This comment is from Jonathan G on the post Who Creates Jobs (and Other Critical Questions)
I just had to say that I DO know that bankrupting the United States was Osama bin Laden’s master strategy. How do I know? He said so. Repeatedly.
In his propaganda videos.
The ones that Pres. Bush and the mainstream media dismissed out-of-hand out of some warped belief that understanding the enemy is the same as sympathizing with the enemy.
Half of the Federal discretionary spending goes to military and security spending. From macroeconomics I learned that there are two kinds of spending: 1. Investment spending, which increases a society’s future productive capacity, and 2. consumer spending, which meets people’s present needs and desires. I would add a third kind: The kind that actively decreases a society’s future productive capacity (over and above the usual opportunity costs), e.g. current U.S. military and security spending.
The U.S. wouldn’t have to fight against people who fight us because they dislike us fighting them, if only we stopped fighting them. So, we’re not as broke as we think, if we would only decide not to be.
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photo: christian delgado bejarano / flickr
The economic class must have failed to mention that the third kind of spending can also be quite necessary. The current LEVEL of that spending is hurting the others, but a lower level would still be necessary. The third area of spending is for security, defense, and law enforcement, without which the society would be at risk of losing both investment AND consumer living. Spending absolutely nothing on security would be a recipe for disaster, unless of course like many parts of the world after World War II you could get someone else to foot the bill for it. (You’re… Read more »
How did cave men take down a mastodon? They lured it into a tar pit, bogged it down and then peppered it with a lot of little arrows and spears until it was dead. A big animal, allowing itself to be lured to a place where all it’s strength was meaningless.
That is the American military in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I support our troops AND i want to give them missions that don’t put them at a disadvantage from day one.
I describe the international position of the USA as choosing to be “Rome”, then complaining about the baggage that entails. The Roman Empire was held together and expanded by its army, well organised, trained, funded and determined but ultimately run by politicians. The US government appears, to an outsider, as long on military intervention and short on effective diplomacy. That situation can be improved if there is the political will to do so.
I understand Osama Bin Laden is a strongly disliked figure in the US but I think, as an enemy, he was underestimated.
But… but… but we have to defend and police the world! Nobody else can do ti! Especially not Europe, which foolishly insists on spending its money on its own people and infrastructure, and as a result depends on us for their defense! That’s what makes us heroes.
…or was that “suckers”?