We may be in another recession already.

[Fedaykin]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

It's clear to me you don't have even a basic understanding of the study you cited. That study is attempting to calculate costs we might pay 20 or 30 years from now. They're not talking about what impacted the 2011 or 2012 federal budgets.

Complete and utter bullsh*t. The study details direct & indirect costs through 2011 and the direct costs through 2012 -- totaling $3T or more. It also talks about future spending of course, which is where the $4T+ figure comes from.

It also goes into depth about other things like opportunity costs, etc. that are not included in those totals.

Look at the big summary table: It's lays it out in a nice fashion that even an idiot should be able to understand.

http://costsofwar.org/article/economic-cost-summary

Of course, getting back to the start of this, remember we're comparing the total cost of the wars to the total cost of the current deficit.

There's no sane way to blame war spending for a trillion dollars a year of debt.

Nope, which is why I didn't even try to blame the entire deficit on it. Again, dig deep for the honesty necessary to respond to what I'm actually saying and stop tilting at strawmen. It's not helping your case.

The CBO details what has been paid in detail. The only argument is what might have to be paid in the future. But that has zero to do with what was already paid. There's only one purposefully obtuse person in this conversation.

No, the CBO details the money directed specifically to the Department of Defense, which does not represent all the expenditures related to war spending. Why can't/won't you recognize that?

Again, I've provided you the information that lays it out, which includes all of already spent funds, currently obligated funds, and likely future expenditures.

You could literally disband the Department of Defense and our Armed Forces completely, and we'd still be running hefty deficits. That's how delusional you are.

..snip...

So in other words my assumption was correct. You have not the slightest clue about the actual amount of money spent on defense per year (and again, tilting at a strawman argument). The DoD budget only represents about 2/3 of total defense spending.

Again I ask, would you like to see the break down? You can easily google the information or simply read up about what purposes various department and agencies fulfill. For example, the Department of Energy has an explicitly defense related task of maintaining the nuclear arsenal, and NASA does military R&D, and the Department of the Treasury pays military pensions. None of that defense related spending comes from the DoD budget.

You could also search the forum, I've posted about it several times.

You specialize in irrelevant questions. We're comparing borrowed money to borrowed money here. Sweating interest payments on one side but not the other is disingenuous. What do you reckon the interest payments on the 6 trillion in debt we've added since 2009 is going to cost? Far more than any interest on 1.4 trillion in war spending.

Nah, you specialize in non sequitors. The purpose of the question was to see if you had the honestly and understanding necessary to recognize direct and indirect costs outside the context of defense spending. Instead you go off on a non sequitor trying to imply that I'm holding some double standard about interest payments, which I'm not.

[cutthemdown]

Now Obama wants to put Lew in charge of the treasury. This is the guy who sold the idea of sequester to Ried in the Senate. Meanwhile our economy shrank and we have the lowest % of the labor force participating % is the worst in what decades? Obama picks friggin turds that is for sure.

[TonyR]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

Meanwhile our economy shrank...

We've already been over this. Do you know why/how our "economy shrank"? And are you aware that the looming cuts are going to make it "shrink" even more? On the one hand you complain about government spending and bash Obama/Dems/liberals for it, and then on the other you complain when there are cuts and it "shrinks" GDP. You need to pick a side. Do you want cuts, or not want cuts? Or do you just want to complain and bash Obama?

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by Fedaykin

Complete and utter bullsh*t. The study details direct & indirect costs through 2011 and the direct costs through 2012 -- totaling $3T or more.

Question. Do you read the **** you post?

http://costsofwar.org/article/economic-cost-summary

One of the lines right there adding into your $3T total is

"Projected Obligated Funds for Veterans' Medical and Disability to 2051"

Then there's

"Social Costs to Veterans and Military Families"

Here, we're not even talking about money paid by the federal government at all. Instead they're trying to stab at a dollar value on the hardship placed on military families. News flash, most legislation of any significance has some social cost. This cost is never factored into whether a bill increases/decreases the federal deficit, because those costs aren't paid out of the federal budget.

This would be like saying Obamacare cost 10 times as much as advertised because we should count all the insurance premiums paid by citizens under the new federal mandate. The government doesn't budget that way. And you're fine with that, so long as it suits you.

But my personal favorite is where your $3T figure (in addition to the bull**** above) factors in the lion's share of Homeland Security spending over the last decade. Apparently TSA screeners and border patrol are Iraq/Afghan theater Veterans now.

