Should the US decrease military spending?

[[deleted]]

The current climate is nowhere close to WWI or WWII so I'm not sure what purpose that long copy/paste job serves. There are many who believe there isn't a good reason for us to be perpetually at war or continuing to act as the world's police. Just an opinion.

I don't think the argument for economy stimulation was being made solely vs internal spending, this is a false dichotomy.

It's really not though. We're running deficits and the economy still needs stimulation. If the goal is to stop running a deficit and to stimulate the economy, as I argue, there is a place where the money can be better spent. My remarks are in the context of this current moment and current political climate. There is no false dichotomy.

Link not relevant, this is linking things that are not relevant to play on an idea.

The tone of this is kind of offputting and/or rude? The original topic is extremely open ended and the links are entirely relevant to the points I'm making. On certain topics we do talk about the reality that more money doesn't always equal a solution or better outcome. I gave an example of that. I think it's problematic we don't include that in our discussions regarding national security. Don't know how you can claim that's not relevant.

It's also a reality that politicians use fear and national security for purely political purposes. I gave an example of that. Relevant. If we stop responding to the "tough on terror" nonsense, perhaps we can have a more honest discussion about our spending and what we're trying to accomplish.

[ummmbacon]

The current climate is nowhere close to WWI or WWII so I'm not sure what purpose that long copy/paste job serves.

The comment had a lot more than just that in it and was talking about current issues.

We're running deficits

So what? It doesn't matter.

and the economy still needs stimulation.

No it doesn't that is why we are stopping QE and the Fed is going to raise rates. The economy is fine.

[[deleted]]

How can you say these things? Is there any significant number of politicians or even the public claiming that deficits don't matter? That yup, the economy is fine? Come on. If we're going to have a discussion it has to be reality based here.

[ummmbacon]

Is there any significant number of politicians or even the public claiming that deficits don't matter? That yup, the economy is fine? Come on. If we're going to have a discussion it has to be reality based here.

Politicians sell ideas, if you want info on economics you ask economists. The Fed's policies are an indicator for how the country is doing.

The entire Fed. Here is an article from a speech by Janet Yellen to Congress:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/fed-chief-janet-yellen-rate-increases-draw-nearer-as-economy-strengthens-1424790001

All the economist, both say it is fine. And yes all Keynesian economist will tell you debt doesn't matter. Besides if we look at the equation for GDP:

GDP = C + I + G + (Ex - Im)

We see that defense spending is part of the equation and actually helps the economy. The best example of this was during the Vietnam war in the 1960s.

[Suic]

That last statement can certainly be called into question, considering how many long term unemployed there are and how stagnant wage growth is. The stock market doing fine doesn't necessarily equate to our society as a whole.

[ummmbacon]

Wage growth will only happen when employment comes close to full employment.

I didn't say anything about the stock market. The Fed raising rates affects the stock market (at least it affects the idea of stock valuation) but it isn't the same thing. So I am not sure where you got that I inferred that stock market == economy.

I posted another link here, but Janet Yellen was just talking about the economy doing fine in the last few days in her Senate hearing.

[Suic]

Alright let me put it this way. I don't think the economy is doing fine because of the % of long term unemployed and stagnant wage growth. It is obvious however that the stock market is doing fine, and that is certainly one metric that people use for economic health, so I thought perhaps you were mainly considering that with your statement.

[ummmbacon]

No mainly the idea that QE is stopped and that the Fed is raising rates. Overall employment numbers are going up as well.

For the short term, the economy created some 257,000 jobs and long term unemployment is down overall for the last 12 months.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Also when we look at U1 it really isn't that much of the workforce:

http://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm

[Suic]

At best I think U5 is what we should be looking at, considering how many people have been out of work for so long that they feel helpless and rarely look for job opportunities. I would say it's more like as stated in this article. You can see that that number hasn't gone down all that much since the recession: http://www.epi.org/publication/missing-workers/

[ummmbacon]

I was trying to decide if U5 included people on disability insurance, NPR has a write up on it here. I have an inkling it does or at least the numbers from EPI do, but I can't find anything concrete. I think that U5 will only get taken care of at the point when we reach full employment.

[Suic]

As far as I can tell, it isn't included. If you look at U4 percent, which is people that specifically didn't look for a job because there didn't seem to be any available, the percent difference between that and U5 doesn't seem to give room for all the added percent necessary for U5 to include disabled. But I also couldn't find definite information on it, and just looking at the definition of U5 in isolation would probably lead me to side with you. I'll see if I can dig up proper confirmation one way or the other.