OUR military is FAT !! What can we trim?

rhinefire · Nov 6, 2015

Why is it every president does nothing about military spending?

blackjack50 · Nov 6, 2015

rhinefire said:
Why is it every president does nothing about military spending?

I wonder what is written into the big book of secrets.

cpwill · Nov 6, 2015

JohnfrmClevelan said:
Yeah, I've heard about deficit spending. Have you ever heard of an actual government running out of their own currency? Me neither.

Have you heard about governments devaluing their own currency? Me too.

This is the part where most folks respond by pointing to low inflation. And they are right to do so.

And then I respond by pointing out how much of our M1 supply is held overseas as a global reserve currency, and ask what the effect is if we begin to lose that status because it is assumed we have decided to print out way out of our large liabilities.

At which point the typical response is that that will never happen because this time its' different.

Does that mean that our currency will go through such a shock? No. It means that it can, and the more we attempt to print our way out of large imbalances, the more likely it becomes.

When we spent untold trillions on Iraq and Afghanistan, did you worry that the U.S. was running out of dollars? Did you feel any hint of a pinch here at home?

No, largely because we weren't spending untold trillions on Iraq and Afghanistan.

Though the big-spending of the George W administration was indeed a problem, I did indeed worry about it, and I did indeed get quite upset about it. People forget that the Tea Party actually has it's roots in opposition to Bush Administration spending, not Obama's.

When we were in the Depression and entered WWII, did spending wild amounts of money bankrupt the country?

We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started... And an enormous debt to boot! - US Secretary of the Treasury under FDR, Henry Mogenthau Jr, 1939.

After WWII, we slashed federal spending by about 75%. Every Keynesian out there swore it was going to cause us to go right back to the dark days of the 1930s. The result instead? Recovery.

Or did it instead pull us out of the Depression?

Well, let's see. We started ramping up the spending in 1929 under Hoover....so... [whips out calculator] [notices that the Great Depression lasted way after Hoover, and well after FDR continued Hoovers' ramped-up spending][puts away calculator]

Looks like "no".

JohnfrmClevelan · Nov 6, 2015

cpwill said:
Have you heard about governments devaluing their own currency? Me too.

But it's not as easy as you think.

cpwill said:
This is the part where most folks respond by pointing to low inflation. And they are right to do so.

And then I respond by pointing out how much of our M1 supply is held overseas as a global reserve currency, and ask what the effect is if we begin to lose that status because it is assumed we have decided to print out way out of our large liabilities.

Dollars are liabilities, just like bonds are. There is no increase in liabilities involved, you would just be replacing one type with another type. So you can discard the notion that we are diluting anything.

But - if foreign-held dollars begin to lose some value, what happens? American goods start to look like better buys, dollars start flowing home, and the economy picks up. That is why value isn't about the number of dollars out there, it's about actual demand and our economy's ability to meet that demand.

cpwill said:
At which point the typical response is that that will never happen because this time its' different.

You aren't going to convince me of anything by citing Reinhart and Rogoff.

cpwill said:
Does that mean that our currency will go through such a shock? No. It means that it can, and the more we attempt to print our way out of large imbalances, the more likely it becomes.

See above. It's not printing, it's exchanging.

cpwill said:
No, largely because we weren't spending untold trillions on Iraq and Afghanistan.

I'm not big on chasing down graphs for these debates, as I already waste too much time here. But there is something missing on that graph of yours. It shows a 1%-of-GDP increase in spending over the course of four years. 1% of $15 trillion is only $150 billion. Does that really sound like a realistic number to you? For the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Not a chance. Where did you get that graph, anyway?

cpwill said:
Though the big-spending of the George W administration was indeed a problem, I did indeed worry about it, and I did indeed get quite upset about it. People forget that the Tea Party actually has it's roots in opposition to Bush Administration spending, not Obama's.

The Tea Party would have much more credibility if they could point to a few examples of countries saving themselves out of economic trouble. They are pushing an agenda that makes sense for a household, not a country.

cpwill said:
We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started... And an enormous debt to boot! - US Secretary of the Treasury under FDR, Henry Mogenthau Jr, 1939.

He was wrong. What more can I say?

cpwill said:
After WWII, we slashed federal spending by about 75%. Every Keynesian out there swore it was going to cause us to go right back to the dark days of the 1930s. The result instead? Recovery.

You are measuring the drop from wartime spending, which is a bit disingenuous. Plus, any post-war era is going to have its own asterisks.

America had a ton of men coming home. There was going to be a pent-up demand for cars and houses. And we were rebuilding Europe. Amid all of this, the government was very generous with vet benefits. So to disregard all of these (and other) factors, and claim that the postwar boom was the result of cutting government spending? Please.

cpwill said:
Well, let's see. We started ramping up the spending in 1929 under Hoover....so... [whips out calculator] [notices that the Great Depression lasted way after Hoover, and well after FDR continued Hoovers' ramped-up spending][puts away calculator]

Looks like "no".

That all depends on how closely you examine the history. Spending worked beautifully. It's just that we were under constant pressure to stop spending so much, and that pressure came from non-Keynesians. And today, that same crowd is pointing back 80 years, when crucial details like I just mentioned have become fuzzy memories to most, and they are claiming victory! Incredible.

Thrilla · Nov 6, 2015

"cutting the fat" out of the military should be an argument about efficiency and production.... not affordability.

the end result of cutting waste, bloat, and fraud shouldn't be about saving money for the sake of saving money... it should be about freeing up wasted dollars to go towards effective systems and programs under the DoD umbrella..

jamesrage · Nov 6, 2015

stonewall50 said:
I disagree. It uses a lot of cash and like any government agency has a lot of waste. In fact...no audits are allowed and they have the biggest budget. They are FAT and they need to operate on less. Why? Because they might have to.

What is the military itself spending money on that it shouldn't?

cpwill · Nov 6, 2015

JohnfrmClevelan said:
But it's not as easy as you think.

:shrug: it's situational. It can happen without us trying at all under some conditions, and we can print like mad while seeing inflation drop in others.

Dollars are liabilities, just like bonds are. There is no increase in liabilities involved, you would just be replacing one type with another type. So you can discard the notion that we are diluting anything.

:lol: That's fantastic to hear. So people in Zimbabwe are all fantastically wealthy, then?

But - if foreign-held dollars begin to lose some value, what happens? American goods start to look like better buys, dollars start flowing home, and the economy picks up.

So we get lots more of massively cheapened dollars. That doesn't mean the economy picks up. It means that we are buying bread with wheelbarrows full of cash. Inflation isn't beneficial, it's destructive. People will trade those dollars for other currencies or means to store wealth. Meanwhile, given that we trade with other countries, our cost of living will skyrocket.

That is why value isn't about the number of dollars out there, it's about actual demand and our economy's ability to meet that demand.

The number of dollars out there relative to the number of dollars that are here is important because that is the measure of the risk we face if we start to lose reserve currency status. Estimates Vary, but it looks like the answer is about 40-50% of US dollars are held overseas. If we decide to deliberately devalue to the point where overseas holders lose trust in the dollar and send... what, half? of them back, then that's a 33-50% increase in the domestic M1 supply.

You aren't going to convince me of anything by citing Reinhart and Rogoff.

:shrug: you aren't going to convince me that inflation doesn't exist and/or that devaluing the currency to spend whatever we don't have is beneficial as policy. All you do is steal from those who save to pay for new spending, while hiking up our cost of living.

See above. It's not printing, it's exchanging.

Wrong. When we dramatically increase the M1 supply, we are dramatically increasing the M1 supply.

I'm not big on chasing down graphs for these debates, as I already waste too much time here. But there is something missing on that graph of yours. It shows a 1%-of-GDP increase in spending over the course of four years. 1% of $15 trillion is only $150 billion. Does that really sound like a realistic number to you? For the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Not a chance.

CBO figures show that the most expensive year of the Iraq war was in 2008, the year when the surge proposed by Gen. David Petraeus and approved by President Bush was in full swing and the turning point in the war. The total cost of Iraq operations in 2008 was $140 billion.

Where did you get that graph, anyway?

I've had it for some time, actually. But it's not exactly as if US Defense Spending as a % of GDP is some kind of secret.

The Tea Party would have much more credibility if they could point to a few examples of countries saving themselves out of economic trouble.

