Which country is next?

[rexmerdinus]

Iran now. Spain next? Greece? USA?

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10/03 ... s-to-fall/

[blackrabbit]

Iran is a unique situation because of the economic sanctions which cuts it off from the western financial world.

[joemac]

Almost certainly Japan.

[cesariojpn]

Almost certainly Japan.

No, China. The more they aggravate their neighbors and pull stupid s*** like invading islands and cutting off economic lifelines, the more people will flock away from them.

It's happened to Rare Earth Materials for starters. People are looking elsewhere to ensure that if China goes full idiot, supplies of such material aren't affected much. Ditto for quality control of many goods as well.

[Sheikh_yer_Bu'Tay]

I bet someone is flooding their markets with counterfeit. The British did that to us during the Revolutionary War. They destroyed our Continental Dollar.

Crashing their monetary unit is better than shooting guns, dropping bombs, etc. Let's hope it works.

[cesariojpn]

I bet someone is flooding their markets with counterfeit. The British did that to us during the Revolutionary War. They destroyed our Continental Dollar.

Crashing their monetary unit is better than shooting guns, dropping bombs, etc. Let's hope it works.

They've actually done it to themselves in a sense. The Chinese renmbei isn't seen as a stable reserve currency, and the money is actually artificially propped up to the point where if it wasn't propped up, it would immediately crash the Chinese Economy.

[SilverDragon72]

Yikes. Hopefully, we won't see anything like that....but with our present course regarding the Dollar...it will be inevitable someday.

Keep stacking.

[blackrabbit]

Here is a really interesting article on the Iran situation. http://www.businessinsider.com/actually-there-is-no-hyperinflation-in-iran-2012-10

"The other problem is that if you destroy the Iranian middle class – a process which may well have begun with the events of this week – what you're doing is depriving the most active people in the society of the resources with which to challenge the government."

For similar reasons the western elites are destroying the western middle class in my opinion.

[everything]

Iran is allot like us. They have a military spending problem. Even the U.S. dominates the world small arms market comprising 78% of the total, we are as bad as any of them including selling parts for land mines, maybe we still sell the finished product, would not surprise me, which is basically an IED.

[68Camaro]

Iran is allot like us. They have a military spending problem. ...

Which would be your opinion (the US having a spending problem), not obvious from the facts, and an opinion not shared by everyone, even a lot of people, including me. As I've posted before, our military spending as a % of GNP is at or near a 70 year low, and that's EVEN with running two wars (regardless of your opinion of the wars). Subtract the war costs and our military is extremely lean, given its responsiblity, and the number of enemies we have. The best peacekeeping policy is a strong military. I want a strong defense, and a strong military to provide that defense. If you don't like the way the policitians use the military, change the government - don't change the military.

We have a spending problem. The problem is not (primarily) with military spending. It's with entitlements, which dwarf military spending by a massive factor.

[everything]

Name the enemies, name the entitlements, throw a comparison to another country in as well since your so up on it. We spend upwards between a half and one trillion a year on military. Thanks. Oh, for welfare, the U.S. is just about dead last in spending compared to all the other developed nations, I checked this not long ago.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailycha ... y-spending

Iran is allot like us. They have a military spending problem. ...

Which would be your opinion (the US having a spending problem), not obvious from the facts, and an opinion not shared by everyone, even a lot of people, including me. As I've posted before, our military spending as a % of GNP is at or near a 70 year low, and that's EVEN with running two wars (regardless of your opinion of the wars). Subtract the war costs and our military is extremely lean, given its responsiblity, and the number of enemies we have. The best peacekeeping policy is a strong military. I want a strong defense, and a strong military to provide that defense. If you don't like the way the policitians use the military, change the government - don't change the military.

We have a spending problem. The problem is not (primarily) with military spending. It's with entitlements, which dwarf military spending by a massive factor.

[SilverDragon72]

Iran is allot like us. They have a military spending problem. ...

Which would be your opinion (the US having a spending problem), not obvious from the facts, and an opinion not shared by everyone, even a lot of people, including me. As I've posted before, our military spending as a % of GNP is at or near a 70 year low, and that's EVEN with running two wars (regardless of your opinion of the wars). Subtract the war costs and our military is extremely lean, given its responsiblity, and the number of enemies we have. The best peacekeeping policy is a strong military. I want a strong defense, and a strong military to provide that defense. If you don't like the way the policitians use the military, change the government - don't change the military.

We have a spending problem. The problem is not (primarily) with military spending. It's with entitlements, which dwarf military spending by a massive factor.

I think a good question would be...."Why do we have so many enemies to worry about?"

Could it be because of our horrible foreign policy?

