Posted on /pol/ but anything that isn't shitposting or trolling

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>>1062641
>is it a good idea to cut military spending?

Yes. Ploughshares not swords. You think images like this have been good advertising for US businesses?

>>1062649
>>Ploughshares not swords

Why not have both, comrade?

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>>1062680

Net loss. Essentially if it doesn't create or extract something its a drag on the system. Lawyers, managers, armies, owners, IT, Cashiers, literally the majority of jobs.

I'm not saying we could go without them but they are 'the cost of doing business' Not that a public works project is bound to be better.

>>1062641

> The government
> efficient

nope.

It's one of the biggest problems we have is our link between government and war capitalism.

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The Randians need to quit bitching and just accept that we need to stimulate the demand side of the economy. The US and Europe are currently headed down the same course that Japan went down, and they're stuck in an inescapable stagnation. We've implemented the same QE and austerity policies that they did years before us, and now we're beginning to experience the same stagnation and gradual decline they did. Just like Japan we're propping up large, shitty, decaying businesses at the expense of everything else in our economy, all while starving our economy's consumers of money.

We've printed tons of money to fund big business, and cut back on social services so businesses won't have to pay as many taxes, and yet we only have a worsening economy to show for it. Unless you want the stock market to be the only segment of the economy that doesn't collapse, quit fucking complaining and just hand people money.

>>1062736
Fuckyn wut?

Rand would be against welfare, QE and propping up any business that can't stand on its own.

>>1062754
Perhaps I should have characterized the opposition better. I'm talking about the large number of people that turn a blind eye to our corporate subsidies but endlessly bitch and moan about anything that could be construed as a government handout to regular people.

Consumer demand is absolutely fucked because of recent policies, and it's only going to steadily get worse unless something is done about it. It's literally going to be the slow death of our economy.

>>1062767
Why would one in place of the other be better than neither?

Nikkas just going to pay down debt with free money rather than stimulate actual economy. (Largely what happened when Bush did this.) Then spend again cuz didn't have to earn.

Always the same with people that criticize Rand, you think you know what would fix things, whereas Rand would never assume the individual could make a better decision for people than the hive mind of the free market.

>>1062641
>How efficient is military spending for job creation and maintenance? I'm wondering because I'm curious about government job creation. Is it a good idea to cut military spending for public works projects?

if you only consider the domestic effects and willfully ignore everything else, yes.

if you look at the big picture, you also have to factor in
>foreign policy
>international politics
>power projection

none of these are easily predictable
voluntarily giving up the power to influence them to your benefit is retarded to say the least

>>1062641
Considerd in a vacuum? Its terrible. Again , in a vacuum (not real world) if we wpent the same money on public works or nasa the benefits to society would be monumental , incalcuble really. The jobs and businesses created? Boggles the mind

No , based on that criteria alone the military is a terribly inefficient job creator. Even factoring in the side hustle like missiles and planes being built by civilians youd simply get more money flowing investing it elsewhere.

Think about it. Youre paying to train and house these people " in case of war" , if all they did was dig ditches wed have the fucking grand canyon next week (something to show for it) , ignoring geopolitical realiies and again just focusing on the economics its just a huge huge waste of resources

>>1062909
The Fed already tapered off QE, and this is the new normal. We can't fix worsening consumer demand by doing nothing because we're already doing nothing: we have to undo the damage done by QE and the corporate subsidies. They could have given every man, woman, and child in the US $15k for the five trillion dollars in bonds that they bought to subsidize the value of the stock market. That doesn't even count all the various federal bailouts and countless subsidies at the state level.

Now we're stuck in a feedback loop where low consumer demand hurts the economy, which causes employers to cut wages and jobs, which then further hurts consumer demand. You're right that a small payment like what happened under Bush would be too small, which is why we need something more potent like a basic income for several years before demand returns to a more healthy state.

>>1063006

Every thing you said proves Rands theories even more.

Not to mention basic income with immigration the way it is? Ha! This country would be over run with low iq gimmie gimmie fuck fucks from every corner of the earth.

Your meddling will only unbalance things even more requiring policy to offset the negative effects of a handout which will cause.... On and on.

Seriously read atlas shrugged if you haven't. Either way I hope people that "think" like you are in the minority.

