What if war money had been used in U.S.?

What if war money had been used in U.S.?

www.coloradoan.com

What else could we have done with the money? We could have provided each of the 15.3 million unemployed Americans with a $50,000-a-year job and still only have used up three-quarters of the money ($765 billion for one year). We could have used the remaining $235 billion to build affordable housing, provide early childhood education or college scholarships, improve our health care or our roads or whatever your dream is. The figures I have used come from a recent report by the American Friends Service Committee.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This woman makes a very good point. The U.S. has spent a ridiculous amount of money on the "war on terror". The money spent in the wars could have been used for a multitude of other things here in the U.S. We could've used the money to protect our borders, help fight crime, fight disease and cancer, help the homeless, and many other things.

Instead this money is being spent to blow stuff up, drive and fly around Iraq and Afghanistan, pay informants, etc.

Imagine if the govt. had split all of the war money up on "stimulus" checks. What would've you done with yours?

www.coloradoan.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

A point...yes. However, we have to take into account the jobs that are directly related to the MIC that might offset some of the jobs she talks about creating.

The money is not only being spent, a lot of it is plain old unaccounted for. Missing pallets of money that was sent there to create jobs for Iraqis. Missing money from the Baghdad treasury itself.

Then there's the billion-dollar, five-star American Embassy in Baghdad.

Here is a pretty cool site that shows how the money's been "lost" and is trickling away. If you click about midway down the right column it shows what else the money could be buying here in the U.S. Where is the Money

This is the easy way to look at it. However, in the long term, America has largely made our wealth with the help of "assisting" other people's around the world. It looks as though we are spending money and getting nothing back. It isn't that simple, however.

First, you have to realize how the world works. After WW II, American companies spanned the globe helping to bring other nations into the modern age. This appears humanitarian. However, that fails to appreciate the long-term investment. Every nation that we helped rebuild after WWII, or for underdeveloped countries, build in the first place, was an investment in the future of American commerce.

Look at Okinawa, for example. That island had been blown to pieces in the last major campaign in the Pacific. They needed roads, power plants, electrical poles and wires, food to plant, water processing for potable water and waste disposal. They needed electrical grids, then electrical devices to run using the new electricity. They needed building supplies, roofing materials, cars, motorcycles, buses, trucks, trains and train tracks. The list goes on and on.

Now prior to the war, what percentage of the materials of Okinawa were supplied by either American companies, or Japanese companies owned by Americans? Practically ZERO! The U.S. made no money from Okinawa. After the war, the vast majority of all of the new supplies were either American, or Japanese companies OWNED by Americans. Year afer year after year, the U.S. has continued making money by conquering Okinawa.

This was true for nearly every country, island, and territory we sent troops to in WW II. And what happened? We made lots of money for decades!!!

With the new Iraqi electrical grids and lines, roads, dams, water processing plants, new automobile manufacturing plants, new kitchen utensil manufacturing plants, etc., etc., how much of that will have American fingers in the pies for decade after decade after decade? The rich Americans will get much richer, and their children and grandchildren will still be reaping the rewards fifty years from now.

Same for Afghanistan. Same for all of the American functions in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the UAE, etc.

Things are rarely as simple as they seem. We spend $15 billion now, but may get back $50 billion over the next few decades.

The problem is, which Americans get the majority of that $50 billion?

Money doesnt create wealth. Never has. Numbers on paper catch up quickly to the ease with whichit is printed. Value is created by sweat equity.
Productivity creates wealth, taking nothing and making something of value from it, and all the money given away, in any amount, spent on leisure and chinese goods doesnt create wealth either and never has, anywhere. Want to know what creates wealth and prosperity, look at china. Nothing left to discuss. Make work jobs have no purpose in creating wealth and only waste time and priority
America, broke, and still selling its soul to the chinese for another blunt and a fouty....

reply to post by Truth1000


So what you as saying is that big US corporations make a huge fortune world wide by exploiting the fog of war and that is the reason we are in wars without end? That is how I view your information at least. That would be great if the corporations paid the price in their own treasure and blood and not that of the people of the US.

reply to post by Truth1000

Your older examples apply to a time where things were still actually produced in this country. With the modern bent toward service and not goods, the wealth goes into in far fewer pockets, pockets that don't generally pay their fair share of taxes at that, and this has compounded the problem of bleeding America dry.

reply to post by mordant1


Good point. If we gave each unemployed person a one-year job at $50,000, what do they do the next year, and the next, and the next. The money goes bye bye and the situation of free money left the same problems three years later that existed before the "quick fix."

If you think a complex issue appears simple, it is because you obviously do not understand it! I heard that quote years ago, but it is still as good as ever.

We could have used the money to hire americans to inspect and patrol our water ports, airlines and borders to prevent terrorists, drugs illegal imigrants and any other potential dangerous cargo from entering the country.