[68Camaro]

Name the enemies, name the entitlements, throw a comparison to another country in as well since your so up on it. We spend upwards between a half and one trillion a year on military. Thanks. Oh, for welfare, the U.S. is just about dead last in spending compared to all the other developed nations, I checked this not long ago.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailycha ... y-spending

Interesting, the article you quote answers a lot of the questions you pose to me. Who? China, for one (among many). The first paragraph mentions their commissioning of their first aircraft carrier. And many of our supposed allies would gladly knife us in the back given half a chance. We have few real, true allies.

There are many who would gladly take advantage of a weak US. 4.8% of GDP is at or near our lowest level in 70 years. We stopped Japan and Germany and USSR from world domination - unfortunately that's hardly even taught in schools anymore, but there is a cost to being us. You would have been speaking another language without that protection.

Welfare isn't a constitutional principle - defense is. US isn't (yet) fully a socialist or communist country - many others are. We are already paying a ridiculous level for entitlements. Most of the 5 trillion in debt for the past 4 years went to one or another type of entititlement, whether direct or indirect.

Edit: Had to stop for lunch.... I'm not saying that we're not spending a good chunk of change. The question that is fair game is whether or not it is needed, and if we're getting the best bang for the buck. I forgot to point out that the article you quote (I'll use yours) has 2010 US defense spending at <700 billon, less than half of your quoted number above. An interesting side-note is that a fair amount of our defense spending provides defense (both weapons as well as services) to many of these countries. Canada, Mexico... They lie under our umbrella, and they know it. The Florida National Guard spends more money than some of these countries - because they don't need to. But there are a large number of countries - our potential enemies - that are significantly increasing their spending. Go find a plot of Chinese defense spending over time. Here it is below in constant USD. They are expanding at an average rate of at least 10-12% rate year on year. And keep in mind that a USD in China buys ~10x what it does in the US (the source below says 5x, but I think that's low by a factor of at least 2). If you go look at the research paper behind this graph, you'll see that Chinese defense spending has increased at double-digit rates (as much as 18%) year on year 19 times in the past 20 years, and within a year or two (if not already) they will surpass the US in equivalent military purchasing power.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... t_2012.png

Quoting that:

On February 13, 2012 President Barack Obama sent to Congress a proposed defense budget of $613.9 billion for fiscal 2013. The request for the Department of Defense (DoD) includes $525.4 billion in discretionary budget authority to fund base defense programs and $88.5 billion to support Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), primarily in Afghanistan. The United States' in February 2011 request totalled of $671 billion, so the US military budget declined by about the same percentage by which the Chinese budget increased. The Chinese military budget, at official exchange rates, is one-seventh that of the United States. But on a more appropriate purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, the Chinese military expenditure is about $450,000,000,000, about three-quarters that of the United States.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... budget.htm

[rexmerdinus]

The first paragraph mentions their commissioning of their first aircraft carrier.

I remember reading that when it was first reported. China has not traditionally had the ability to wage a land war across an ocean, but they will and sooner than I'd like to think about. Fortunately, there are those who are paid to think about it--and plan for it.

[everything]

War between the countries you mention is game over, nobody wins. How can China be our enemy, they are our best economic trading partner. So many of our corporations have moved over to China. I.E. Apple, GE, GM

The only time troops are sent in anywhere anymore is as peace keepers, otherwise they are no longer needed, air wars is the only way and we know we can't win guerilla style, we've tried time and time again.

It's kind of a known fact that if the U.S. stopped all defense spending the economy would go into immediate depression, that is how dependent we are on war.

[68Camaro]

I'm sure there is no point in further discussion with you, but I'll make a last note. War takes all kinds of forms. Immediately after being close allies we were at war with USSR for 45 years, without many shots being fired. We finally buried them economically by forcing them in a number of ways, including diversions and fakes, to spend more money on their military to keep up with us than they could afford. We have been and still are political enemies with China, though they've been smart enough to use us, to play us in our weaknesses - especially our greed, so they can get ahead, take our technology and become the new world superpower. Which they will do. They are clearly flaunting their newfound power and challenging us. They don't have to attack our shores with guns blazing to be at war with us.

Air power, as brilliant as it is, doesn't win wars - winning a war takes troops on the ground to wrap things up. Allowing the ground troops the freedom to clean up does take air power. Not having air superiority is a disaster on the ground. But no ground troops, no win - at it ends a stalemate at best.