>>1063371
>Rand's theories
You realize that she was a young adult fiction author and not an actual economist, right? Sorry, I almost forgot that I was posting on 4chan for a second there.
>hurr durr le gimmedats meme
Herein lies the problem. People like you complain about stimulus whenever it's not lining the pocketbooks of big business at our expense. So in that case we'll be too afraid to fix the problem and slowly waste away like Japan.

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Public works induce speculation in the real estate market which inevitably results in booms and busts. Every increase in government expenditure that has social value creates an economic shock in the form of a sudden increase in site values if it is not offset by a collection of the economic rent generated or expected. Of course public works end up benefiting certain sectors over others which will lobby hard for it to enhance their private profit margins higher above the average.

Military expenditure is easy politically to achieve but is of no real social value whatsoever. Its just a burden on the private sector and results in a massive waste of resources and fuels wars.

Public works are better for "job creation" obviously but can result in uneven development if private capital benefiting from it by doing noting aren't having their unearned income taxed.

>>1063418
Rand wrote atlas in 1957. That was her last work of fiction. She spent the next 25 yrs writing non fiction about objectivism. She's a philosopher. A novelist. And only someone who's never read her stuff would say she doesn't understand the economy.

You've put two arguments in my mouth.

"You're right that a small payment like what happened under Bush would be too small...."

"People like you complain about stimulus whenever it's not lining the pocketbooks of big business at our expense...."

My position was that there should be no intervention for anyone. Rich or poor, business or employee.

Japan has a whole host of its own problems... don't switch gears, were talking about the US.

>>1062641
>How efficient is military spending for job creation and maintenance?

Very bad.

Most of the cash goes straight towards the producers rather than the people making the items because it's an industry that's capital intensive as opposed to labour.

Investment in infrastructure for example has a Keynesian/Fiscal multiplier of over 1, meaning that money you invest circulates more than the amount that you put in.
If we invest in choices which have a high multiplier, we have a stronger, larger economy.
The military is a massive drain on resources with an extremely low multiplier. It's use is to protect the security of a nation, not to create jobs.

Sure, it's technology is beneficial, but due to massive sharing in intelectual property (either by politicians selling it of for a quick buck) or stolen by Chinese et all, then it's not an efficient way to grow an economy or it's technology. If all you care about is technology improvement, then R and D is much better than simply investing in the weapons manufacturers who generally acquire these contracts by political corruption (MIC) and as a result, they're often simply massive resource allocation to the wealthy rather than a benefit to the economy in some way.

So, >How efficient is military spending for job creation and maintenance?

Very bad.

>>1062727
>Free market profit-seeking corporations
>Caring about social and pareto efficiency rather than short-term gain.

>It's one of the biggest problems we have is our link between government and war capitalism.

Whilst this is true, it's the capitalism part that corrupts this by MIC, political lobbying and vested interests.

>>1062909
>Always the same with people that criticize Rand, you think you know what would fix things, whereas Rand would never assume the individual could make a better decision for people than the hive mind of the free market.

Always the same with libertarians, they think they're an island in of themselves and that there's no such thing (because gov is inherently bad, m'right?[no]) as collective benefit.

> than the hive mind of the free market.

The hive mind of the market often produces terrible, avoidable outcomes. Prisoners dilemma is classic example.

>>1062936
if you look at the big picture, you also have to factor in
>foreign policy
>international politics
>power projection

none of these are easily predictable
voluntarily giving up the power to influence them to your benefit is retarded to say the least

Retarded meaning not in your personal interest, then yes.

However most people with a conscience consider the moral dimension.

Because it benefits us, has been the justification for colonialism and now you're using it for justifying your empire. You're just like the British soldier bayonetting the American whilst shouting: "for king and country"

>>1063371
>Every thing you said proves Rands theories even more.

Not to mention basic income with immigration the way it is? Ha! This country would be over run with low iq gimmie gimmie fuck fucks from every corner of the earth.

Why is it that libertarians are often predjudiced?

Ik you don't think that is inherently negative but it;s an interesting correlation.

Source: former racist and former libertarian

>>1063482
> And only someone who's never read her stuff would say she doesn't understand the economy.

Wrong. I'm an economist, i've read her and she's shit.