The old hiptard line used to be that all that war spending was taking away from much needed Homeland Security budget.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...eland-security

Now though, you're trying to lump it all in as if it was the same thing. How convenient.

You also say you're not factoring in interest. But when you dig into the details of your 'reference' and you see, yup, there it is. Interest costs.

Please, next time you post an article as proof of something, read it first. Try to understand it. Then discuss.

[cutthemdown]

Let me guess liberals don't want to use indirect costs when arguing what Obamacare will cost us?

[Fedaykin]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Question. Do you read the **** you post?

http://costsofwar.org/article/economic-cost-summary

One of the lines right there adding into your $3T total is

Then there's

Here, we're not even talking about money paid by the federal government at all. Instead they're trying to stab at a dollar value on the hardship placed on military families. News flash, most legislation of any significance has some social cost. This cost is never factored into whether a bill increases/decreases the federal deficit, because those costs aren't paid out of the federal budget.

Are you blind, deaf dumb or just that ****ing stupid?

See the line that says: SUBTOTAL FEDERAL OUTLAYS FY2001 Through FY2011, Constant $2011 -- $2,657.3?

Notice how it ****ing says through 2011, not 2012?

You know it's 2013, right? meaning at least one additional fiscal year (i.e. 2012) of spending has occurred above and beyond the figure there. The average is $240bn a year, so

2657+240 = $2897bn ~=$3T

This would be like saying Obamacare cost 10 times as much as advertised because we should count all the insurance premiums paid by citizens under the new federal mandate. The government doesn't budget that way. And you're fine with that, so long as it suits you.

Once again, you're just tilting against a strawman.

But my personal favorite is where your $3T figure (in addition to the bull**** above) factors in the lion's share of Homeland Security spending over the last decade. Apparently TSA screeners and border patrol are Iraq/Afghan theater Veterans now.

Last time I checked, the entire purpose of the huge build up in HS is the same justification for Afghan/Iraq: the "War on Terror". Of course, you also keep ignoring that the point is that the total cost of all the wars going on (no matter if you leave off HS or not) is far, far more than a single years deficit, especially if you exclude that portion of the deficit that is coming from those wars.

The old hiptard line used to be that all that war spending was taking away from much needed Homeland Security budget.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...eland-security

Now though, you're trying to lump it all in as if it was the same thing. How convenient.

Oh look, more random distractions from you. You have a serious issue with that, don't you?

You also say you're not factoring in interest. But when you dig into the details of your 'reference' and you see, yup, there it is. Interest costs.

I never said that I'm not factoring in interesting. Do you have serious reading problems or what?

Please, next time you post an article as proof of something, read it first. Try to understand it. Then discuss.

The only one not understanding things here is you bub...

[cutthemdown]

Originally Posted by TonyR

We've already been over this. Do you know why/how our "economy shrank"? And are you aware that the looming cuts are going to make it "shrink" even more? On the one hand you complain about government spending and bash Obama/Dems/liberals for it, and then on the other you complain when there are cuts and it "shrinks" GDP. You need to pick a side. Do you want cuts, or not want cuts? Or do you just want to complain and bash Obama?

sequester was the white houses idea. Bob Woodward proved that in his book. So anything that is a result of them is Obamas fault. He didn't want to deal with anything before the election so he had Lew float the idea of sequester to Ried.

Its all a symptom of Obama refusing to ever do a budget.

[cutthemdown]

Originally Posted by TonyR

We've already been over this. Do you know why/how our "economy shrank"? And are you aware that the looming cuts are going to make it "shrink" even more? On the one hand you complain about government spending and bash Obama/Dems/liberals for it, and then on the other you complain when there are cuts and it "shrinks" GDP. You need to pick a side. Do you want cuts, or not want cuts? Or do you just want to complain and bash Obama?

We have the lowest participation rate of the labor force in the last 30 yrs but Obama will still sick the EPA on energy producers. We are all paying for the liberal agenda right now. Houshold debt climbing under Obama, workforce shrinking, spending growing and now its so bad he will have to cut defense making us less safe. He's a friggin disaster.

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by Fedaykin

Are you blind, deaf dumb or just that ****ing stupid?

See the line that says: SUBTOTAL FEDERAL OUTLAYS FY2001 Through FY2011, Constant $2011 -- $2,657.3?

Notice how it ****ing says through 2011, not 2012?