The United States, post WWII. Federal expenditures dropped by 75%, but people had large savings due to the fiscal restraint that was imbued in the culture as a result of the Great Depression, and the rationing system imposed during WWII.

Ultimately, you can only actually trade what you produce, and you can only invest what someone has saved.

cpwill · Nov 6, 2015

JohnfrmClevelan said:
He was wrong. What more can I say?

:shrug: he was there, and the history backs him on this. The 1930s' weren't a time of great economic explosion for this country, they were a time of deep economic privation.

You are measuring the drop from wartime spending, which is a bit disingenuous.

No, that's included. Also included (agreeably implicitly) is the releasing of millions of men and women from government service back into the workforce.

Plus, any post-war era is going to have its own asterisks.

Yeah. Specifically it has an asterisk that highlights that Keynesians told us that we were going to go back to the Depression if we reduced government expenditures, and were woefully wrong.

America had a ton of men coming home. There was going to be a pent-up demand for cars and houses.

Precisely. Fortunately, those men had savings to purchase all those goods with.

But gosh, where did they get the jobs? All that government money had gone away. Since government is the magical source of wealth in the Keynesian model rather than a redistributor of it, that means that aggregate demand was going to plummet and they would all be back on the streets and unemployed!!!!

.... oh wait. Government doesn't create wealth. It does redistribute it. Meaning that Keyensian models are wrong.

That all depends on how closely you examine the history. Spending worked beautifully.

No it didn't. We maintained high unemployment throughout the 30s.

Taking money from the market and putting it in the hands of politicians doesn't mean it's going to get allocated more efficiently, it means it's going to get allocated according to political inncentives.

It's just that we were under constant pressure to stop spending so much

:lamo

Hoover increased spending from about $30 Bn (1928) $61.3 Bn (1932). He spent so much money that - like Obama claiming Bush's deficits were unpatriotic - FDR campaigned against him on it.

FDR upped that to $84.3Bn (1934) then to $103 Bn (1936) before reducing it all the way back down to..... $83.9 Bn in 1938, before ramping that back up to $114 Bn the next year.

:lol: so yeah. If you count a single budget that is still more than a third larger than the one he picked up as "cutting spending" :lol:

Poor FDR. There was obviously just so much pressure to cut spending..... Look at how low he cut spending relative to where he got it....

And today, that same crowd is pointing back 80 years, when crucial details like I just mentioned have become fuzzy memories to most, and they are claiming victory! Incredible.

Not just 80. 90.

But... we are getting way off topic

274ina · Nov 7, 2015

80% of it can go.

80% of the people. Close the pentagon.

All new weapons.

Sell the useless 3000 tanks we have in the NV desert.

10 of 11 Air craft carriers.

blackjack50 · Nov 7, 2015

jamesrage said:
What is the military itself spending money on that it shouldn't?

How about gas stations, f35s, and god knows what else since we can't audit them.

braindrain · Nov 8, 2015

OrphanSlug said:
That right there is the prevailing argument that has lead to the US spending more on its military than the next 9-10 nations (depending on source) combined. Even with Russia and Chinese "aggression" and their moderate spending increases recently, they both are still wildly behind what the US spends.

But that is a very misleading stat is one of our biggest expenses is paying soldiers and if you think countries are paying there soldiers anything like we do you are not paying attention. Not to mention the fact that as the vast majority of US equipment is made in the US so what China pays for a comparable item that's built in China is going to be much less.

braindrain · Nov 8, 2015

FlyingHippos said:
The waste is in what is contracted and not in the military itself, for example we are still building tanks to fight the Soviet Union. When we really should be spending that money on things relevant to the enemies we actually face like ISIS, and not on a hypothetical future war with Russia or China, where we need to use thousands upon thousands of battle tanks.

