The American (World) Economy

[habilis]

It all balances out somewhat. If jobs are lost to robots that's OK because people get hired to maintain, repair, build, enginneer, design, and sell the robots. The same applies to most other fields.

[Perseus]

As far as military spending goes, the US willingly spends $300 billion on it. What do other nations spend? I think France is like $40 billion; Britain, Germany, and Japan are near that. I am honestly not to familiar with the figures but I believe these are close. I think if the US spends $300 billion on defense, I don't think we have to worry about whether this country can defend itself.

-Perseus

[toast]

Comparison is of no use here, for the US territory and use of defense budget has nothing to do with European territories and defense budgets.

As there are no comparatibility criterii between EU and US on this topic, try comparing US defense budgets from one President to another to get a pertinent idea of what defense means nowadays.

PS: France defense is 31.7billion, pensions excluded. It's 11.5% of state budget, 2% of GNP.

[Cat]

who we are and what we symbolize

Please elaborate ...

As I see it, the 9/11 attacks hit a symbol of american economical power, perceived to be imperialistic, and a symbol of american military power, perceived to be neo-colonialist.

They did not attack symbols of democracy or freedom (e.g. Statue of Liberty), nor did they attack "the West" at large. The attacks were precisely targeted at the US and at certain precise elements of the US.

So I am very curious about what you think "who you are and what you symbolize".

[Perseus]

Yeah you are right toast I should have thought of that. The US has 280 million people, Britain etc has 60 million, so proportinately the figures dont matter.

-Perseus

[Ugg]

Originally posted by Perseus
As far as military spending goes, the US willingly spends $300 billion on it. What do other nations spend? I think France is like $40 billion; Britain, Germany, and Japan are near that. I am honestly not to familiar with the figures but I believe these are close. I think if the US spends $300 billion on defense, I don't think we have to worry about whether this country can defend itself.

-Perseus

Oh, so the amount of money spent on the military should have, by your reasoning, prevented 9-11, The Murrow building bombing, the first twin tower bombing, the USS Cole attack, the embassy bombing in Kenya, hmmm, what else is there?

Outspending the world on military muscle does not mean that the US has what it takes to defend itself.

[mr. k]

"Outspending the world on military muscle does not mean that the US has what it takes to defend itself." --Ugg

Not with the current budget, although if the military spent more on weapons and more on reconnisance and information there would be a much greater chance of preventing attacks, and then there would be much less reason to send troops oversea's to fight back, to retaliate. There *were* people working for the government who did begin to see the threat of 9/11, and who alerted their colleagues, but the FBI and CIA were unable to react quickly enough, and didn't take the threats of attack seriously enough. Why not take the strategy of premptive intelligence over premtive war?

[Ugg]

Originally posted by Perseus
Yeah you are right toast I should have thought of that. The US has 280 million people, Britain etc has 60 million, so proportinately the figures dont matter.

-Perseus

The US spends twice as much as France does on healthcare. That should mean, according to your reasoning, that the US healthcare system is twice as good as the French one. Recent analysis seems to indicate that France is near the top of industrialized nations when it comes to health care and the US is near the bottom. What's up with that?