You know it's 2013, right? meaning at least one additional fiscal year (i.e. 2012) of spending has occurred above and beyond the figure there. The average is $240bn a year, so

2657+240 = $2897bn ~=$3T

So you're just going to keep extrapolating those numbers out as we go and pretend like everything in the budget that changed since 2001 is part of Bush' Iraq/Afghan war effort? Even though Bush hasn't had any say on spending decisions since 2008? DHS's budget was never higher than Obama's first two years when he had an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress. Yet you not only count DHS dollars completely unrelated to Iraq or Afghanistan, you keep tallying Democratic budget increases in that department under the "Bush did it!" column. There's nothing rational about this approach.

Another point of contention:

The Senate vote for authorizing use of force in Afghanistan was 97-0. We were going to war in Afghanistan whether Bush was president or not. In fact Obama talked at length in 2008 about how the war in Iraq took resources away from the 'good' war in Afghanistan. So if we take him at his word, had we not invaded Iraq, he would've spent even more in Afghanistan. In what fantasmical alternate universe was war in the Afghan theater not going to happen? Think back to 9/11. War somewhere was predetermined. And that can't be blamed on Bush.

Last time I checked, the entire purpose of the huge build up in HS is the same justification for Afghan/Iraq: the "War on Terror". Of course, you also keep ignoring that the point is that the total cost of all the wars going on (no matter if you leave off HS or not) is far, far more than a single years deficit, especially if you exclude that portion of the deficit that is coming from those wars.

Bull****. This conversation was specifically about Iraq and Afghanistan. Read back. Bringing in DHS spending is changing the subject. Not to mention, again, DHS' budget was never as high under Bush as Obama. You can't pretend like absolutely everything we've done since 2001 was Bush's decision, or that it would've worked out any different with anyone else. How about all those body scanners in airports? What's the story there? Those were a response by Obama's DHS to the Christmas Day bomber in 2009. Were those expenses removed from your study? Of course not. They're still filed under the "Bush's fault/War on Terror" column. Because this "study" lacks any credibility.

Do you honestly believe under another President after 9/11, there would've been no push for increased airport security budgets? Hint: DHS was formed with a 90-9 vote in the Senate. Again, your fantasyland projection here assumes that none of this money would have been spent if not for Bush. That's certifiably insane, given the reality of what happened back then.

But really that's all just a nice distraction on your part. Because this conversation was all about and only about Iraq and Afghanistan. Fun game you've got going here though... ignoring the clear CBO report on what those two wars cost so you can bring in some study that doesn't even pretend to be studying the same thing.

"Iraq and Afghanistan are expensive because of airport baggage scans and interest payments!" -Fed

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

We put more debt on in one year than we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan in a decade.

Oh and BTW this is the point I made that you're arguing with. So by factoring in Homeland Security and trying to stretch further than a decade, you're violating the terms of the debate in every conceivable way.

[Fedaykin]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

So you're just going to keep extrapolating those numbers out as we go and pretend like everything in the budget that changed since 2001 is part of Bush' Iraq/Afghan war effort? Even though Bush hasn't had any say on spending decisions since 2008? DHS's budget was never higher than Obama's first two years when he had an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress. Yet you not only count DHS dollars completely unrelated to Iraq or Afghanistan, you keep tallying Democratic budget increases in that department under the "Bush did it!" column. There's nothing rational about this approach.

Another point of contention:

The Senate vote for authorizing use of force in Afghanistan was 97-0. We were going to war in Afghanistan whether Bush was president or not. In fact Obama talked at length in 2008 about how the war in Iraq took resources away from the 'good' war in Afghanistan. So if we take him at his word, had we not invaded Iraq, he would've spent even more in Afghanistan. In what fantasmical alternate universe was war in the Afghan theater not going to happen? Think back to 9/11. War somewhere was predetermined. And that can't be blamed on Bush.


Bull****. This conversation was specifically about Iraq and Afghanistan. Read back. Bringing in DHS spending is changing the subject. Not to mention, again, DHS' budget was never as high under Bush as Obama. You can't pretend like absolutely everything we've done since 2001 was Bush's decision, or that it would've worked out any different with anyone else. How about all those body scanners in airports? What's the story there? Those were a response by Obama's DHS to the Christmas Day bomber in 2009. Were those expenses removed from your study? Of course not. They're still filed under the "Bush's fault/War on Terror" column. Because this "study" lacks any credibility.