Maybe you don't realize this but those tanks your talking about were used extensively in Iraq with great effectiveness. Many many Soldiers and Marines are alive today thanks to the badness that is the Abrams. If you have never conducted raids both with and without tank support you would never want to go anywhere without them.

braindrain · Nov 8, 2015

Napoleon said:
The DOD hasn't been auditable for years and last anyone could tell 25% of their expenditures couldn't be accounted for either because there was no record of where the money went or there was a record that turned out to be a lie (ex. spent on items that only existed on paper and did not physically exist in any inventory). So, I suggest slashing their budget by 25% followed by jail terms for those who are violating federal law by failing to maintain financial records and ending their practice of falsifying financial reports to hide the fraud and waste. People need to be thrown to the lions over things like the natural gas station in Afghanistan; the contract was only for $3 million and the DOD claims it has no records of why it allowed the contractor to exceed that by $40 million, what the money was spent on, or who approved those additional expenditures.

Other the 25% cut I agree with this completly. There is no doubt that a large amount can be cut but bad record keeping should not effect national defense. Just fire those that are not doing thier jobs and jail those that are breaking the law then actually see where and how the money is being spent and go from there.

FlyingHippos · Nov 8, 2015

braindrain said:
Maybe you don't realize this but those tanks your talking about were used extensively in Iraq with great effectiveness. Many many Soldiers and Marines are alive today thanks to the badness that is the Abrams. If you have never conducted raids both with and without tank support you would never want to go anywhere without them.

Not with the roughly thousand mothballed tanks in storage, waiting for WW3.

OrphanSlug · Nov 8, 2015

braindrain said:
But that is a very misleading stat is one of our biggest expenses is paying soldiers and if you think countries are paying there soldiers anything like we do you are not paying attention. Not to mention the fact that as the vast majority of US equipment is made in the US so what China pays for a comparable item that's built in China is going to be much less.

And that is being misleading. According to the 2014 Budget breakdown from the Department of Defense and backed up by usgovernmentspending.com and whitehouse.gov...

40% Operations and Maintenance.
26% Military Personnel (& Healthcare)
19% Procurement
13% Research and Development
~2% Construction

By far the largest expense is ongoing operations.

The negotiated budget deal between Boehner, Senate Republicans, and Obama calls for a minimal pay increase (after Obama capped it back in August) with the largest balance of the new agreement going to Procurement.

Government Spending Details: Federal State Local for 2014 - Charts
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2014/assets/budget.pdf

blackjack50 · Nov 8, 2015

My prediction is that the military will request a bigger budget next year. And the year after.

cpwill · Nov 8, 2015

OrphanSlug said:
And that is being misleading. According to the 2014 Budget breakdown from the Department of Defense and backed up by usgovernmentspending.com and whitehouse.gov...

40% Operations and Maintenance.
26% Military Personnel (& Healthcare)
19% Procurement
13% Research and Development
~2% Construction

By far the largest expense is ongoing operations.

...and maintenance. Ever been in a transport plane that fell apart? Maintenance for planes and ships is a pretty penny. Split those two apart and you'll find that personnel not that far behind, if not tied or first. So no, it is certainly not misleading to point out that one of the reasons why our defense budget is bigger is that we pay American wages.

The negotiated budget deal between Boehner, Senate Republicans, and Obama calls for a minimal pay increase (after Obama capped it back in August) with the largest balance of the new agreement going to Procurement.

Government Spending Details: Federal State Local for 2014 - Charts
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2014/assets/budget.pdf

[emoji38] yeah, but at military bases he tries to use that as an applause line, apparently thinking we are stupid.

braindrain · Nov 8, 2015

OrphanSlug said:
And that is being misleading. According to the 2014 Budget breakdown from the Department of Defense and backed up by usgovernmentspending.com and whitehouse.gov...

40% Operations and Maintenance.
26% Military Personnel (& Healthcare)
19% Procurement
13% Research and Development
~2% Construction

By far the largest expense is ongoing operations.

The negotiated budget deal between Boehner, Senate Republicans, and Obama calls for a minimal pay increase (after Obama capped it back in August) with the largest balance of the new agreement going to Procurement.

Government Spending Details: Federal State Local for 2014 - Charts
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2014/assets/budget.pdf

Actually pretty much every thing you just posted further backs up my point.
the fact that we spend a very large percentage of our budget on either paying our people a decent living which many places don't or on conducting operations that most of those countries are not involved in means that comparing what we spend vs what other countries spend as justification that we spend to much is a rather misleading comparison.

