Re: Sen. Harry Reid, NV: Wildfires caused by global warming

On Oct 31, 3:24 pm, bill.slo...@xxxxxxxx wrote:
On Oct 29, 8:49 am, James Arthur wrote:

On Oct 28, 11:51 am, bill.slo...@xxxxxxxx wrote:
On Oct 28, 6:40 pm, James Arthur wrote:
On Oct 27, 4:46 pm, bill.slo...@xxxxxxxx wrote:
On Oct 26, 7:25 pm, James Arthur wrote:
On Oct 26, 2:29 am, bill.slo...@xxxxxxxx wrote:
On Oct 26, 6:06 am, James Arthur wrote:
On Oct 25, 2:52 pm, bill.slo...@xxxxxxxx wrote:
On Oct 25, 6:36 pm, James Arthur wrote:

[...]

James> > > > > > > > > > We've been protecting the world since WWII.
That's expensive.

Bill> > > > > > > > > But that's not where most of the money is going.

James> > > > > > > > True, now. Most of our money is presently spent
on ineffectual social
James> > > > > > > > programs.

Bill> > > > > > > Not true.

Bill> > > > > > >http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm

James> > > > > > Bill, that link is just plain embarrassing--no wonder
you have such
James> > > > > > wacky, misbegotten theories.

Bill> > > > > I rather liked the way they lumped the interest on the
national debt
Bill> > > > > into military expenditure, on the not-unreasonable basis
that this was
Bill> > > > > just paying for previous wars.

James> > > > That's one of their most glaring errors--wrongly
attributing all debt
James> > > > to warfare.

James> > > > We've spent a great deal more on welfare, Medicare,
Medicaid and
James> > > > Johnson's war on poverty. Social programs have been
roughly 2/3rds the
James> > > > budget for quite some time; by any fair measure, they
deserve an equal
James> > > > proportion of the debt.

James> > > > That's not opinion, that's accounting...amortization.

Bill> > > It's opinion. Your national debt has been built up over a
long time -
Bill> > > much longer than the period that you have been spending
2/3rds of your
Bill> > > budget on what you chose to classify as social programs, and
you could
Bill> > > attribute each dollar of debt to the expenditure that
incurred it.
Bill> > > That would be a valid system of amortization, Claiming that
the debt
Bill> > > should be assigned on the basis of the way you spend money
now is not.

James> > Here you have a point--the amount of blame for any annual
deficit
James> > should be apportioned year-by-year according to each
category's
James> > proportion of that year's budget.

James> > OTOH, it's preposterous to say that all defense spending is
spent on
James> > warfare.

Huh? You want to distinguish between spending on warfare, and spending
in preparation for war?

As Clausewitz said, war is merely an extension of political activity
by other means and peace-time spending on "defence" is part of that
ploitical activity.

Comparing war- and peace-time figures clearly illustrates
that point. So, properly, your link should only attribute *excess*--
not all--defense spending to warfare.

Nonsense. Peace time spending is devoted to intimidating your enemies
and dissuading them from attacking you. The force that never has to
fight is extremely cost-effective.

You've contradicted yourself in just two paragraphs. First you've
described peace-time spending as 'preparation for war,' then here
acknowledge that peace-time spending is the most effective, least
expensive way to deter and prevent war.

So, clearly, you agree that peace-time spending is at least not
necessarily spending for warfare, but can be spending to prevent it.

Isn't prevention better all around? Isn't that a decent investment
*against* war? And, to the point, is it proper for the site you
linked to classify 'spending to ensure peace' as 'war' ? (We've
already implicitly included peace-keeping duties as such.)

Also, a large part of defense spending comes back as revenue -- taxes
on profits and wages -- offsetting something in the vicinity of 25-40%
of the amount actually spent. When it comes to apportioning deficits
this revenue should properly be deducted.

This is true of every other government expenditure, so it is a
complete red herring.

No, that's not true of the 'war on poverty', which is much of the
spending in question. Poor people pay essentially no federal tax, so
for them it's a straight wealth-transfer.

The rest of the spending in question is on retirement-age folks, who
pay a lot less tax than prime-of-their career defense workers.

Defense spending generates much more offsetting tax revenue.


Anyway, the site's methods and figures being absurd on their face, I
didn't previously bother with the minutiae. Since you insist on
pressing the point, I took several hours and investigated.

I complied the following data with the most generous possible
assumptions in your favor: a) that all defense spending is for war,
and b) that defense spending does not produce any offsetting revenue.

Consider this an engineer's guide to the question; an approximation,
not perfect, but close enough for our purposes.

=======
RESULTS, adjusted to 2004 dollars per the Consumer Price Index data:
=======
(view tables in Courier font)

Historical Budget Data from Congressional Budget Office (1).
Inflation adjustment figures per US Bureau of Labor Statistics'
Consumer Price Index data (2)

TOTAL EXPENDITURE, 1962-2004, (all figures in 2004 dollars)
===========================================================
Social Security 12,541 x 10^9 dollars
Medicare 5,079 "
Medicaid 2,432 "
Income Security 4,301 "
Other Retirement
and disability 4,099 "
Defense 15,699 "
------
TOTAL of above 44,151 "

TOTAL, all outlays,
for all purposes 62,269 "

PUBLIC DEBT 1962-2004, (all figures in 2004 dollars)
==========================================================
Total debt, 1962 $1,552 "
Total increase in debt,
1962-2004: $8,554 "

Total portion of increased debt apportionable
to defense (3): $2,096 "

==========
CONCLUSION
==========
Even if we assume all debt existing in 1962 was war debt, and all
defense spending since 1962 has been for warfare, the two together are
about $3,600 x 10^9, roughly 1/3rd of the current U.S. national debt.

So: attributing 80% of the interest on the nation debt to past
warfare--or even defense spending--is WRONG.

No, it is just a point of view.

I've just shown, however, that using the method you proposed and with
your assumptions, defense spending and interest on prior debt only
account for 1/4 of the subsequent increase in debt. Q.E.D.

That's one-quarter by _your_ assumptions (that all defense spending is
for war, all debt in 1962 was due to war, and that defense spending
generates no offsetting revenue). Your warresisters.org website uses
80%, which is WRONG.

Therefore, describing 80% of the interest on the national debt as 'for
warfare' is WRONG.

US spending on "defence" has been
disproportionately high for a long time now. Spending as much as the
combined total of the ten runner-ups in the defence spending stakes
isn't defensible,

Thank you for making my (much earlier) point: we were spending to
support a number of countries. Obviously we'd spend more than those
we were protecting for free.

and if you hadn't done it your national debt
wouldn't have increased at all.

If we hadn't embarked on Johnson's 'war on poverty' we'd have saved
much more than just the entire current national debt: we would've
avoided its terrible human toll. Of those who are presently tax-
takers we'd have many more taxpayers, adding their energy to the
nation rather than holding it back.

Cheers,
James Arthur

.

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