Do you honestly believe under another President after 9/11, there would've been no push for increased airport security budgets? Hint: DHS was formed with a 90-9 vote in the Senate. Again, your fantasyland projection here assumes that none of this money would have been spent if not for Bush. That's certifiably insane, given the reality of what happened back then.

...

No blame at all was cast in this particular instance -- the only true point of contention here is you think all the warmongering costs less than a year's deficit, and you cherry pick direct funding numbers to try to support that..

Nice try at a red herring though. I see you've done from trying to defend your absurd position into full out distract with logical fallacies mode.

But really that's all just a nice distraction on your part.

The only one coming up with huge lengthy distractions is you bub (see the entirety of your post quoted here).

Because this conversation was all about and only about Iraq and Afghanistan. Fun game you've got going here though... ignoring the clear CBO report on what those two wars cost so you can bring in some study that doesn't even pretend to be studying the same thing.

You continue to pretend that the direct appropriations to the wars (the $1.4T) are the only costs associated with those wars. Completely idiotic. You want to pretend that the interest doesn't count, that caring for the vets doesn't count, that paying to rebuild the **** we destroyed doesn't count, that replacing all the equipment and training new troops doesn't count, etc.

Complete. Utter. Bull****.

"Iraq and Afghanistan are expensive because of airport baggage scans and interest payments!" -Fed

Oh look, an appeal to ridicule, based on a straman. How quaint.

[Fedaykin]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Oh and BTW this is the point I made that you're arguing with. So by factoring in Homeland Security and trying to stretch further than a decade, you're violating the terms of the debate in every conceivable way.

With or without DHS, your position falls on it's face.

a.) Even without DHS, we're talking $2.6T spent (not 1.4) in the last decade

and like I said

b.) a large part of the current deficit is spending (direct and indirect) on those wars.


"violating the terms of debate huh" why don't you try engaging honestly and dropping all the bull**** red herrings, strawmen and other distractions?

(for the record, I don't give a flying **** about tone, I care about content)

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by Fedaykin

With or without DHS, your position falls on it's face.

a.) Even without DHS, we're talking $2.6T spent (not 1.4) in the last decade

and like I said

b.) a large part of the current deficit is spending (direct and indirect) on those wars.

First, the $2.6 figure cited clearly INCLUDES DHS spending. And interest. Not sure what you're smoking on that. It also has some other pretty weakly defined categories. In fact when you dig into the specifics of their work, you see a lot of references to Congressional Research Service studies for many of their numbers. So I wondered if the Congressional Research Service agreed with these supposed findings?

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf

The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11

With enactment of the sixth FY2011 Continuing Resolution through March 18, 2011, (H.J.Res. 48/P.L. 112-6) Congress has approved a total of $1.283 trillion for military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans’ health care for the three operations initiated since the 9/11 attacks: Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) Afghanistan and other counter terror operations; Operation Noble Eagle (ONE), providing enhanced security at military bases; and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). This estimate assumes that the current CR level continues through the rest of the year and that agencies allocate reductions proportionately.

Of this $1.283 trillion total, CRS estimates that Iraq will receive about $806 billion (63%), OEF $444 billion (35%) and enhanced base security about $29 billion (2%), with about $5 billion that CRS cannot allocate (1/2%). About 94% of the funds are for DOD, 5% for foreign aid programs and diplomatic operations, and 1% for medical care for veterans.

Funny, I thought you said that lower amount didn't include any of these things.

(for the record, I don't give a flying **** about tone, I care about content)

Heh. On my side, we have the Congressional Budget Office and Congressional Research Service. On yours, you have some hack partisan website that counts TSA baggage handlers and FEMA employees as forces in the war on terror.

Doesn't look to me like you care about either one.

[cutthemdown]

Nice Beavis good stuff!

[Arkie]

Originally Posted by TonyR

We've already been over this. Do you know why/how our "economy shrank"? And are you aware that the looming cuts are going to make it "shrink" even more? On the one hand you complain about government spending and bash Obama/Dems/liberals for it, and then on the other you complain when there are cuts and it "shrinks" GDP. You need to pick a side. Do you want cuts, or not want cuts? Or do you just want to complain and bash Obama?

There hasn't been any shrinking due to spending cuts. If we actually did reduce spending, that would be positive for the economy because the government is draining the economy of the resources it needs to grow. The government is a growing expense on the economy.

