Will the US be ruined
 

I have serious doubts about the intensive war policy the US has lately, or even not only lately. This year, $600 billion have been put in the defense budget, usually this budget is $400 billion. Will not these giant investments eventually lead to the decline of a once powerful 'empire', it's economy being 'stopped' by a wrong cashflow?

the american economy is very powerful they we be able to get through this :2 cents:

I wouldn't say "ruined" but its very likely America will lose its #1 place in the world over the next couple decades.

I'm quite sure more countries will follow Iraq. A fixed percentage of the bruto national income was once set, above which the state loans shouldn't rise. This border has been crossed already a long time ago. Money to finance the war has been withdrawn from retirement funds. Can this go on this way? I think in 10-20 years the end is there.

I find 600 billion dollar quite rediculous.
They should get rid of stuff like the tomahawks.
1,000,000 USD each
Insane.
The same goes for some of those planes that cost 1 billion dollar.

1 billion dollars?

The military industrial kabols in the US have thoroughly engrained themselves into the economy.

The cost per household to maintain the military is about $3,600 annually. So we all pay about $300 a month for security. :)

The 225 FY 2003 detailed DoD budget is here:

http://www.dod.mil/comptroller/fy2003budget/

http://www.dod.mil/comptroller/fy200.../FY03GBpdf.pdf

Well, there's a myth that Russia fell because communism doesn't work. The truth is that they kept taking money out of the social programs that the people depended on and put them, instead, into the arms race. In the end, they had twice the number of nukes that the U.S. had, but their economy was falling apart.

It wouldn't surprise me if the same thing happened here. All of this money going to war and weapons has to come from somewhere, and it's our important social programs that will suffer.

Hate to burst your bubble, but military spending may seem like alot but it is not going to hurt the US. As a percentage of GDP it's about 3.5 % and has been decreasing steadily since the 80's. It is true that we have some budgetary problems, however these are not due to excessive military spending.

Where does that wild idea come from? My retirememnt fund is perfectly secure. If you are trying to make a referrence to Social Security, the correct term is "Ponzi Scheme" not retirement fund.

Anyone who's anyone knows a quality war can be fought for just $99.95

FULLY CATERED!

Pay any more and you are a fool!

Its simple. If you spend more money than you earn you will go broke sometime.

The world economy is being dragged down by the US. 9/11 didn't cause this but the enourmous spending the US started after the event did it. The world economy is depending on the US market but if the US keep spending that much the world economy has no choice but get more independent from the US. If this happens the US might get into serious trouble economy wise. I don't think it's to late already but it might be a serious problem already. No government can be the strongest in the world with more and more people getting unemployed and therefore in turn getting less and less money thru taxes.

> I wouldn't say "ruined" but its very likely America will lose
> its #1 place in the world over the next couple decades.

I really agree with this point youve made. Its very likely that the American economy is facing disaster but I see it losing its position sooner than decades. I'd call it years away.

Military spending will be going up as long as Repubs hold office. If he could have gotten more this year he would have And who knows how many millions are funneled back into the Pentagon from other departments.

But one thing they *do* need to do is replace the majority of our planes which is underway. Clinton saw to it that we reduced spending in this area by making the jet companies not only compete but to come up with ONE plane that could do the majority of things for the navy, marines and air force. As well as being able to be refitted easier and cheaper, and stealth built in.

I don't usually care to watch such things but I have no choice at times when the old man watches them. :( I did find this show quite interesting once I started paying attention.

I'm not sure what all this link has from the ahow but the sites usually have more than they have time to put into the actual
broadcasts.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/xplanes/


At least the costs will go down, but they'll probably just order twice as many.

Bring ON the Federation and Prime Directive!

Whether you are a Keynesian or Monetarist, the spending after 9/11 would have logically helped the world economy according to either one of these dominant economic theories, not hurt it.

:1orglaugh Economy of Nort America is in much better shape than german economy:1orglaugh

Depends on how you spend it ;-)

Who was talking about the German economy?

Your post is completely irrelevant.

OK CT the whole euro zone is the biggest drag on the world economy right now.:Graucho

Hey, its Rose!

When did they let you out?

$600 billion is a drop in the bucket for the US budget

from what i understand less than 5% of the budget goes to the military alone

5% might look like just a few bucks, but such a percentage is really really much.

Hey Labret, you are still alive?:Graucho

the aircraft they came up with is quite impressive, i'm sure it will do well. with its vectored thrust, it can fly circles around an f-16.

we only spend 5% on the military? that's really probably not that much, all things considered. maybe if we stop giving money to so many other countries, and stop giving them military equipement, we'd be better off.

would you rather we stop giving everyone else money?

as far as the social security goes, people have known about this for years. they've essentially been taking out IOUs on SS money. people really need to wisen up to this, it's basically become a given that i won't recieve any social security benefits. but, i am preparing myself on my own, so i don't feel that it's a problem. if people make wise decsisions early, there'd be little to no problems. i'd suggest not depending on the government to pay your way when you're older. especially in this day and age.

That self investing might work if you are young enough NOW Iroc, but some of us are really in a bad spot. We had a decent nestegg built up but Nasdaq did for that. And we're working on doing it again but given our age versus the time we can build it, the state of the market as it will be for several years... That SS will be the difference between meat with bread or just bread.

They should have passed legislation years ago to keep those idiots from 'borrowing' from SS and Medicare etc. I can't remember them ever paying it back either. 99% of the time it's Republicans, and it goes to the pentagon. We understand that the military needs alot of funding so lets cut out all the BS they want to spend it on, trim back the aid we hand small countries to feed themselves (while we are shipping them millions of tons of food??)

