we handle the trillions in unconstitutional spending. Then we'll worry about the military cuts.

Yes, let's do both of those things, then we can cut taxes and still balance the budget.

I'm a bit cynical, but I think they are pushing this theory on purpose. Did you ever wonder why this "Trade deficit will weaken the dollar" theory came out now?

We didn't hear it in the 80s, nor the 90s, nor in the last 8 years. Now I've heard that the trade deficit is bad and it will kill jobs and some other nonsense. But this idea it will harm the dollar seems fairly new. Why now?

Especially right now. The trade deficit has reduced to half of what it was a year ago. Again, deficit = economic growth. Reduced deficit = recession. The historical pattern remains true.

I think it's because the government is printing money right now. The government is broke, the T-bills arn't selling because interest rates are too low, and people are against more taxes. So... they are printing money. We all know what happens when a government prints money... inflation.

I don't hear a lot about the balance of trade now, and haven't for some time. Yes, we are likely to have inflation due to deficit spending, just as we have had for years. We also suffer inflation due to a negative balance of trade. Neither deficit spending nor trade deficits are good for the economy in the long run.

If the feds are going to blame the trade imbalance for inflation, and ignore the obvious cause of deficit spending on t heir part, then they had better start beating the drum for negative trade now. I don't see that happening currently.

 

[Andy]

If the feds were to have invested the surplus SS money in stable, long term stock and bond portfolios instead of spending it, that fund would have plenty of money to meet its obligations. I could be wrong, but I believe that the practice of putting the SS funds into the general fund and then "investing" the excess in government deficits dates to the Johnson administration and their guns and butter policies of pursuing an unconstitutional war against Vietnam while expanding the welfare state in that other ill advised war, the "war on poverty."

You are using logic to overcome politics. As long as we give control of our money, in the form of SS or otherwise, they will do whatever is politically convenient at the time. After all, T-bills purchased by Social Security is exactly how Clinton claimed to have balanced the budget in 1999. Would he conceivably turn against what was considered his only administrative success?

Remember, politicians are more interested in short term praise, than long term solutions. Yes, purchasing good growth mutual funds with SS money, would undoubtedly be more stable and provide more money. If you didn't know this, they already tried this in the 80s. A district in Texas was allowed to opt-out of social security, and put their money into private mutual funds of their choice. Not only did the mutual funds operate on a surplus instead of SS going broke, but the payout at retirement was anywhere from double to triple that of SS.

However, does this matter to Washington? Of course not. How can they balance their budget, will increasing social spending, if they can't take all the money from SS? Of course they can't, which is why they will never let Social Security to be privately invested. Remember, Bush proposed to allow people to invest just a portion of their SS into a private firm, and only by their own choice. Look how Washington responded. He was tarred and feathered as a pawn of 'big corporations'... why? Because he dared to give people choice. How awful.

BTW, there's no such thing as an "unconstitutional war". You should either drop that red herring, or register as a democrat.

Of course, cutting the military while increasing the welfare state isn't going to balance the budget.

Yet that's exactly what happens when you allow government to cut the military instead of social programs. Worse yet, as soon as hostilities break out somewhere, military spending goes right back up, but social spending does not go down. This is why conservatives are against military cuts. It never balances the budget, it gives excuse to increase spending, and ultimately whatever cuts are made have to be fixed later.

Here are some figures to chew on.

According to the above, the US is in first place with close to half of the world's spending. It looks like I was wrong about Russia being in second place, as that is occupied by those (irony on) socialistic, surrender monkeys, the just lay down and let them *** us or depend on the US to protect us (irony off) Europeans.

Yes I've already seen this. Like I said before there are many factors not shown in those figures. For example, it doesn't show how much that amount of money can buy. Personnel in the is expensive. Personnel in China is cheap.

The Chinese have nearly double the number of enlisted personnel that we do, but their cost is a fraction of ours. Remember, 66% of the population of China was under the poverty level of $2/day just a mere 30 years ago. Although wages have climbed due to capitalism, wages are very very low.

So not only are they paying a tiny fraction what we do per enlisted soldier, but they also pay a fraction what we do for tanks, aircraft and weaponry. We pay far more than China, but they get more for every dollar spent than we do.

Another example would be the European Union. In the US, the health care for military personnel is included in the military budget. But in Europe where most have a socialized system, all military related health care falls under the socialized system budget. I wager if you add in military health care to the military budget, like the US does, the outcomes would be much closer.

Sure, it's possible that Russia, not exactly being open and democratic, could be spending more than they say they are. That spending should manifest itself in numbers of soldiers and amount of military hardware, which is hardly a secret in this day and age, however.

Sort of. Russia, of all nations, has extensive experience in propaganda and espionage / counter-intelligence. They have been spreading false information and keeping secrets for a long time, and they do it well. The current estimated man power of the Russian military is greater than our own. Thankfully, as Georgia showed, they're military is in bad need of updating. Sadly they have some amazing weaponry, but luckily not the money to upgrade everything yet.

The bad part is, we're not upgrading our military either. We have production tanks and aircraft we are not manufacturing, while older and less advanced aircraft remain our mainstay. At this rate it's just a matter of time before we end up in a fight and need newer weaponry. Another reason to cut social spending now.

You're talking apples and oranges. The old Soviet Union is gone, and one of the reasons for its demise is overspending on the cold war, which we won due to having a stronger economy that suffered less damage due to overspending on the military.

That's kind of my point. Do you think, back in the late 80s, that if the USSR, the only other super power on the planet, was only spending $40 Billion dollars, that this would wipe out the entire USSR budget?

I really don't think we want to sell arms to the likes of North Korea. We don't even want to sell arms to the government of Iran, as doing so created the biggest political scandal of the 20th. century, but then, that's yet another story.

My point wasn't really that we should sell weapons to them, but rather that in trying to recoup R&D cost, we'd simply send buyers elsewhere. Israel would be purchasing from China and Russia if we did that. Simple supply and demand economics. Increase cost, and capital moves elsewhere.

Yes, let's do both of those things, then we can cut taxes and still balance the budget.

But what will happen is they will only cut the military and increase social spending, and then we'll need the military again, so spending will go right back up, but social spending won't go down. The end result is, nothing will get cut.

I don't hear a lot about the balance of trade now, and haven't for some time. Yes, we are likely to have inflation due to deficit spending, just as we have had for years. We also suffer inflation due to a negative balance of trade. Neither deficit spending nor trade deficits are good for the economy in the long run.

Inflation is not caused by deficit spending, or trade deficits. As I said, if trade deficit were to have any effect, it would be to cause deflation, by drawing money away from the economy. Supply of dollars goes down, demand remains the same, value is increased.

Deficit spending does not inherently create inflation. I *can* cause inflation indirectly, via the government not being able to borrow more money, and instead starts simply printing money. In which case the printing of money always causes inflation.

If the feds are going to blame the trade imbalance for inflation, and ignore the obvious cause of deficit spending on t heir part, then they had better start beating the drum for negative trade now. I don't see that happening currently.

Well it's odd that in the past month, I've heard this theory of trade deficits causing inflation, yet can't ever remember hearing it prior.