BoatBanter.com - Yo Greg..The Navy and I agree

On 5/7/2018 8:40 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 7 May 2018 18:52:27 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 5/7/2018 4:46 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 7 May 2018 15:57:16 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 5/7/2018 2:37 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 7 May 2018 12:34:11 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 5/7/2018 11:23 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 6 May 2018 15:23:57 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 5/6/2018 3:10 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 6 May 2018 13:16:37 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 5/6/2018 12:27 PM, wrote:

It is naive to believe our trillions of dollars wasted on military
weaponry will keep us safe from a serious enemy. I wonder what will
happen when one of our overwrought carriers is sunk or nearly completely
disabled...

About the same as if they bombed DC

If an all out war started tomorrow I'd feel safer on one of the
new DLGs at sea than I would in any large city.

In a real "all out war" the difference may be academic.
Think "On the Beach".

Yabut at least we could shoot back.

That might make someone feel good for a day or two until the fall out
started raining down across the globe and the sun got shaded out.

If everyone could be happy shooting one or two, it might not be a
global disaster but when you start getting up around 100, it will be
the roaches, rats and Keith Richards. Much over that and viruses may
be threatened.

I could never get through a day if I were as negative and pessimistic as
you seem to be. I suppose we should never have spent a nickle on stuff
to defend ourselves because some day the sun is going to blink off and
we're all dead anyway. :-)

I am pessimistic when I think about a war with another super power and
we should all be. On the other hand I don't think about it enough to
square spending close to a trillion a year that we don't have trying
to fight conventional wars with 3d world nations. We can beat them
much less expensively.
Nukes are cheap and present a credible deterrence to aggression just
because what I said is true.
The fantasy that a nuclear power would lose a conventional war of
attrition without using them is ludicrous too.
That is the main reason why the US is so interested in making sure
Israel never gets in a real war and why we jump in front of the
bullets aimed at them. If they ever were in any real trouble they
would nuke someone and WWIII would be on.

BTW all of us pessimists know the real danger is a killer asteroid or
a gamma ray burst. ;-)

That's our difference. I am very optimistic that we will never have
a war with another super power *if* we stay militarily strong enough
both conventionally and with the deterrent of nukes to discourage any
goofy nation to even try.

We haven't had to fight a major war with the goal of *winning* since
WWII when we emerged as a super power, both economically and militarily.
I think there's a reason for that and it's not just because of nukes.
They conflicts we've engaged in have been bad enough and cost too many
lives but they have all been politically motivated and controlled.

My only question is how much stronger than them do we need to be 5x?
10x?
We spend more money than the next dozen countries behind us or
something.
If we actually crash the dollar and the world economy follows, all of
those air craft carriers won't mean much.

Any military expert will say that the only way to engage to *win* is
with overwhelming force and resources. Makes for the shortest war with
the least casualties. That's the big mistake made in Vietnam. The
mission wasn't to win.

I just read up on budgets in past years, going back to Woodrow Wilson.
The only president who is listed as actually *decreasing* a US budget
was Bill Clinton. It was a decrease of 1 percent but many consider
it bogus due to taking the surplus from Social Security funds and
putting it in the general fund. I am sure others have done that.

Anyway, even if you eliminate Wilson and FDR who ran World Wars,
every president has had some serious increases. Even Jimmy Carter
had a 36 percent over his four years.

Some ... including Harry here ... have advocated cutting defense
spending by as much as *half* and reallocate that money for domestic
programs. That may be a feel good thing to do but it doesn't do
a thing in terms of reducing the overall budget. In fact, if spent
in the wrong places it could actually increase dependency on
government funding of programs that would only further increase
future budgets.

I was curious so I found this. It's for 2015 but the breakdown is
close to now. It's a graph of all three budget components showing
mandatory spending, discretionary spending and interest on debt.
It shows that although the military spending is large (16%) it is
dwarfed by Social Security, Unemployment and Labor (33%) and Medicare
and Health at 27%. Interest on debt is 6%. The rest of the budget
items are at 4% or less.

So, if you want to reduce the budget by cutting expenditures, where
is the leverage?

https://media.nationalpriorities.org/uploads/total_spending_pie%2C__2015_enacted.png

The best justification I can see for defense spending is it is a
"jobs" program, spreading federal dollars across virtually every
congressional district and employing a lot of white collar and factory
people.
That still does not excuse the fact that all of it is borrowed money,
assuming we pay interest on the debt and the entitlements first. After
that there isn't much if any money left over for anything else.

I think Clinton's numbers were so good because there were so many tech
geeks becoming millionaires before they had a chance to hire decent
tax lawyers and so many companies were paying taxes on phony profits
to make them look real. Then you had the 94th congress actually
working to cut spending and balance the budget. (Thank you Ross Perot)
It made things look great until the tech bubble popped and we found
out that money didn't really exist.

If you think the "best" justification for defense spending is that it
is a "jobs" program, we will never agree. The best justification is
to ensure a safe nation by being the best equipped and trained we can
be.

Sure, I agree, it results in jobs but politicians are not designing
and building the next generation of advanced military gear. Companies
are and we need those companies. My concern is that we have lost
many domestic assets over the years and have to rely on foreign
sources for much of our raw materials and technology. There are not
that many major defense contractors left and once the talent and
corporate knowledge is gone it takes a long time to restore it.