>>1062641
America here.

For individual military personnel it's pretty great. Decent pay, years of experience, job training, benefits, money for education, and loans for a house. Those things will massively improve your odds of having a decent life. As such, I'm all for increasing the military manpower size. I think adding another two million personnel would be a good start.

>>1063482
Except I was originally talking about Japan, their stagnation because from subsidizing big business and their upper class, and how we're headed toward that same outcome. You changed the subject, not me.

Still, I find it amusing that you base your worldview on the economic equivalent of a Goosebumps novel. You can pay lipservice as much as you want to not subsidizing big business, but at the end of the day you and everyone like you cast a blind eye and let it happen. Now you want to just leave the carnage you've created as it is, rather than fixing it.

>>1062641

>How efficient is military spending for job creation and maintenance?

We spend over ten billion dollars propping up useless bases in Europe.

Most of that ten billion ends up in the pockets of German citizens working on those posts.

Ask yourself if it's better for Uncle Sam to pay for the welfare of backwoods German villages or domestic infrastructure projects.

It depends on several things
1. The country producing the weapons
2. Global weapons supply/demand

Generally for the United States it is very good, at peak production arms exports account for 2.5 percent of the entire world economy. It is going to dip hella hard until laser batteries and electromagnetic railguns begin being sold by the u.s. (2030 to 2040).

>>1064139
>ten billion
Consumers export more usd than that, including you leftists.

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>>1064145

>implying i'm a leftist

I used to work on those bases, kid.

The amount of fraud, waste, and abuse that takes place over there would boggle your mind.

I'd rather see that ten billion dollars go toward schools for American children and roads for American workers than get dumped into the European economy.

Unless you can articulate why we need a ten-billion-dollar military footprint in Europe while our own infrastructure is crumbling before our eyes, then keep your smart-ass comments to yourself.

>>1064139
I think the military muscle is partly the reason the US dollar is so strong. When it comes right down to it, should synthetic money markets and fiat currencies fail, everything falls back on the goon factor. It's just real world in this day and age, it's not about conquering new lands and exploiting, they have all been conquered and exploited. It's run down phase from here on out until some sort of depopulation and obliteration. I think this is why the US is so reluctant to demilitarize, almost manifest destiny.

I think Rand made some good points, but different century, no where in her fantasy world was there resource depletion as far as I could tell. I think the gun to head will win in the end, if they don't want to think for their masters there is always someone else who will now.

>>1064160
I can back up this fellow. A friend of mine did military contracting in Afghanistan and saw corruption and fraud like you wouldn't believe. In one incident, 2 million dollars were to go towards hiring local businesses to fix air conditioning in base. A deal was quietly made and the local "contractor" walked out with a million dollars while the guy that made the deal got caught trying to send it back in returned care packages.
War is chaos and people seem to take that chaos as opportunity to profit

>>1064160
>>1064180
Don't get me wrong, I think that money isn't effectively spent in regards to contracting, but isn't that more of a government problem? I lived on a military base where construction workers pushed around dirt for a year, and eventually added a park where they pushed dirt, but isn't that more of an issue with govt. contracting? Is the whole argument that the government should waste it's money at home rather than abroad?

The gold standard of government job creation is infrastructure projects

Generally you are hiring locals, buying local materials and at the end of the day benefiting the community

Military spending does create jobs and stimulate the domestic economy, however a large portion of that spending is sent overseas for various purposes, so it is not as efficient as domestic infrastructure spending

>>1064160

If you worked on one of those bases you would know why the US has military bases all over the world.

Hint, it has something to do with Projection of Force and it is why you enjoy the fruits at home in the US

>>1064166
>I think the military muscle is partly the reason the US dollar is so strong.

Exactly. US currency isnt backed by gold, it is backed by the rifles, tanks, and fighter jets of the US military. The US is the greatest empire the world has known since Rome...

I was just going to say that "unlike Rome our water pipes arent lined with lead" but as I was typing it, I thought about Flint, and stopped typing

>>1064226

Yes the bases create force projection, and to a lesser extent cultural projection, but it's debatable if this has been a net benefit to the american people

Imagine a world where the US had demilitarized after the cold war, would we be in the same world today of unchecked government surveillance, erosion of constitutional rights and constant threat of terrorism?

