Source (2023-04-24): https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2023/04/the-united-states-spends-more-on-defense-than-the-next-10-countries-combined
Of course, spending doesn't actually directly translate into being able to make decent weapons. Since US relies on a privately owned military industrial complex it runs into the problem of perverse incentives. Companies want to siphon as much public money as they can from the government, and that means making expensive weapons that take a long time to produce and have high maintenance costs. This ensures you have low input costs because you're not producing much, and that you're able to keep sucking money out of the system for the few items you do produce. To put this into perspective, it costs ten times as much to produce an artillery shell in US than in Russia, and US is still unable to ramp up its production after a year and a half of war to match Russia.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is famous for its corruption having failed audits for 6 years in a row and is unable to account for $3.8 trillion in military assets.
All of this results in an incredibly expensive and inefficient system that isn't actually able to produce basic things like artillery shells in large quantities. US military industrial complex is good at doing what it was designed to do, which is to divert taxes from things they're meant for such as social services and infrastructure into the pockets of the oligarchs who own the war industry.
On the other hand, I doubt China is spending $14,000 on one toilet seat, so the bloated US military budget probably doesn't even convert to proportionate fighting capabilities. For example, all that money and the US can't even manufacture enough artillery shells to keep Ukraine going against Russia and it's tiny sliver of expenditure on that chart.
Russia, China, and Iran (the last of which isn't even on that image) have hypersonic missiles, which effectively mean that aircraft carriers are now pre-sunk artificial coral reefs in a direct conflict with those countries. America does not have hypersonic missiles and keeps failing their prototype tests.
How much has been spent on R&D for hypersonic missiles in USA? How much was spent in Russia or China or Iran? and who has hypersonic missiles?
This is what we have instead of health care, and boy do we have a lot of it
Not really true.
*removed externally hosted image*
In 2022 the US spent an equivalent amount on Medicare as it did on defense ($747 billion vs $751 billion), and another $592 billion on Medicaid. US defense spending represents only 3% of GDP, and about 14% of the total federal budget.
The largest budget item is Social Security at $1.2 trillion.
Social program spending in the US massively outstrips military spending.
So sincere question: why the fuck is it so god damn awful over there then? People going bankrupt over medical bills isn't a thing in Europe, and your social care appears non existent...why the dissonance between expenditure and apparent results?
Surprisingly, if healthcare is governed by the profit motive instead of an actual duty of care towards people, then the people in charge of healthcare will focus more on making profits than on providing care.
Never you fear, the disparity between America and Europe will go down. Not because America will improve - god no, it'll get worse, even - but because the capitalists, backed by fascists, are here to loot European countries and rip the wiring out of the walls as the profitability crisis continues.
because the capitalists, backed by fascists, are here to loot European countries and rip the wiring out of the walls as the profitability crisis continues
Healthcare-wise this is already well under way, at least in France and the UK.
This is true but we should keep in mind:
When we say military spending, what it really means is: how much is the US government granting the military industrial complex for them to accept powering its military
When we say Medicaid (and others) spending, it is: how much is the US gov giving to medical insurance companies to allow a sunset of poor people to have some healthcare?
Those companies are intentionally setting outrageous prices and the US is happy to pay them.
This is disingenuous, there is legislation in place that prevents the government from negotiating the price of medicine, keeping it wildly inflated compared to other countries. The US effectively isn't doing social spending with that margin* but just laundering money to health insurance companies, medicine manufacturers, and patent barons.
*3 to 10 times the cost you see in other countries is the common range, I think, though in individual cases it gets much higher and there are some ~1:1 prices.
wonder how much of it is just yeah this 1 doler bullet is actually 10
yeah America also spends the most on healthcare and they aren't the healthiest country on earth
I think the companies that supply the US military charge like $50 for a bottle of water or something.
edit: in case you didn't click the link, Assad isn't
It's still not enough! Until every red-blooded American has a big red button in their home that launches 10.000 nukes at random coordinates, it won't be enough!
I would love to see this poll of Americans actually, if you could nuke any city, where would you pick
If it was a poll, DC would win in a landslide, even for people caught in the blast radius.
1812 if I remember my history was in large part because they wanted to genocide all the natives and the British wanted to establish a nation for the natives (not out of altruism native trade was one of the only things that ever actually made money out of the Americas)
They also burned down the White House which you know critical support for the imperialist red coats on that one
The cowards preach from pedestals
With words like "courage" and "resolve"
But what they meant was "Fuck them all"
Because freedom isn't freeThis is really a bad chart, our military protects European countries which is why they don't have to pay as much for defense
Edit: not to imply we don't waste tons of money on boondoggles
It's when you realize that some US Americans unironicaly believe that, that you understand how powerful the USA propaganda machine is.
That's a regular classic sadly, along with the other banger: "our US healthcare can't be free because we subsidize Europe's healthcare".
I'm not saying we don't waste money on defense, and obviously a country with zero threats on its borders can afford to spend less on defense and more on health care, but this chart in particular is a bad way to convey this message
I’m not saying we don’t waste money on defense, and obviously a country with zero threats on its borders can afford to spend less on defense and more on health care,
Don't we spend way more on health care than military? I read somewhere it is like 4 trillion per year over 4 times more than military. Honestly as sad as this sounds I don't think an extra trillion would improve the health care system in the US. Personally I think we have plenty of money going to health care, it is just doesn't seem to be going towards actually healing people.
Don't we spend more because the industry is extremely inflated? But yeah if it's something everyone needs it should be subsidized and provided as a public service
our military protects European countries
Please give me a list of enough threats the US protected Europe from to back your statement. I doubt there are enough to justify those differences, and hence your statement must be doubted until you prove otherwise.
Lol, not denying it's very speculative, but you should look at the recent squadron 42 tech demo and tell me if you think it's still a failed project
This comparison caughts my attention every time. I wonder how well-spent this money really is, conceding it's for "defense".
