Sunday, January 10, 2010

Rational Spending

The multiplier effect is an economic tool that measure how much additional economic activity a dollar spent will generate. For example, The New York Times tells us that, “Every dollar of additional infrastructure spending means $1.57 in economic activity.”

The article goes on to list the following multiplier effects for each dollar spent:
· General aid to states: $1.41
· Increases for food stamps: $1.74
· Unemployment checks: $1.61

It would appear that a viable social safety net—unlike the shredded remnant of the one now in place—pays economic dividends.

What is harder to pin down is the multiplier effect of the $57,000 per minute we are blowing in Afghanistan. Like all other concepts in the dismal science, multiplier effects are subject to a great deal of debate. So estimates of the multiplier effect of each dollar of defense spending range from eighty cents to $1.40. The high end figure is misleading because the expense involved in the care and rehabilitation of a young soldier suffering from a terminal brain injury (TBI) is listed as an asset since it adds money to the GDP. It doesn’t subtract the reduced input into the economy the young soldier will be incapable of providing. In light of this, the lower multiplier effect is probably more accurate.

One fact that is indisputable is that defense spending is a drain on the economy. The standard Keynesian approach of using government deficits to stimulate aggregate demand worked during the Great Depression because the country was not saddled with a DOD parasite that was draining its treasury.

As one writer points out:

Defense spending means that the government is pulling away resources from the uses determined by the market and instead using them to buy weapons and supplies and to pay for soldiers and other military personnel. In standard economic models, defense spending is a direct drain on the economy, reducing efficiency, slowing growth and costing jobs.

He goes on to list the number jobs produced by $1 billion in spending in various economic fields:

As we see, defense spending creates 8,555 total jobs with $1 billion in spending. This is the fewest number of jobs of any of the alternative uses that we present. Thus, personal consumption generates 10,779 jobs, 26.2 percent more than defense, health care generates 12,883 jobs, education generates 17,687, mass transit is at 19,795, and construction for weatherization/infrastructure is 12,804. From this list we see that with two of the categories, education and mass transit, the total number of jobs created with $1 billion in spending is more than twice as many as with defense.

The bottom line is that defense spending is a fool’s game characterized by the law of diminishing returns. We are getting nothing in return for the $57,000 a minute we are wasting in Afghanistan.

How many homes could be saved with the money spent over there is an hour, a day or a month? How many struggling states could be bailed out with the money being spent just to satisfy the egos of fools who equate military prowess with potency even though this prowess is slowly rendering us impotent. After all, who got Iraq’s oil and Afghanistan’s copper? It wasn’t us.

The money isn’t making us any safer as it finances the production of even more terrorists.

But when a country’s institutions are corrupt, madness stalks the corridors of power. Lord Acton’s corrupting power does not result in greed or oppression. It’s corrupting influence is brain rot.

11 comments:

Ivan Hentschel said...

As always, the obvious is being obfuscated by the "official"propaganda that guarantees that the flow of money is always in a diametrically opposed direction to the one that would do the most good for the most people.

Instead of investing the public money for the public good, in "accounts" that yield the highest returns, we invest it in military deficit spending, both in terms of negative fiduciary benefits and international ill-will (the Iraqis and the Afghanis love us, don't they?).

We employ an over-all strategy akin to that of the alcoholic, drinking ever more to convince ourselves that we have no drinking problem.

Our thinking is perverse and inversely at cross purposes with itself to the extent that we elected an new anti-war president who is now escalating and promulgating war at every turn, just yesterday saying he would not send troops to Yemen (What the hell for?) or Somalia (say what?)..at least "not just yet", and will not "rule out any options". Sounds like double-speak for "Tomorrow we order a surge" to me.

All of which (to get back to your original point) means that you cannot spend your way our of debt by pouring your money down a black hole. We keep charging more against the national credit card, all the while ignoring the fact that the monthly interest charges are more than the actual balance.

For a smart people, we are pretty damn dumb.

Case Wagenvoord said...

It's called Ponzi Capitalism when your income isn't enough to service our debt so you have to borrow more to do so.

Anonymous said...

Hi! Do you know if they make any plugins to assist with SEO?

I'm trying to get my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but I'm not seeing very good gains.
If you know of any please share. Appreciate it! dowiedz się więcej, http:
//mivideocristiano.com/ChristieA/info/

Anonymous said...

Interesting blog! Is your theme custom made or did you
download it from somewhere? A theme like yours with a few simple adjustements would really make
my blog jump out. Please let me know where you got your
design. Many thanks

Here is my site - http://trimextrindiet.com

Anonymous said...

Wow, incredible weblog format! How long have you been blogging for?

you make running a blog look easy. The overall look of your web site
is magnificent, let alone the content material!

my web blog Slim Lipo Plus Reviews

Anonymous said...

Greetings I am so thrilled I found your weblog, I really found you by
accident, while I was browsing on Bing for something else, Anyhow I am here now and
would just like to say thanks for a fantastic post and a all round exciting
blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t
have time to look over it all at the moment but I have saved it and also
included your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read more, Please do keep up the superb b.


Feel free to surf to my web-site ... http://slimlipoplusdiet.com

Anonymous said...

Hello would you mind stating which blog platform you're using? I'm going to start my own blog in the near future but I'm having a hard time choosing between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal. The reason I ask is because your design seems different then most blogs and I'm looking for something unique.

P.S Sorry for being off-topic but I had to ask!

Feel free to surf to my site: How Can I lose weight

Anonymous said...

Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally,
it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point.
You obviously know what youre talking about, why throw away your
intelligence on just posting videos to your site when you could be giving us something enlightening to read?



Here is my website: http://www.tilakmarg.com/test2/user/profile/lonnie677/

Anonymous said...

Very descriptive post, I enjoyed that a lot. Will there be a part
2?

Also visit my blog; Weight Loss

Anonymous said...

Ѕpot on with this wгite-up, ӏ actuallу belieνe thіs websіtе
neeԁs а lot more attеntiоn.
I'll probably be returning to read more, thanks for the advice!

Also visit my homepage - reputation management

Unknown said...

Great post. I hope you write more good stuff like this article.

aggregate spend