>>1064226

WW2 has been over for 70 years, and the US is no longer in danger of having to change its national tongue from English to German.

Everything we do in Europe today revolves around providing welfare to NATO member states, from the billions of dollars we throw at their armies and citizens to the thousands of hours we waste on training them to resist Russian expansion.

Oh, wait -- in spite of our ten-billion-dollar footprint over there, we still didn't prevent that, and the EU seems more concerned with opening its borders than it does with adhering to US foreign policy.

Feel free to tell me how much you know about national service and hard power, though.

I'll be sure to take notes.

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>>1062966
>Think about it. Youre paying to train and house these people " in case of war" , if all they did was dig ditches wed have the fucking grand canyon next week (something to show for it) , ignoring geopolitical realiies and again just focusing on the economics its just a huge huge waste of resources

This ignores the incalculable benefit of having the most secure yet open economy in the world. Companies like doing business in the U.S. and its Allies because they enjoy a higher standard of security. Combine that with a reasonably fair justice system, an innovative culture, and the current global standard currency and it is hard to not find that appealing from an investment standpoint.

When you add in the innovations and global economic stimulus ~$765bn/yr. and growing doesn't seem too seem too expensive. The waste comes just like it can to companies or other organizations that just get too bloated - they buy stuff and do shit they don't need to do.

>>1064247
We literally invent new weapons and sell them.

>>1064247

He's right about the force projection argument, no other country can deploy and sustain significant forces anywhere in the world in a matter of days, and that's a direct result of the base network

Also, arguably Russian expansion has been curbed by NATO, they will never go in to places like Latvia or Lithuania, which would otherwise be in a similar situation to Crimea, having large Russian populations and valuable coastlines

What's debatable is weather or not the US needs to do those things

The best thing that happened to Japan after World War II is their demilitarization. Any other scenario would have sent them into a economic dumpster fire, but instead they put all wartime resources into commercial manufacturing and came out as the digital and industrial leader of the 20th century.

>>1064099
I may have not started reading early enough to see that you had brought up Japan already. I apologize, although Japan actually helps my position. (We are their national defense, we buy shit ton of cars.)

"You can pay lipservice as much as you want to not subsidizing big business, but at the end of the day you and everyone like you cast a blind eye and let it happen. "
I don't even know what to say.

I turned a blind eye and allowed corporate welfare?

Rand dedicated her entire life to being against exactly what you're accusing "you and people like you" of. Guess that's not enough.

I dig Rand but I'm not even a "radian". Your just so off about it its alarming.

>>1064270

That's only partially true, and it has nothing to do with the ten-billion-dollar money sink we have in Europe right now.

Nevertheless, if you want to talk about our track record with high-value military equipment and profitability, look no further than the F-35.

We spent about a trillion dollars to get about 160 fighter jets off the ground, and that doesn't include the maintenance costs, either.

In order to start turning a profit on the F-35, we'd have to sell 2,500 jets for $400 Million each, which is roughly four times the cost of a single unit.

This is nothing like the lend-lease program we had in place during WW2.

>>1064331
160 bazzilion spent that never left the us ecenomy.

Heavy taxation reduces the velocity of curreny but it doesnt directly hurt the economy if it is circulated, and government circulates(spends internally) money with its spending more than taxpayers so its almost worth biting the bullet on reduced velocity.

>>1062641
I'm in the Army and it's kinda a mixed bag.

We can't not have a military, so that's right the fuck out. We could definitely cut costs, defense contractors charge exorbitant, ridiculous prices for shit that's worse than what's off the shelf. But, you cannot cut too low. The cost of losing a war must be weighed against saving money with a standing army buying expensive weapons and equipment.

A standing army is vaugely like welfare, since when they're not out killing people, they're just kinda doing nothing, training, sure, but mostly busywork to justify their paycheck. I like reserves/ part time soldiers better than standing armies, but you cannot not have a standing army.

If you wanted to spend money on a wealth redistribution scheme, the military-industrial complex probably isn't the best, at all. It employs almost entirely a small minority of servicemembers and about an equal number of professional class / upper-middle class civilians. Which is good, but inefficient. It benefits society to have a well-secured country with a powerful military, but while it kinda resembles a wealth-redistribution scheme (paying a GED grad 55k/yr salary to dick around on a post in the deep south to paint rocks and pick up trash) but it isn't one.

