Dear Ismail --- Some things that probably needs to be clarified are the differences between the FLOW of annual expenditures, the LONG TERM COMMITMENTS of currently "promised" spending (contracts with military contractors, pay for the armed forces, long term repair and maintenance of facilities owned by the defense establishment, and most importantly -- long term care for returning veterans by the VA), and the VALUE of capital assets owned by the various branches of the military. SOme analyses have focused only on the short term budgetary authority (and some of that is even hidden of course).
Of course, the most interesting question(s) involve whether or not all that spending by the US raises economic growth from what it would have been had we had the budgetary approaches, of, say, France, Italy or Norway or actually SLOWS economic growth -- there have been arguments on both sides --- Seymour Melman in PENTAGON CAPITALISM always argued that military spending SLOWED economic growth whereas, I believe, the Monthly Review Stagnation school argues that military spending (and wars of course) actually delay or reverse the long run tendency towards stagnation. I've always tried to "finesse" the issue by suggesting that the bloated millitary budget in the US is a VAST redistribution of income from taxpayers in general to the defense industry -- particularly "owners" with large blocks of stock in those companies. (you might also check out the methodology of Joe Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes who attempted to compute the ENTIRE (long run and short run) cost of the Iraq War sometime back in 2004 or 2005 ...) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#1217): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/1217 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/76664217/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES<br />#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.<br />#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.<br />#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
