Two Naively Liberal ways to grow the pie higher.

[Lago_AM3P]

- Drastically reduce military spending. My ignorance fully shows on this issue, but I've seen firsthand how ridiculous it can get at the local level. A piece of plastic on a spring seriously costs 600 dollars. The plastic doesn't do anything special, it's just a piece of plastic on a spring.

A metal chassis about 9 feet tall that literally does nothing but hold the CPU boxes and meters in place costs 3 million dollars. 3. Million Dollars.

I wonder what's the cause of it and what we could do about it. That'd save a couple of cool billion dollars.


- Increase tax rates on the upper classes to the pre-Reagan eras.

Assuming we get the political capital to do this, which could exist if the dollar and financial security of the USA continues down its death spiral, what's stopping us from doing this?

[Crissa]

- Those are true, but aren't 'normal'. Those are costs associated with vetting the product, outdated and incorrect purchasing systems, and requirements that production be based or pre-supplied or available in some quick manner. Military products aren't supposed to be outsourced, anyhow.

Most of this military money does not go into local economies. It may help some towns, but most of it goes into the pockets of lobbyists and industrialists. Sending the money directly to pay for streets and police and food and safety spreads the money through more pockets, not less. Privatization means less people get more money and more people get less money, and the overall cost goes up.

Lastly, if that 'plan' worked to help the economy - it doesn't - we'd still have the USSR to kick around.

- Increased taxes increases revenue. The government is so deeply in debt now that there are serious doubts that some of the debts may be called, which would hurt the government's ability to manage the value of the dollar and investment in the country.

Also, when the government spends money, more of it gets into people's pockets than when private people spend money. For every dollar, the government can 'spend' more of it than a dollar you're given on the job, even without deficit spending - which the government can and has spent far more dollars than it took in. Effectively making more money.

The more money the government takes in means the more money the government can spend.

-Crissa

[Username17]

The more money the government takes in means the more money the government can spend.

True. Although remember that in a hilariously anti-Laffer Curve fashion, taxes collected from the bottom rungs of society are zero sum. Less than zero sum because they require unpaid administrative work on the part of the people paying the taxes and take money out of circulation for (admittedly brief) periods of time.

Government spending is awesome so long as it is paying consumers to advance projects that enhance quality of life (even minr projects like New Deal era park pathing). When Lockheed gives funding to friends of the secretary of defense and then gets awarded no-bid contracts to do stupid shit - that doesn't help anyone.

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Some of the classic "run away military spending" is actually misrepresented to the public. The very expensive toilets for example, are on aircraft and submarines and are in fact an engineering marvel because a standard flush model would just kill everyone inside the vehicle.

But yes, there is a lot of corruption involved in the military spending. Even more in the black ops spending. I mean, we made pallets of cash and guns and then "lost" them. Or to put it more bluntly: people in Homeland Security imbezzled hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and are completely unapologetic about it.

-Username17

[Koumei]

1200992210[/unixtime]]Or to put it more bluntly: people in Homeland Security imbezzled hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and are completely unapologetic about it.

Now I understand why you moved to Czech Republic: Homeland Security, the CIA or whoever the US government hires to kidnap/shoot its own people are out to get you, with statements like that

[Username17]

Yet ironically, that statement is fairly non-contentious.

Also I was off by a factor of ten. Should be billions of dollars rather than merely hundreds of millions.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Bloody Hell...

I'm actually surprised they shipped out pallets filled with wads of money. Well, at least, that looked like the plan, even if it never made it out the door. Wouldn't it make more sense to just transfer from one account to another, digitally?

It's more or less reached the point where money doesn't even have to physically exist - we've gone from "a fish is worth a fish" to "a shiny metal is worth a fish" to "this stamped coin is worth more than the metal it's made of, which is worth a fish" to "this paper/plastic note is worth X coins, worth Y metal, worth a fish" to "look at the numbers on the screen. It's worth a fish!"

That being said, people with little faith in the system at large might feel more confident holding wads of paper, I suppose. But still, it's easier to trace it when it's not a physical mountain of money that could just happen to go missing, say, into a nearby pocket.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Maybe it was a last-ditch attempt to keep the black market on US currency.

[Username17]

An important thing to remember is that while 12 billion dollars souns like a lot, the actual amount of missing money is 24 billion dollars. That 12 billion dollars in cash was a replacement for seized Iraqi oil revenue that had already gone missing.

-Username17