You are mostly right on one point - we can't win guerilla wars, actually no one can unless they do either of two things: 1) spend a lot of money and successfully peacefully convert the population (we have tried that, with failure in Viet Nam, doubtful results in Iraq, and we are losing that in Afghanistan), 2) the one used for thousands of years before (and still in use by others) is to be ruthless enough to wipe out the civilian population and force them to integrate with the conquerors. What was the norm centuries ago isn't acceptable for us now. The society that is willing to to that, however, can win them. So just because we won't do it ourselves doesn't mean it isn't done, or can't be done to us by someone willing to go that far. I wouldn't rule that out by Communist China - they've done it before and I believe would do it again if it put them at the top of the world. It certainly seems to be popular in that region of the world - former Cambodia, former Imperial Japan, current N. Korea.

You are welcome to have the last word on this mini-thread.

[knibloe]

Camaro,

I am right behind you:

1. Defence spending is constitutional. The entitlments are not.
2. A strong military will prevent wars.
3. Anyone who thinks China is not a threat to the US is at best completely uninformed.
4. Whay do we have so many enemies? There are many reasons. However, here a a couple that are completely unrelated to our foreign policy:
a. We are the best nation on earth and others envy that. b. We are a Christian nation and Islam hates that.

[Engineer]

1. Defence spending is constitutional. The entitlments are not.

Sometimes the lines get fuzzy, especially when the military budget is used in place of entitlement spending.

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/09/army-to-congress-thanks-but-no-tanks/

[blackrabbit]

No country including China could ever do an offensive war against the USA. We have enough nukes to blow up the solar system. Way too much money is spent on the military. Much is wasted on pointless crap. Much of the waste is worse than welfare which some of at least gets spent on food, clothing and shelter for people. We could cut back greatly on military spending and it would not make us less safe at all. That is all I will say on this this thread as it belongs somewhere outside the bullion section. Did I mention I love silver, gold, platinum and palladium and am happy to store yours for you for a modest fee if you want to send it to me.

[Treetop]

and am happy to store yours for you for a modest fee if you want to send it to me.

Heck I will bury any amount of any PMs in places noone could ever find for FREE. Only stipulation is, if said person dies (and their relatives dont come knocking) before they come back to get it, me or my surviving family get to keep it. Also if you want to pick your own spot it cant be where my gardens or orchards are going.

As for military spending? We do it ALL wrong imo. sorry. If it was up to me, this current set of wars would be surgical by comparison. decimate actual known proven legit targets that pose us a threat, ignore the rest of the country entirely unless its help dealing with issues we caused hitting the real threats.

I also think our overseas bases are WAY over funded. most of these could be useful one day, but mean little in an age we can move significant chunks of our military in short order. So imo there is also money to be saved there.

then we have stuff like hiring out the blackwater AKA XE AKA whatever they heck they are called now type groups. these folks make WAY WAY more then our troops. which is a slap in the face to our servicemen imo. We also have things like haliburton or a company they own perhaps that takes our troops their food. I believe it was something like 100 bucks a meal for the same crap food they always got. Basically about 4-6 bucks worth of food tops. clearly this is a scam. Im sure there are lots of other things like that out there...

As far as Im concerned we could likely save a significant amount from our military spending while ALSO increasing the effectiveness and ability to defend our homeland! I read once we keep shrinking the size of our navy, which is a huge mistake. If anything we should be expanding it with ships built to last the ages.

Looking at past cultures tells me we are wise to have a strong military. but at the same time tells me that we might just level our own culture trying to protect it, since weve abused both our military expenses and our monies value. Many past cultures did the same thing, it seems cultures on top of the food chain have a hard time bypassing this. Its a type of arrogance. Our country has it bad unfortunately. Hopefully we can survive it and reset without having to loose what makes this social experiment we call america so great entirely.

[68Camaro]

As for military spending? We do it ALL wrong imo. sorry.

If you say it's ALL wrong, then of course you're wrong. Sorry.

If it was up to me, this current set of wars would be surgical by comparison. decimate actual known proven legit targets that pose us a threat, ignore the rest of the country entirely unless its help dealing with issues we caused hitting the real threats.

I also think our overseas bases are WAY over funded. most of these could be useful one day, but mean little in an age we can move significant chunks of our military in short order. So imo there is also money to be saved there.

then we have stuff like hiring out the blackwater AKA XE AKA whatever they heck they are called now type groups. these folks make WAY WAY more then our troops. which is a slap in the face to our servicemen imo. We also have things like haliburton or a company they own perhaps that takes our troops their food. I believe it was something like 100 bucks a meal for the same crap food they always got. Basically about 4-6 bucks worth of food tops. clearly this is a scam. Im sure there are lots of other things like that out there...

As far as Im concerned we could likely save a significant amount from our military spending while ALSO increasing the effectiveness and ability to defend our homeland! I read once we keep shrinking the size of our navy, which is a huge mistake. If anything we should be expanding it with ships built to last the ages.

