(June 24, 2014 at 10:00 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote:

(June 24, 2014 at 8:23 pm)Heywood Wrote: the military is not a bad gig.

Did you serve, Heywood? I'd hardly describe it as "not a bad gig". In fact, I'd describe it as a "bad gig". While I have doubts about your comparison with college graduates - being both a veteran, and someone who went to college, I can note a striking difference: the average college graduate does not face enemy fire.

True...Joe College doesn't run the risk of getting shot at to the same degree as a soldier. That little detail can't be ignored.

I did not serve....but I have worked closely with the military.

(June 24, 2014 at 10:17 pm)Heywood Wrote:

(June 24, 2014 at 10:00 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: Did you serve, Heywood? I'd hardly describe it as "not a bad gig". In fact, I'd describe it as a "bad gig". While I have doubts about your comparison with college graduates - being both a veteran, and someone who went to college, I can note a striking difference: the average college graduate does not face enemy fire.

True...Joe College doesn't run the risk of getting shot at to the same degree as a soldier. That little detail can't be ignored.

I did not serve....but I have worked closely with the military.

Look, I'm not the sort of person who says that if you didn't serve you're not entitled to an opinion. Not at all. But I can tell you this - the money ain't shit when compared to what you lose in your humanity.

(June 24, 2014 at 7:41 pm)Heywood Wrote: A lot of military spending is not on actual tanks, bombs, and guns but on people costs. Medical benefits, retiree benefits, wages(we pay our soldiers very well compared to other countries). Contractors are required to pay their employees a prevailing wage. If a new building is built on a base, the construction workers get paid government prevailing wage....but on the budget it shows as a capital purchase...not an expense on personnel. In many ways the DOD is being utilized as wealth transfer vehicle....a social program.

If you're looking for economic stimulus from government spending, the defense department provides the weakest return on investment. It's not hard to figure out why. At the end of the spending program, you have bullets and military bases, which themselves don't have economic output.

Just so no one misunderstands my point, their function is important for other matters, like protecting our nation from foreign enemies, but right now we don't face any significant ones. I'm not making light of the threat of terrorism but we face a very different situation now. We used to face an adversary that could wipe us out in 30 minutes, delivering bombs by intercontinental missiles. Now we face an enemy that stuffs bombs in their shoes and underwear and fail to even set that off for want of a bic lighter.

Getting back to economic impact, sure you put people to work in the military but you could alternatively put them to work building roads and bridges, repairing our crumbling infrastructure, which would does have an economic impact, allowing for the delivery of goods and supplies. We could put people to work building schools, which invests in the future minds of this country. We could put people to work finding a new energy alternative, which would solve a lot of problems.

Even food stamps provides a greater return on investment, as far as government spending to generate economic activity goes. Poor people spend money when you give it to them. Rich people send the money into offshore tax havens when you give it to them in the form of tax cuts.

This is why I'm both a businessman and a liberal. Liberal policies would not only be more humane, they would be good business.

(June 21, 2014 at 1:12 pm)Bibliofagus Wrote:

(June 20, 2014 at 11:38 am)Heywood Wrote: Not taxing something is not a subsidy.

Correct. In many - if not most - countries 100 dollars of tax cuts is worth more than 100 dollars of subsidy.

Funny, we assert loudly, repeatedly ,and consistently, that the Chinese are giving their solar panel industry egregiously unfair and anticompetitive subsidies because they unconscionably gave their solar panel industries tax cuts. We apparently thought the equivalence between tax cut and subsidies is so tight we would take them to court.

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(June 24, 2014 at 11:08 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote:

(June 24, 2014 at 7:41 pm)Heywood Wrote: A lot of military spending is not on actual tanks, bombs, and guns but on people costs. Medical benefits, retiree benefits, wages(we pay our soldiers very well compared to other countries). Contractors are required to pay their employees a prevailing wage. If a new building is built on a base, the construction workers get paid government prevailing wage....but on the budget it shows as a capital purchase...not an expense on personnel. In many ways the DOD is being utilized as wealth transfer vehicle....a social program.

If you're looking for economic stimulus from government spending, the defense department provides the weakest return on investment. It's not hard to figure out why. At the end of the spending program, you have bullets and military bases, which themselves don't have economic output.

Just so no one misunderstands my point, their function is important for other matters, like protecting our nation from foreign enemies, but right now we don't face any significant ones. I'm not making light of the threat of terrorism but we face a very different situation now. We used to face an adversary that could wipe us out in 30 minutes, delivering bombs by intercontinental missiles. Now we face an enemy that stuffs bombs in their shoes and underwear and fail to even set that off for want of a bic lighter.

Getting back to economic impact, sure you put people to work in the military but you could alternatively put them to work building roads and bridges, repairing our crumbling infrastructure, which would does have an economic impact, allowing for the delivery of goods and supplies. We could put people to work building schools, which invests in the future minds of this country. We could put people to work finding a new energy alternative, which would solve a lot of problems.

Even food stamps provides a greater return on investment, as far as government spending to generate economic activity goes. Poor people spend money when you give it to them. Rich people send the money into offshore tax havens when you give it to them in the form of tax cuts.

This is why I'm both a businessman and a liberal. Liberal policies would not only be more humane, they would be good business.

Military spending can be good economic stimulus if it is invested heavily in dual use infrastructure, like enhanced road and rail networks, higher capacity ports, expanded airports. American interstate highway system was justified to a large degree on its anticipated military utility in evacuating population centers in case of nuclear war. A good portion of Government works program under FDR west of the Rockies under was justified by enhancing the capacity of west coast infrastructure to support the logistic need of an anticipated war with japan.

(June 24, 2014 at 10:34 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote:

(June 24, 2014 at 10:17 pm)Heywood Wrote: True...Joe College doesn't run the risk of getting shot at to the same degree as a soldier. That little detail can't be ignored.

I did not serve....but I have worked closely with the military.

Look, I'm not the sort of person who says that if you didn't serve you're not entitled to an opinion. Not at all. But I can tell you this - the money ain't shit when compared to what you lose in your humanity.

Your probably right, first time re-enlistments aren't very high. If the army was a "good gig" as I suggested, you would expect first time re-enlistments to be quite high.