Firstly that map showing military expenditures according to GDP made it clearly obvious to me that the US is the only MAJOR country spending as much as it does.  Notice that all of Europe and all of Asia (except for Russia) and most of the rest of the world too were all green.
Secondly to expect the poor to be paying the same tax as the uber rich is insane.  The poor can barely put food on their table already... hell with the bottom 90% income level increasing only 1.3% over the past 10 years and with the inflation always stuck at 4% what does that say to you?  Todays poor have much much less money to spend then they did 10 years ago.  Hell do the math its crazy how much less money then they have 10 years ago.  At 4% inflation a $1000 item 10 years ago would now cost $1480.  And yet with an income increase of 1.3% the poor only have $138 increase in income if they made $1000 10 years ago.  Seems pretty clear that the poor are being screwed left right and centre by having their wages essentially frozen by the very companies who are making record profits year after year after year...

EXACTLY!!!

The point was that we spend similar amounts as all the other nations. We are in 2 wars so ours is a little higher than normal.

All these people telling us that we spend so much are never based in any kind of scale. GDP shows all the nations spend about the same amount.

similar?  is that what you call 63%?  that is the difference between the States military spending and the rest of the world (4.3 vs 2.7).  Would you be ok with being paid 63% less then another person doing the same job as you?  Why not you have the idea that 63% is about the same amount.  Come on Swamp, think about what you say before you say it.  Do you realise how much money the States has thrown away at just the Iraq war?  Approximately $845 billion dollars.  And apparently costing the US economy $3 trillion dollars.  Just to give you all a sense of how big a number 3 trillion dollars is... if $1 was 1 second 1000 seconds is 16 minutes 1 million seconds is 1.65 weeks, 1 billion seconds is 31.68 years so 3 billion seconds is 95.04 years.  Thats right 3 trillion seconds is equal to just over 95 years!  now that is a big big big number.  Now what was that war all about now?  oh yah the war isnt over isnt it?

BTW there are only 9 countries (out of 153) in the world that spends more per GDP then the States does and one of them is Iraq (whom you guys are at war with) even Afghanistan (the other country you are at war with) only spends 1.9%.  Yah Swamp about the same....  right....

About the same means that countrys that are a little less than you are "About the same".

Comparing as a percentrage of the GDP is the most logical way to examine 2 nations military spending.

Thats right, for all the years we were in Iraq defending our interests and killing terrorist scum we spent about as much as the Obama stimulus package.

Posted by swamphawk22 on 9/28/2010 4:02:00 AM (view original):
About the same means that countrys that are a little less than you are "About the same".

Comparing as a percentrage of the GDP is the most logical way to examine 2 nations military spending.

Thats right, for all the years we were in Iraq defending our interests and killing terrorist scum we spent about as much as the Obama stimulus package.

You can keep comparing the GDP because it makes you feel better but it doesn't put into focus the obscene dollar amount the US spends on the military.



663 billion spent by the US in 2009, more than the next 16 countries combined.
Defending our interests or the oil companies interests?

Swamp you must be thick to think that 63% more is about the same.  Come on now...  And btw nice revisionist history there it was Bush that started the "stimulus" package.  Obama continued it no doubt but it was signed into law by Bush.

Defending your interests?  You do know that Iraq had nothing to do with 911 right?  You do know that Bush himself admitted years after he started the year that they knew there were no WMDs right?  How about the fact that according to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan the war is illegal.

Hey Swamp before you spout off on how great Bush was why not do a little research eh?

*started the war*  ---- sorry typo

If he did any research his belief system would be shot.

Where did you pull your data - I would seriously question that China has "only" spent a little less than $ 100 Billion.  With all of the upgrades that they have been making, not too mention the size of their armed forces personnel.  I would think it would have to be more.

How much of the US military budget is spent on staffing and maintaining all of the bases we keep in every part of the world?  I understand that some are not as necessary as others, and also that times they are-a-changing, but don't you think the Europeans in the 50s and 60s were glad that the US was there with more than a minimal presence? 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/8002911/Defence-spending-the-worlds-biggest-armies-in-stats.html

Posted by greeny9 on 9/28/2010 11:45:00 AM (view original):
Swamp you must be thick to think that 63% more is about the same.  Come on now...  And btw nice revisionist history there it was Bush that started the "stimulus" package.  Obama continued it no doubt but it was signed into law by Bush.

Defending your interests?  You do know that Iraq had nothing to do with 911 right?  You do know that Bush himself admitted years after he started the year that they knew there were no WMDs right?  How about the fact that according to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan the war is illegal.

Hey Swamp before you spout off on how great Bush was why not do a little research eh?

1 Again we are not talking hard dollars, but a percentage of GDP. We spend about 5% and Russia I believe goes about 4.4% and France about 3.9%. So we are all in the same ballpark. Bush did sign a small stimulus bill in 2008, about $135 Bil if I am not mistaken. Not the $1 trillion dollar monster that did not even start as a bill before Obama took over and was signed by Obama...no Bush at all.

2 First show me Bush admitting he knew there were no WMDs. Everyone else seemed to think there were some. And Iraq actually used them on their own people in the past. Hard to make the jump from had them and used them to never heard of it. Iraq had no connection to the 9/11 attacks. They had direct ties to terrorists. You can argue about hitting Iraq vs something else. You cannot argue that a response to terror had to happen.

3 So you were wrong about the stimulus, cannot prove your WMD claim, and I am not doing research??

Posted by wrmiller13 on 9/28/2010 12:56:00 PM (view original):
Where did you pull your data - I would seriously question that China has "only" spent a little less than $ 100 Billion.  With all of the upgrades that they have been making, not too mention the size of their armed forces personnel.  I would think it would have to be more.

How much of the US military budget is spent on staffing and maintaining all of the bases we keep in every part of the world?  I understand that some are not as necessary as others, and also that times they are-a-changing, but don't you think the Europeans in the 50s and 60s were glad that the US was there with more than a minimal presence? 

The PLA is the world's largest standing army, but it's still "only" about 2.5 million people. And it doesn't cost that much to have them practice marching.