Vince Brannigan wrote in message ...
Fred J. McCall wrote:

Steven James Forsberg wrote:

: And, to use a favorite tax argument, if the US economy grows then
:you can have a smaller percentage of the economy and still have growth in
:'real' terms. The diminishing of military budget in terms of percentage of
:GDP might represent the growth of the budget more than any kind of disarmament.

It might, but it doesn't.



The military budget is like buying bicycle locks instead of a better
bicycle. Military spenidng is un productive but a certian amount is
necessary. .

Unproductive? Seems to keep a lot of folks working, and new products
rolling off the assembly lines, many of which are sold to other
customer nations, generating foreign income (which contributes to the
GDP, if you had not noticed).

The trick is to spend the minimum since every dollar you
spend means less production in the future. The more we spend on the
military, the less the GDP.

Not so fast. We spend X dollars developing weapons system Z, then we
sell 1000 of Z to nation Y--that means you *add* to the GDP.

As many people pointed out the high
expenditure of the Soviet union on military systems eventually
bankrupted the country.

Apples, meet oranges, courtesy of Vkince.

Brooks


Vince