>>1064247

ill ask a simple question. Hopefully you are open minded enough to understand.

If Turkey was not a NATO country, do you think Russia would have released a strongly worded letter, or do you think Russia would have declared war the day after Turkey shot a Russian jet out of the sky over Syria?

Do you think Finland would be safe if Russia didnt know NATO jets could hit its homeland from places like Norway. Do you think Estonia, Latvia, Romania, or Poland would be safe from Russian aggression if NATO didnt exist?

Ill go one step further. China is not a super power. Russia has fallen to almost superpower status.The US is the definition of superpower. Would you like to venture a guess at why that is? What benefit does the US get from "protecting" 3/4 of western Europe? What benefit is there to holding a worthless Japanese island 70 years later?

The answers are very simple. Almost too simple to believe at first.

>>1064489

>ill ask a simple question. Hopefully you are open minded enough to understand.

Don't waste my time with back-handed pleasantries and oversimplifications.

I can do the same thing to you.

Instead of stating my argument in earnest, I will ask you a painfully simple question that bypasses the artificial framework of your premise.

I hope you have enough sense to understand what is taking place here, because I sure wouldn't want to waste another second of my time on a lazy, high-handed debater such as yourself.

Why should the defense of Europe be a priority for the US when the US has more pressing domestic problems to handle?

The answer is very simple -- almost too simple to believe.

>>1062641

If you think about the opportunity cost of military spending it is very difficult to defend the current budget. There are many more deserving ways to use the funds: basic research, education, infrastructure, and tax cuts would top the list. This is especially true when you consider the uselessness of a cold-war style military in the modern age of 'terrorism' and critical trade ties in a global market. The successes of our sanctions on Russia, the DPRK, Cuba, and Iran contrast with the our catastrophic military interventions in Iraq, afghanistan, nicaragua, somalia, libya, etc.

I'd pose the question of what would actually happen if we reduced our military to special ops (to fight terror/assholes with precision abroad) and a part-time homeland defense force. I would guess absolutely jack shit would happen. Maybe china would take some rocks in the ocean, Russia would re-annex the baltics. Who gives a fuck? The benefits from paying down our debt, reducing taxes, and investing in education and infrastructure would drastically outweigh our loss of 'force projection'. We certainly don't need to spend money fighting another country's wars, the USSR has been gone for over 25 years now.

>>1064558

Because the US depends on the diplomatic relations it secures through military force to drive its domestic consumption.

Do not think for a second the US would have emerged from the Great Depression had it not been for a world war? Do not think for a second that the US can thrive in a world economy dominated by others?

The US thrives by sheer fortitude, and benefits from, that it controls the world. Without that control the US markets are no more important than the TSE, SIX, or FSX.

The world basks in the glow of American Exceptionalism. We are their leader. The US dominates the world through money. Where does that money come from? I will put a solid foot on it and say that it is from the barrels of an American rifle.

The British, when they were awesome, coined the term Gun Boat Diplomacy. THAT is where America is awesome. Fuck me? Ok. In a few days you will have a Carrier strike force group 250 miles off your coast. Call me back

The US economy does not survive without the US military. You are delusional if you think differently. You on main street, middle of Oklahoma, benefit from the fact the US can effectually say "fuck off" to the world, and get away with it. If Britain said screw you to the Lend Lease Act? We would have had Revolutionary War 3, electric boogaloo. What happens when the US says screw you, fight for yourself, to Japan, Poland, Taiwan?

>>1062727
this.
i'm in the military on the public works side. you'd fire 50% of the people here if we were civilian. and federal rules limit how much we can smack down on companies who screw up anyways. don't get me started about 8a bullshit either, not often to our benefit but we have to use them.

you're replacing an expensive military with an expensive road-building service

>>1064625
Yeah but that sort of atttude is why everyone hates you. Do you know the concept of soft power?


Bush REKT america hard. Now everyone listens to british music, watches asian films and buys all their stuff from china.everyone hates your asses apart from israel.

>>1065409
Hi muhammed.

>>1065379

At least they actually build something