The above comment was made in reference to the utterly hideous amount of money spent by the US Government on its military; it does of course raise the big super ultimate question of... "Why?" The answer I fear, is one of hopelessly entangled, misplaced and dangerous ideology.
I take you back to 1944 and a fellow called Ed Sard, who predicted that after WW2, that the USA would "retain the character of a war economy even in peace time." The idea being that a "permanent war economy" would keep military spending high, and thus keep demand levels sufficiently high enough to avoid a repeat performance of the Depresssion which really had only been stopped by the outbreak of the war.
The reasoning behind this is surprisingly sound. Basic economic theory states that the level of income in the economy is dictated by "all inputs less all outputs" or:
Income = (Consumer Spending + Investment Spending + Government Spending + Receipts on Exports) minus (Savings + Taxation + Payments for Imports)
Income = (C+I+G+X) - (S+T+M)
By increasing the amount of Government Spending, you increase the amount of money being pushed into economy, and therefore incomes over time should increase.
Or to put it another way, in economic lulls or recessions, when C and I fall through consumer and business sentiment becoming pessimistic, G should either rise or stay large enough to keep the economy ticking over.
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/pdf/fy10-newera.pdf
For Financial Year 2009 the estimated cost of base expenses for the Dept of Defense is $697bn which sounds like a huge amount of money but actually only represents about 3%-4% of GDP. This from an historical high of 38% in 1944 and even during the height of the Vietnam War where it still didn't hit 10%.
During the Depression when Consumer Spending shriveled up because people were unemployed, and Investment Spending also withered away, countries like Britain and the US didn't really recover until the outbreak of war when instantly, Government Spending was raised massively to put fighting men and munitions on the front line.
Quite truthfully, if you applied pre-1941 policies to the US budget; including, then four Neutrality Acts and the stated policy from 1918-1939 of "United States Non-Interventionism" then there hasn't been any logical enemies for the US when you consider that apart from the bombing of Pearl Harbour and Guam, there hasn't been a single act of war on US soil*.
Not only does the "same mentality still exist today" but it's actually ingrained policy. The real irony is that the United States which prides itself on being the shining light of capitalism, is in reality by operation of its budget, operating a part command economy, which in effect is subsidised by the Government. How's that for a leftist policy, eh?
As a result of the war, United States Secretary of Defense Charles Erwin Wilson (former CEO of General Motors), saw increased productivity during WW2 as the perfect justification for a permanent war economy; even Eisenhower in his farewell address made mention of the "military-industrial complex" which is in effect an Iron Triangle.
Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together. - Dwight D Eisenhower
The real question left totally unanswered by all of this, isn't why spending billions of dollars is a good idea, but why in particular it should be spent on the military. To this I don't have an honest answer. Personally one of the most ridiculous things I found about America was seeing this sticker or stickers like it on people's cars:
For some absurd reason, it has been drilled into Americans through that most highly dubious of notions "patriotism", that somehow it's unpatriotic not to "support the troops" whatever the heck that means, and considering that every single taxpayer has in fact been doing so since 1775.
It therefore makes perfect sense to me in principle why $697bn is spent on the military when 46 million Americans have access to zero healthcare, and 37 million people live below the poverty line. Poor and sick people don't have political power to move government, nor do they have the ear of politicians or the president, whereas people in business and the military do. You could call it institutionalised apathy for the poor and sick, but surely that's common in any oligarchy?
http://news.smh.com.au/world/37-million-americans-live-in-poverty-20080827-437a.html
"What I was even more surprised and disappointed by was how he knew full well that this was a colossal waste of money - that there were things on earth of far greater importance"
- BJD, 15th July, 2009
Sadly, I'm not at all surprised with the colossal waste of money, I've long held the opinion that spending billions of dollars on the instruments to kill people (let's be totally honest about this), is fundamentally wrong and stupid.
The moon program was one component of the space program** which itself employs the very same aerospace companies responsible for building both the aeroplanes which drop bombs on people, and building other aeroplanes to carry people overseas. Those companies don't care where their profits come from.
A far wiser man than me once said: "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." It should therefore be fairly obvious where the heart of the US Government actually is. It's either in the perennial subsidy of the war machine, or operating the war machine itself, both of which are consistent with the idea of said "permanent war economy".
*Say what you will about 11 Sep 2001, it was never an act of war. It was a series of terrorist attacks by a non-sovereign entity.
**
Much of the NASA budget is directly military. These programs are usually classified. In addition, much of NASA's work is "dual-use," with military applications closer at hand and more powerfully directing NASA's activities than civilian mission components. For the purposes of this table we assume that 50% of NASA outlays are military.
- US Budgetary Papers, FY 2008, Note 3
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