Soho gator · Nov 8, 2015

I don't think this has really been meaningfully spoken about but our military is fat. Literally. Most over say 40 are big fat blobs. Isn't it a requirement of the job that they stay in shape? Don't get me stated on cops.

braindrain · Nov 8, 2015

Soho gator said:
I don't think this has really been meaningfully spoken about but our military is fat. Literally. Most over say 40 are big fat blobs. Isn't it a requirement of the job that they stay in shape? Don't get me stated on cops.

Spend a lot of time around the military to judge this do you. Besides the vast majority of folks over 40 are well past their years of being in combat and are more managers them soldiers.
And while I would agree that the military needs to do better job of enforcing standards the military as a whole is heads and shoulders more in shape and less fat than the society we recruit from.

zip · Nov 8, 2015

When I was in it was a common belief with many of us that retirement in 20 years was a form of welfare. Retirement could be 25 years, as with the police. For every month in a combat zone, subtract a month from the 25. I'm confident the majority in ground combat personnel are just serving a tour or two anyway, and will not retire from the military (before they are 40!). Please don't hate on me...not much to fear...

braindrain · Nov 8, 2015

zip said:
When I was in it was a common belief with many of us that retirement in 20 years was a form of welfare. Retirement could be 25 years, as with the police. For every month in a combat zone, subtract a month from the 25. I'm confident the majority in ground combat personnel are just serving a tour or two anyway, and will not retire from the military (before they are 40!). Please don't hate on me...not much to fear...

Not doubting your experience at all and no one should hate on you for your experience but must say I can't think of anyone else I have served with who felt that way. Also I am not a big fan of the comparison to the whole cop thing as while they both can be dangerous and physically demanding jobs the military has some demands that are rather unique to the military. Having a good retirement plan is a benifit that many, myself included help offset some of those demands. Like for instance missing my sons entire 5th year of life as well as a total of 4 years of the total 10 years my wife and I have been married.

zip · Nov 8, 2015

braindrain said:
Not doubting your experience at all and no one should hate on you for your experience but must say I can't think of anyone else I have served with who felt that way. Also I am not a big fan of the comparison to the whole cop thing as while they both can be dangerous and physically demanding jobs the military has some demands that are rather unique to the military. Having a good retirement plan is a benifit that many, myself included help offset some of those demands. Like for instance missing my sons entire 5th year of life as well as a total of 4 years of the total 10 years my wife and I have been married.

I anticipated such a response. Discussing the pros and cons of different jobs is rather too much to get into here. People will defend their relative efforts with vigor. Maybe someone who worked 40-50 years and has no benefits will chime in.

MTAtech · Nov 9, 2015

JohnfrmClevelan said:
I agree with improving the military, and I also agree with improving the grid and investing in green energy. But what have we really gained by trimming?

When you cut government spending, you cut jobs. When you cut down on the size of your military (in people), you cut jobs directly. So the government spends a bit less, and thousands of young men and women are thrown into a job market that already can't supply enough jobs. Unless the government spends enough money investing in infrastructure and other projects to absorb all of that labor, the cuts have just created a bigger problem than they have solved.

Why not just invest more in domestic projects and leave the military alone? The government cannot run out of money, you know.

One can cut military spending and shift that spending into more useful investments. The nation has some areas flooding while other areas in drought. Perhaps we can build a network of freshwater pipelines to move surplus water to dry areas?

In any case, it is what President Eisenhower said decades ago:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

jamesrage · Nov 9, 2015

stonewall50 said:
How about gas stations,

You honestly think all that money went to the gas station? That money was funneled somewhere that did not have anything to do with the construction of that gas station.

https://www.ngvamerica.org/stations/cng-station-construction-and-economics/
The cost associated with constructing a CNG refueling station can vary significant depending on size and application and ranges from $675,000 to $1,000,000 or more depending on flow through.

f35s, and god knows what else since we can't audit them.

A strong military requires new and advance technology.

OUR military is FAT !! What can we trim?

rhinefire

blackjack50

cpwill

JohnfrmClevelan

Thrilla

jamesrage

cpwill

cpwill

274ina

blackjack50

braindrain

braindrain

braindrain

FlyingHippos

Active member

OrphanSlug

A sinister place...

blackjack50

cpwill

braindrain

Soho gator

braindrain

zip

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braindrain

zip

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MTAtech

jamesrage