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GrimeOfTheAncients t1_j20khwi wrote

Reply to comment by ferrel_hadley in [OC] Defence budgets around the world by giteam

There is a twist.... Military Expenditure contributes to GDP.

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I know, weird, not the way I'd do it... but economists aren't ordinary people.

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Suspicious-Feeling-1 t1_j21nf6t wrote

Why would we exclude it?

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GrimeOfTheAncients t1_j21whrz wrote

GDP is generally regarded as a "more is better, everyone benefits, the economy thrives" thing.

Military Expenditure is black hole into which you pour money and misery emerges.

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PandaDerZwote t1_j23e9xp wrote

GDP is also generally regarded as highly misunderstood because people don't know what it actually means other than "size of the economy".

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Suspicious-Feeling-1 t1_j24o0my wrote

It's interesting you say that, one of the primary architects of the modern metric (Kuznets) had a similar critique, in that no one should use national income metrics as a shorthand for all encompassing prosperity. Totally agree on that point.

I think calling military expenditure a black hole is a little bit reductive. Many of our technological advances were at least partially accomplished by military funding. We probably wouldn't even be having this online thread without the billions of $ the US military put into ARPANET.

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GrimeOfTheAncients t1_j26c1by wrote

There is an applicable term here... "Opportunity Cost" what is the cost of lost opportunities to advance peaceful technologies?

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77Gumption77 t1_j25nsqn wrote

> Military Expenditure is black hole into which you pour money and misery emerges.

World peace exists because of, and not in spite of, US military spending. The last 30 -50 years are among the most peaceful in human history.

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GrimeOfTheAncients t1_j26ccz2 wrote

Once the US stops bombing the rest of the planet into peace, they'll commence their Next Grand Plan... Fucking for Virginity.

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