Steven James Forsberg wrote in message ...
In sci.military.naval Kevin Brooks wrote:
: 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.

And, of course, add to the sum worldwide total of military
threat, thereby justifying another round of development, which you'll sell
to make money, which will raise threat..... hmmmm? Like the AF justifying
F-22 because "so many" (like Canada and UK) nations have high-tech fighters.
Well, maybe we should embargo them....

You want to debate the morality of weapons development, find somebody
else. The issue here was the impact of defense spending upon the GDP.

Brooks


regards,
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