Instead we have a national debt and we are not one bit safer today than we were then cause we have done nothing to prevent dirty bombs, stinger missles and other large explosive devices from entering the country.

We actually no longer have a government it is useless entity and fails on every level of our constitution.

I always wanted a monorail system. Either that or flying cars.
Imagine just getting on a monorail and zooming where you want to go. I think they do have prototypes of monorails in some places. In all the futuristic movies they have them, but we really don't have those yet.



[edit on 18-7-2010 by jessieg]

Originally posted by Xeven
We could have used the money to hire americans to inspect and patrol our water ports, airlines and borders to prevent terrorists, drugs illegal imigrants and any other potential dangerous cargo from entering the country.

Instead we have a national debt and we are not one bit safer today than we were then cause we have done nothing to prevent dirty bombs, stinger missles and other large explosive devices from entering the country.

We actually no longer have a government it is useless entity and fails on every level of our constitution.

Close but no. A nation of cops and inspectors? How do you prosper like that? See my post above.
A nation that is so paranoid that it doesnt do anything but look for enemies where there arent or wont find any dosnt make anything.
Show of hands, how many think that govt really sets the functional value of money just because they put numbers on it? (actually it's not govt's money, it says "federal reserve note' on it, so the obligation is to the federal reserve not to you.)

reply to post by SUICIDEHK45


My response to having all that money would not have been more
give away jobs.

My response would be to address the massive sucking sound of
US dollars going overseas.

All of the following would make real long term jobs that would
actually make money and fix the US economy long term.

Not a band aid.

#1 would be growing algae oil via vertical hydroponics to the
tune of 22 million barrels per day.

It can be done with a land equivalent about 10% the size of the state
of new mexico using desert land, and human and agri waste as
feed stock.

The salton sea was used as a test case by university of ohio phd
candidate, as it is dying due to effluent and salt levels.

#2 would be to upgrade the US power grid to a level that would
cover 50 years of growth.

#3 wind mills on on any farmers land that owns land in the
high wind areas of the US, if the farmer is ok with it.

They can now attach whistles to the blades that drives birds and
bats away from the giant food processor in the sky.

#4 molten salt storage for power or pumped water to elevation
for stored power.

#5 Geo thermal like iceland is using.

#6 Offer VW's 1LV prototype as a road ready car made out of cheap
materials like aluminum getting over 250 mpg on bio diesel.

#7 Offer cheaper but slower flights via fuelless flight.



#8 Use the jet stream for free assists for the gravity plane,
or electrical power capture.

#9 vacuum tunnel trains that have no wind resistance and powered
by electricity off the large wind farms mentioned above.

#10 ocean current power, tidal power, and wave power via shrouded
turbines to protect sea life, and devices like the aquanator.

#11 Co-op based healthcare like USAA insurance, not for profit
like current stock leaning HMOs.

#12 Moodle based online education system Co-op meeting or
exceeding national standards for online learning.

moodle.org...

These 12 things would transform the US back into the strong nation
that it used to be because we would have no need to import oil ever.

That's exactly what we need - more "affordable housing" so the people who live in affordable housing can come and rob the nearby residents who live in the "unaffordable housing".

Before you flame me, the area in which I live enjoyed a very-near-zero crime rate until....

....wait for it....

They built AFFORDABLE HOUSING as per whatever ...affirmative-action, equal housing authority, give more handouts to the people who smoked too much weed and had to drop out of high school and barely get a GED and mow lawns for a living... law requires it.


Gosh, I wonder where the robbery perps live.

Bridges
Schools
Nurses Pay
Teachers pay
Enviromental improvement
Alternative energy research
space research
health care
pensions
job creation
advances in technology
assistance for impoverished nations
New Orleans after the hurricane


.... its a shame our corporate government would rather give all this money to Halliburton, Exxon, Mobile, BP, Raytheon, KBR, Banks and Car makers....

... but hey, you voted them in and allowed them to do it!

think about how fast we could colonize moon and land chimps i mean man on mars if half military yearly budget was redirected to nasa

Originally posted by SUICIDEHK45


This woman makes a very good point.www.coloradoan.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Wrong, this article stipulates two arguments which are flawed. a) that government spending stimulates the economy and is healthy, and b) that we would have spent the money regardless of going to war or not...which is totally false. Compared to the recent stimulus carried out in a single year, the war spending is a footnote...and the stimulus hasn't done jack#...so there you go.

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
.... its a shame our corporate government would rather give all this money to Halliburton, Exxon, Mobile, BP, Raytheon, KBR, Banks and Car makers....

... but hey, you voted them in and allowed them to do it!

Because the those oil companies won grants because of the wars (they didn't.) The banks are in great shape! Except the ones that are gone now...and GM and Ford are doing gangbusters.

[edit on 19-7-2010 by yellowcard]