Try #2: I need a new frame of reference (and your opinion)

[unhappycamper]

Yesterday I posted a thread about needing a new frame of reference to discuss military $$$ --> http://www.democraticunderground.com/1118234 . THANKS FOR YOUR REPLIES!

There were many good replies in the thread, the the ones that jumped out at me were the ones suggesting I change my unit of measurement from $25,000 a year jobs to $50,000 a year jobs. I think $50,000 is a better unit of measure as it reflects a family actually being able to afford raising a family without making decisions like: Do I need food or heat?



Another idea was proposed: compare US military spending (pie chart above) to "Canada, United Kingdom, and various European and Scandinavian countries. And include China and Russia too. That would be telling about how much out of whack this county's priories are."



I will make it a point to find that information if it is online somewhere.

Back to yesterday's thread. We need some sort of an identifier that will be easy for folks to remember. Here's try #2. I propose we call it something that sez we're talking about $50,000 jobs. Here is a somewhat lame first try:

$50kJobs

For every million dollars, there are 20 $50kJobs.
For every on hundred million dollars, there are 2 000 $50kJobs.
For every billion dollars, there are 20,000 $50kJobs.

Yesterday's examples using $50kJobs:

Here's a $35 billion dollar program that should be rethought: http://www.democraticunderground.com/11783348
$35 billion / $50kJobs = 700,000 50kJobs

One more: We just floated our newest destroyer, the USS Zumwalt. The cost for this bad boy is $5.6 billion dollars.

$5.6 billion / $50kJobs = 112,000 $50kJobs

And two new ones:

St Roniie ordered our marvelous B-2 bombers. Unfortunately they are somewhat expensive $2.4 billion dollars a pop. We usta have 21 of these, but one crashed in Guam because of wet sensors. B-2 crash pics at: http://tinyurl.com/lu3dlz2

$2.4 billion / $50kJobs = 48,000 $50kJobs

We originally bought 21 of them, so: 21 x 48,000 $50kJobs = 1,008,000 $50kJobs



The F-35 (aka the Flying Pig) project is supposed to cost $382 billion dollars.

$382 billion $50kJobs = 7,640,000 $50kJobs


I'm very interested in your comments and suggestions.

unhappycamper

[Mnemosyne]

1. K&R for more visibility. nt

[unhappycamper]

2. I'll put this up in GD after we nail down a unit of measurement. n/t

[Mnemosyne]

4. Please do, thanks. Good info. nt

[unhappycamper]

3. Your comments would be greatly appreciated.

Recs are nice but I'm interested in your take on this thread.

[Mnemosyne]

5. K&R for more visibility. nt

[bemildred]

6. I like it.

However, a $50K job costs more than $50k, there will be adminstrative and overhead costs, and benefits, and you ought to allow for that. Say $85K for each $50K job, and that's still a hell of a lot cheaper than a $50K DoD private sector job.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Here's your first problem...

those billions building a carrier didn't just sink down a hole somewhere. Much of it was spent in actual jobs at the drydock building the hull, and then fitting it out after launch. Much was also spent on its machinery, electronics, and everything else on the ship, which were all built by someone.

And everything was designed by someone-- lots of someones, actually.

So, the billions going into a new aircraft carrier actually means job creation. A lot of job creation, and most of them at the high end of the scale.

The question, then, isn't how we are wasting jobs building aircraft carriers, but how can we create as many, or more, good jobs without building aircraft carriers?

Such a substitution might look simple on the surface, and well it should be, but we get a lot of things going into such a decision. Most of them erring on the side of stupid, greedy, or otherwise bad public policy.

[unhappycamper]

8. Thank you.

Yes, people are required to do design and construction work.

I guess the problem I have with military 'stuff' is:

a) all of it is grossly overpriced.
b) all of the jobs go to build something we cannot agree on, nor does most of it work as advertised/sold.
c) our paid/pwned congresscritters keep the bucks flowing to build this shit.
d) all of it comes out of discretionary spending, the same place where social programs come from.
e) after we use all this expensive gear up, we must replace it with ever more expensive gear.
f) having all this expensive lethal around makes us want to take it for another 'spin'.

We are doing to ourselves what we did to the Soviets in the 80s and 90s: we spent 'em into the ground. Unless we get control (highly unlikely) of the military budget, we will find ourselves in a depression similar to the Soviet Union:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_union#Economy

~snip~

Although statistics of the Soviet economy are notoriously unreliable and its economic growth difficult to estimate precisely,[83][84] by most accounts, the economy continued to expand until the mid-1980s. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet economy experienced comparatively high growth and was catching up to the West.[85] However, after 1970, the growth, while still positive, steadily declined much more quickly and consistently than in other countries despite a rapid increase in the capital stock (the rate of increase in capital was only surpassed by Japan).[75]

Overall, between 1960 and 1989, the growth rate of per capita income in the Soviet Union was slightly above the world average (based on 102 countries).[citation needed] According to Stanley Fischer and William Easterly, growth could have been faster. By their calculation, per capita income of Soviet Union in 1989 should have been twice as high as it was considering the amount of investment, education and population. The authors attribute this poor performance to low productivity of capital in the Soviet Union.[86] Steven Rosenfielde states that the standard of living actually declined as a result of Stalin's despotism, and while there was a brief improvement following his death, lapsed into stagnation.[87]

In 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev tried to reform and revitalize the economy with his program of perestroika. His policies relaxed state control over enterprises, but did not yet allow it to be replaced by market incentives, ultimately resulting in a sharp decline in production output. The economy, already suffering from reduced petroleum export revenues, started to collapse. Prices were still fixed, and property was still largely state-owned until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[75][82] For most of the period after World War II up to its collapse, the Soviet economy was the second largest in the world by GDP (PPP), and was 3rd in the world during the middle of the 1980s to 1989.[88] though in per capita terms the Soviet GDP was behind that of the First World countries.[89]

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I'll put a thread up in GD in a bit.