Re:U.S. Army fudged its accounts by trillions of dollars, au...
by dragonwriter on Friday August 19, 2016 @04:25PM
(#12323198)
> Now consider that in exchange for the 1.3% the US managed to snag the first place in the high-tech industry with a huge lead over the rest of the world
No, it didn't do that in exchange for "1.3%". Both the world and the US rates of military spending right now are much lower than most of the period over which that occurred, and the ratio of US to world average share of GDP spent on the military was higher through most of the period; e.g., in 1988 (which wasn't the peak for either) world military spending was 3.4% of GDP, US was 5.6%.)
> Look, I dislike people-killing as much as the next guy. But you can't ignore the economic realities
The US government could take the share of GDP it spends above the world average on military spending, and spend it directly on civilian technology and technical infrastructure and produce more benefits in terms of the tech industry then any side benefit it gets tangentially from military spending (plus, produce more direct benefits for domestic quality of life.)
No, it didn't do that in exchange for "1.3%". Both the world and the US rates of military spending right now are much lower than most of the period over which that occurred, and the ratio of US to world average share of GDP spent on the military was higher through most of the period; e.g., in 1988 (which wasn't the peak for either) world military spending was 3.4% of GDP, US was 5.6%.)
> Look, I dislike people-killing as much as the next guy. But you can't ignore the economic realities
The US government could take the share of GDP it spends above the world average on military spending, and spend it directly on civilian technology and technical infrastructure and produce more benefits in terms of the tech industry then any side benefit it gets tangentially from military spending (plus, produce more direct benefits for domestic quality of life.)