Comment on What could the US get rid of to balance the budget and make prices drop very quickly? How is some trash or misspent money on thing we no longer need?

qyron@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Just to add emphasis on how much we could cut from the military:

  The US is ranked #1 globally in military spending, and we spend more than all of the countries ranked #2-#8 (China, Russia, Germany, India, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Ukraine) COMBINED.

  Which means we either have way more shit than we need to protect ourselves, or, we’re being incredibly wasteful and need to reassess that spending.

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  • qyron@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I was expecting someone to put the numbers down. Thank you. I can never retain that part.

    My personal take, as a non military expert, is that the US has too many branches, with conflicting interests, and not enough coordination and joint command, geared towards force projection and occupation, instead of a highly coordinated, intertwined, cohesive military set for threat deterrence and strategic defense operations.

    In my understanding, that was the goal of NATO: having a very large number of countries combined to pool resources, know-how, means of production and, in a dire event, human resources. No country was supposed to drain it’s coffers to be capable to hold off threats.

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    • someguy3@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      NATO was because in WW2 Hitler picked off one country at a time. Everyone together is much better.

      And then logistically everyone had different bullets etc so they wanted everyone on the same standards.

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    • BeelzebubEiNukuKoskaan@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I think a huge chunk of the US budget goes to the pay, pension, healthcare for the military personnel. I guess that’s a downside of having a huge military that is not conscripted, one that you have to actually pay. Also they have to pay them well and offer stuff like healthcare, pensions etc, to lure in people.

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      • qyron@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        I have no doubt on that and that is agood thing. Those people put their lives up and risk death and injury; they deserve being taken care of.

        But how much in comparison goes to funding projects that never return any results or gets diverted towards other less legitimate ends? Just the list of failed weapon systems R&D with monumental unjustifiable expenditure is huge. Plus the investment in overcomplicated weaponry with tens or hundreds of millions of cost per unit, that are found lacking when put to test by the people that will be using it routinely.

        And having a volunteer army is a plus. Conscription is not something good to have. The european countries considering it are gettiing serious backlash. People want peace, not have their family die in futile wars brought about by hubris of incompetent politians.

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• impairedimperator@lemmy.zip ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Keep in mind that the US military is a giant welfare program. Sure, it’s a lot of money, but a lot of that money is keeping the last vestiges of manufacturing alive in bumfuck nowhere, Middle America, where they still weld tanks together.

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  • qyron@sopuli.xyz ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    You don’t believe part of those workshops can be converted to other use?

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• Alexstarfire@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Cut back on the military budget

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  • qyron@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Well, it should be done.

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    • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Best I can do is up it to $1T.

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      • qyron@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Another log on the fire.

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