Sheesh, we have alot of pretty close to starving people without shoes in our OWN country. We can't blame those people that they didn't get a good education or that mines etc closed up due to legislation. Bushs answer is open the mines and kill us ALL off so they can work, drill for oil in every yard and the heck with you can't have a cookout in your own yard etc. We hand monies to other countries while the funds owed to the Native Americans go unpaid... If ANYONE should be paid first, the ones this land was stolen from are or should be at the head of the line. Especially given the miniscule amounts they are not paid!

It would add some costs, but I think it might come down to alot more state level voting on alot more of the things the Fed level deals with. MAKE our senators and reps vote the way WE want, not for some %^#!$%$@# lobbiest's views. With the net, that cost would be fairly low and alot easier dor the people to vote. Make it a 24hr vote and tally up the next day, the reps etc see how their people want them to vote and HAVE to vote that way. None of this electoral type voting which negates the vote of the people.

Ahh but not in my lifetime I doubt. We'll have to have another Great Depression before they might learn something. Maybe even an insurrection as some have forcast. Who knows.

Meantime, back at the batcave, we are developing a new MX-5467cts-FX hammer to sale to the infidel US Government for $10k!! :1orglaugh

In case you missed it, the UK, and Australia, Spain and others are behind this, but you can show your love for america however you choose.

:1orglaugh

know what's really sad? recently the city i live in raised sales tax .5%. then, they approved a $260 million river project, where they can take any house in the way, wether you like it or not. then they're adding an "impact fee", which is basically an unconstitutional $7000 tax on new land. then they're buying 4 square blocks of downtown to tear it down and put up a 13-plex theater. buying it with tax money. they just built a new parking garage down town with taxpayers' money, and they charge considerably more than any other parking garage in town.

for a fucking $260 million river.

as far as the future planning goes, sorry about your luck. i'm of the opinion that one should have prepared for such. i'm not blaming as much the people in the situation now, but the people that will be in the future. they should know about this, and plan accordingly. a good diversity of investments and such should also prevent "only eating bread". people are just too dependant on the government to support them. there are people that really need it, but too many more that just take and take. just like welfare & unemployment. it's saddening. and yes, i've been in position to take handouts from both, but i have not.

it worries me more about our future generation. the lack of foresight, or even caring. they think they can just stick out their hand and it will come to them, that working doesn't mean anything anymore.

bleh.

Don't worry about it... hell, we waste over $1 trillion a year on social welfare programs in this country.

Also, the government will continue to exploit the rich to pay for everything.

Clinton closed The Army depot, McClellan Air Force Base and Mather Air Force Base in the Sacramento area.

Last I heard the US GDP was sitting around 10 trillian/year.. 600 billion is 17% of that not 5%. And the reason why the GDP is so high is because the world uses the USD as the international global currency of trade.. If two countries want to trade they use the USD. This is generally accepted everywhere and the USD basically has the complete monopoly on this. This causes the USD to be in great demand, and also causes major world banks to stock huge amounts of USD in their reserves, which causes the value of the USD to go up, allowing the USD to have there outrageous deficit spending budgets that they do now.. The problem is that the one main reason for people to choose the USD as their trading currency, its rocklike stability, is progressively fading away.
In 2000 when the Euro was introduced it was trading at .80 per USD. it is now hovering close to 1.10.. That is a 30% increase in the past 3 years, 25% of that since 2001. And it isn't necessarily that the Euro is gaining, it is that the USD is falling. Mainly because of this chimp's, or its puppeteers' outrageous war efforts.
So what you have here is some countries switchinig to the Euro as their global trading currency, and when a country does this then the Global banks that they deal with now have to cash in all their USD that they had allocated for that one country and keep an equivalent reserve in Euros. This causes the demand for the USD to go down and the demand for the euro to go up, which causes a de-valuation of the USD, reducing its worth. Coincidentally, and quite ironicly Iraq was the first nation in OPEC to switch to the EURO as their global currency in 2000, for the reason of 'why should we trade in the currency of the enemy', a gamble that lost them money in 2000, but has made them a hefty profit as of late.
In 2004 the EU will be accepting 10 more nations into its body, putting the population in the EU to about 450 million(greater than the USA) and a GDP of 9.6 trillian(almost equal to that of the USA). With these 10 new countries the EU will be the worlds largest importer of Crude oil from OPEC, a fact that caused some OPEC countries in the latest convention in Vienna to seriously push for a unified switch in OPEC from the USD to the Euro.. If and when this happens the USD is predicted to drop in value upwards of 40%(not overnight of course) and inflation in the USA would reach equivalent levels..

As you can imagine this is a serious serious threat to the security of the United States, more than any terrorist ever would be. How do you prevent such a thing from happening? Well a good start would be to go in and occupy the country that made that first switch to Euros and change their trading currency back to the USD to provide a temporary boost to the USD.. Secondly you increase the crude production in that country to 7 times its current production in order to destroy OPEC, an alliance formed to create a maximum crude quota among the top petroleum countries, limiting their crude production in order to keep prices high, which would them destroy the chance that they would make a unified switch to the Euro, stabalising the USD for years to come.

Damn.. I can't believe I remembered all of that..
Go here if you want an in depth and longer, much longer version of what I just said http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html

So is 95%...

Those figures are not correct.

i think US has plans to benefit from this war..

you cant make me believe that US is throwing hundreds of billions just to take a guy down