Sure, we could argue over whether certain spending items are most effective. I'm not going to fall on my sword over ever line item. The real question is, how effective is it, and how effective do we need it to be? Is it 80% effective? 70? 90? 98? Does it need to be 99.99% effective, or is 80% still reasonable? (I doubt most personal budgets are 80% effective.) You can complain about a couple of billion out of 700. Or even 100 out of 700, and you might be right. There is waste there. And there are genuinue differences of opinion on how to wage the current war or the next war, and that leads to duplicative spending. Some of that is necessary. Just don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Looking at past cultures tells me we are wise to have a strong military. but at the same time tells me that we might just level our own culture trying to protect it, since weve abused both our military expenses and our monies value. Many past cultures did the same thing, it seems cultures on top of the food chain have a hard time bypassing this. Its a type of arrogance. Our country has it bad unfortunately. Hopefully we can survive it and reset without having to loose what makes this social experiment we call america so great entirely.

Not entirely focused on your specific response Zac, but in general I keep hearing this blah, blah, blah about how its an accepted fact that the military spending is abusive and all waste and greed. Never backed up with any hard numbers, and never any truly useful alternate solution other than proposal of the improbable or impossible from people that don't know what they are talking about, which if implemented we might as well kiss our a$$es goodbye. People have been saying this (and have been wrong) since the early 1790s Congress argued over spending a 100 grand to start our first fleet of frigates, the opponents of this which argued were a complete waste of money. They were clearly wrong then, and they are wrong now. Let's be pro-efficiency, not anti-military.

[Treetop]

well Im not anti military, not at all! in fact as far as Im concerned its likely we could have a stronger military and spend less.

I could cite numbers to back my case that I believe we spend to much, and should instead spend more in other ways. I think we all know the general types of issues I mean though, like the listed factor of outsourcing taking food to troops, and hiring those private armies instead of perhaps adding incentives for more to join the military with that cash.

But really this is semantics. If we treated our dollar and budget well, we could spend double on our military and sustain it. The problem comes with the two issues together. Go look at our budget. Keep in mind a rough idea of how much of our tax base comes from what you might call "intangibles" such as stock trading that potentially falls away if real economic issues hit. Look at how much of our economy is based entirely on gov spending. And heck you know this stuff better then me probably. So what level of our tax base disappears in a true budget or currency issue? hell several countries own enough debt they could trigger major issues for the dollar even accidentally needing to get cash for themselves out of their reserves of dollars. military spending takes up a solid portion of our income NOW, so what will it do when our income is cut in half? and we cant borrow anymore. (by the way Ive read our military is currently readying to adapt to such a reality so they can be as effective as possible in such an event)

now THAT is where the issue comes in. We could point at ANY spending and say THIS caused it, depending on what we personally value. Truth is whatever particular spending we pick doesnt matter as long as our currency remains a store of value and our budget is sustainable through the ups and downs natural in an economy.

Look at greece as Im sure you have. this aint some third world nation rioting because rice costs more then they make in a day. this is a first world nation that lived WAY beyond their means and now they burn random parts of their own country being angry because the gravy train has to end. you know as well as i do, on our current path we are headed for issues as greater or perhaps greater since NO ONE could bail us out even if they wanted to. Im sure you also know we will also have some level of similar riots, which will also lead to military in our streets if it happens. this is all just assumptions of course, but I think the general trend atleast is likely.

So what will that leave our military? half its budget? Less? if we fund it fully wed have WAY bigger cuts in other areas, and wed have a large portion of the population IRATE. as they struggle to eat most likely.

this is where issues come in for the military in this regard. hope that makes it a bit clearer what I was getting at. Im not always the clearest at expressing what I mean.

[68Camaro]

No doubt we have huge issues, and no will to resolve them as a population or government. Yes, Greece now is us in 3-8 years.

[SilverDragon72]

Iran is allot like us. They have a military spending problem. Even the U.S. dominates the world small arms market comprising 78% of the total, we are as bad as any of them including selling parts for land mines, maybe we still sell the finished product, would not surprise me, which is basically an IED.

That would be one of our top exports....Weapons!

Should we be proud of that?

[68Camaro]

Iran is allot like us. They have a military spending problem. Even the U.S. dominates the world small arms market comprising 78% of the total, we are as bad as any of them including selling parts for land mines, maybe we still sell the finished product, would not surprise me, which is basically an IED.

That would be one of our top exports....Weapons!

Should we be proud of that?

Dunno, you rather have our allies fight with French, German, Russian, or Chinese weapons? They pick ours because they integrate well with us in joint operations, and regardless of that, they are (generally, on the whole, especially for the more sophisticated types) the best there are. Hmmm, yeah, I say we should be dang proud of that!