[elsid13]

Originally Posted by Arkie

There hasn't been any shrinking due to spending cuts. If we actually did reduce spending, that would be positive for the economy because the government is draining the economy of the resources it needs to grow. The government is a growing expense on the economy.

What resources are you talking about? Is it labor? capital? raw materials?


There is more then enough slack in the economy right now that there is no problem to meet private sector resources demand

[cutthemdown]

Originally Posted by elsid13

What resources are you talking about? Is it labor? capital? raw materials?


There is more then enough slack in the economy right now that there is no problem to meet private sector resources demand

You are so wrong. Rare Earth minerals are a huge problem and are driving up the costs of batteries, speakers, wind turbines and solar panels just to name a few.

Over the decades mining rare earth became too costly because of the environmental demands of the USA. In the meantime China took it over and dominates the market in the 90% range.

We do have a CA rare earth mine almost up and running. Its taken so long. Why? you guessed it red tape from CA and FED regulators.

Anyone who thinks Obamas attack on oil, coal, and mining isn't hurting the economy is probably not thinking it all the way through and instead just thinking well we need to move away from those types of energy.

[Arkie]

Originally Posted by elsid13

What resources are you talking about? Is it labor? capital? raw materials?


There is more then enough slack in the economy right now that there is no problem to meet private sector resources demand

Our economy is based on consumption. We're not producing as much as we used to. The biggest thing we are creating is debt. The Fed can create all the capital they want. It doesn't create new wealth. Most of the new Fed money hasn't worked it's way into the economy yet. Either prices will skyrocket, or the government will implement price controls that will create shortages and long lines.

[cutthemdown]

I like the liberal idea that we need more companies to build things in America. It has to be sort of high end stuff though and our labor not skilled for that. Chinese workers kick our ass because they have been doing it on a larger scale.

We need to change the way we educate the people. HS is a friggin joke and only some of the kids work hard there on the way to college. We force the other ones into college but the dont get degrees that pay anything. Too many college students were like me and picked easy crap like music lol.

It would be better to offer stuff in HS that gets kids ready to do jobs like go work at an apple computer factory in the USA. The problem is the chicken and the egg. We need the jobs here before we could really have people aim to get them. But apple goes where the best workers are.

We have gotten to far over into the service economy and right now we probably do need more manufacturing jobs actually making something. I can see why they bailed out the auto industry even though many of them didn't deserve it because their cars stink. But you need them to stay in business or the workforce will lose that expertise as well.

Its just that our govt makes it so much more expensive to make things in America. The attack on energy for one makes have manufacturing here really expensive.

We need a territotorial corp tax system with different rates for different parts of the world. But then make them bring profits home instead of offshoring them. Drop the rate in exchange for closing the loophole.

Our govt just seems really more interested in things like social problems, gay marraige, gays in the military, gun control, womens rights.

[Arkie]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

Our govt just seems really more interested in things like social problems, gay marraige, gays in the military, gun control, womens rights.

The only reason they're interested in those things is because they are the most divisive. It's interesting how they have us divided 50/50. The two-party system seems too perfect and calculated that half of the voters will fall on each side. It's easier to control us when we fight each other and get distracted from the real problems.

[cutthemdown]

Originally Posted by Arkie

The only reason they're interested in those things is because they are the most divisive. It's interesting how they have us divided 50/50. The two-party system seems too perfect and calculated that half of the voters will fall on each side. It's easier to control us when we fight each other and get distracted from the real problems.

I agree absolutley.

[cutthemdown]

You can see Obama trying to blame the sluggish economy on the sequester right now. we are already contracting and he knows it. His whole first term economic plan is an utter failure. He didn;t hit any of the goals he set for the economy.

Now he knows it and is looking for a new albatross to hang it on. Bush getting to far in the rearview mirror to still work. So now he blames repubs in congress instead. Why because they only caved to higher taxes on the rich once so far this yr. He just got his taxes raised. Its time to barter on cuts with no new taxes but he won't do it.

Why because any deal is still not going to fix economy. He will be stuck with finally having to own this crap. Instead he will keep playing hardball so no deal gets done.

[TonyR]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

...the sluggish economy...

The recent rapid increase in gas prices, coupled with the expiration of the temporary payroll tax cut, is killing the economy right now.

[baja]

What's killing the economy is the predicted and expected death of the fiat money system.

Like all ponzi schemes it had a life cycle.

[baja]

Beware the Ides of March.