On Tue, 14 Oct 2003 19:11:21 -0400, Gary Coffman
wrote:

On Tue, 14 Oct 2003 19:05:42 GMT, Gunner wrote:
Ok, and how much of the "goods and services" are related to military
protection of other nations, with money spent in those nations, plus
that covered by the umbrella effect? A sizable fraction of our
military expenditures are dollars spent in other nations on
infrastructure alone. Do you have any figures for that?

Ok, here's the breakdown for fiscal year 2001.
all figures are in billions of dollars.

Pay $72.1
Operating and Maintenance Costs $110.2
Weapon Purchases $52.7
Weapon Research $38.0
Construction $8.9
Other $3.1
Department of Defense Subtotal $284.9

Department of Energy (Military) $13.4
Other $0.8

National Defense total $299.1

MILITARY-RELATED
Fiscal Year 2001

Foreign Military Aid $7.1
International Peacekeeping $1.1
Space (Military) $2.6
Military Retirement Pay $34.2
Veterans’ Benefits $45.4
Interest Attributable to Past Military Spending $94.8

Military and Military-Related Grand Total $484.3

Now you can see that the bulk of military spending is for pay
and retirement benefits, O&M costs, and a big chunk due to
interest on money borrowed in previous years to pay for it all.

Foreign costs would fall in the Foreign Military Aid category
(mostly to Israel), International Peacekeeping, and a bit of
the construction and O&M money for foreign bases.

Now it is true that other nations benefit from being under
our military umbrella. Japan immediately leaps to mind.
But don't forget that we're there primarily for our benefit,
not theirs. It isn't really to our security advantage to have
allies (who may be enemies once again some day) building
up large military forces. Better that only we have the big
stick.

How about benefits other nations derive from our R&D expenditures,
plus spin offs in medicine, space etc etc?

Well much of the R&D results are patented, so other nations have
to *pay* to make use of them. Spinoffs are not inconsequential,
but they're usually no bargain either. Almost always, the money
would have been better spent directly pursuing those things than
depending on them to incidently fall out from other expensive
programs of dubious value.

Knowledge is important, and our universities are the main source
for training technologists from most of the world. Many decide to
stay in the US, however, so this isn't as large a benefit to their
home countries as it may at first seem.

Not arguing, just wondering if the GDP really is an accurate indicator
of how that alleged 30% of world resources is used solely for the good
of Americans.

Well, GDP isn't really a good indicator of consumption of the world's
resources. Those resources are *raw materials* for the most part,
and there is very little value added in raw materials. The GDP mostly
reflects value added operations. We really would have to look at
raw tonnage figures to see how much of the Earth's resources we're
using on a per capita basis, ie how much iron, coal, oil, biomass,
water, etc, etc, etc. Without posting detailed figures, I'll only say
that our per capita consumption of those resources is extremely
larger than for most other nations of the world.

Gary

Thanks for the figures. Im not sure if they are telling the tale yet,
but I think it would be hard to figure out.

I keep hearing that 30% figure, and everytime someone uses it, its to
lead one to believe that its all going into swimming pools, and new
shoes for your kids etc etc.

I rather suspect that a fair chunk of that 30% is being returned to
the rest of the planet in the form of aid, goods and services and
other associated bennies.

At one time, the US was the worlds foremost user of the worlds
aluminum, but I recall seeing that a very large chunk of it was
returned to the rest of the planet as finished goods and raw metals.
Given that the US is no longer the biggest manufacturing state, it
would seem that might purchase a big chunk of finished goods, but the
money is being given to the actual resource users, whom make the
goods.

Im having a hard time quantifying what Im trying to say here, dammit.

Gunner

"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle
behind each blade of grass." --Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto