An article by Lawrence Wittner on Common Dreams is well worth reading.
"... World military spending reached a record $1,738 billion in 2011 -- an increase of $138 billion over the previous year. The United States accounted for 41 percent of that, or $711 billion. ..."
Monday, April 23, 2012
How your tax dollars are spent ...
... an illuminating new graphic analysis at http://www.accountingdegreeonline.net/tax-dollars/.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Moving from a War Economy to a Peace Economy
"Behind every question about how to get the United States back on track and improve the lives of average Americans (the so-called 99 percent) lies the necessity for economic conversion—that is, planning, designing, and implementing a transformation from a war economy to a peace economy. Historically, this is an effort that would include a changeover from military to civilian work in industrial facilities, in laboratories, and at U.S. military bases. ..."
This is the beginning of an important article by Mary Beth Sullivan published in the January/February 2012 issue of The Humanist. Read the full article...
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Military Spending is the Weakest Job Creator
By Miriam Pemberton
From Foreign Policy in Focus
From Foreign Policy in Focus
Even before the supercommittee’s demise, the defense industry and its Pentagon and congressional allies were making preemptive strikes on the next phase: the automatic cuts, half of them from defense, that are supposed to follow the supercommittee’s failure. And with national unemployment rates stuck near 9 percent, the effect of these cuts on jobs has loomed large in their sights.
The largest defense industry trade association, the Aerospace Industries Association, recently funded a study predicting $1 trillion in military cuts over 10 years would add 0.6 percent to the national unemployment rate. The Pentagon then funded its own study that conveniently rounded that prediction up to an even 1 percent. The glaring flaw in these studies is that they make claims about the effect on the economy as a whole as if these military cuts were being made in a vacuum.
The real world is a world of trade-offs. If you’re serious about examining the employment effect of these cuts in the military budget, you have to ask whether doing so would cost more or fewer jobs than doing something else with the money. New analysis by economists Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier at the University of Massachusetts provides the answer. Unlike the studies from AIA or the Pentagon, it is an independent analysis. It was funded by no industry or government agency — that is, no institution with a special interest in the outcome. Updating their previous studies from 2007 and 2009, Pollin and Garrett-Peltier compared the effects on jobs of spending an equivalent amount on the military, on clean energy, healthcare, education or simply returning the money to the private economy in the form of tax cuts. Among these options, military spending was the weakest job creator.
The number of jobs in each category has changed slightly compared to their earlier work — $1 billion doesn’t buy you as many jobs of any kind as it used to — but the overall conclusion is the same. Cutting military spending would cost fewer jobs than all these other options by a factor of between 50 percent and 140 percent.
The larger flaw in the effort to head off defense cuts with inflated jobs claims, of course, is that military spending is not supposed to be a jobs program. We ought to decide which military systems effectively defend our nation, then fully fund those programs and no others. Investing in our national military is like buying insurance. Since insurance purchases don’t do anything to improve their standard of living, families should only buy as much as they need to secure themselves from disaster. Likewise, societies need to buy as much military insurance as they need, but to spend more than that is to squander money that could go toward improving the productivity of the economy as a whole: with more efficient transportation systems, a better educated citizenry, and so on.
This is the point that retiring Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) learned back in 1999 in a House Banking Committee hearing with then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Frank asked what factors were producing our then-strong economic performance. On Greenspan’s list: “The freeing up of resources previously employed to produce military products that was brought about by the end of the Cold War.” Are you saying, Frank asked, “that dollar for dollar, military products are there as insurance … and to the extent you could put those dollars into other areas, maybe education and job trainings, maybe into transportation … that is going to have a good economic effect?” Greenspan agreed.
One trillion dollars in military cuts over 10 years would bring us, in real terms, to the same level we spent in 2007. More than we spent during the Cold War. As much as the rest of the world put together. More than enough insurance.
The Aerospace Industries Association claims to be a top job creator, but independent studies show just the opposite. Photo by US Army Africa.
The real world is a world of trade-offs. If you’re serious about examining the employment effect of these cuts in the military budget, you have to ask whether doing so would cost more or fewer jobs than doing something else with the money. New analysis by economists Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier at the University of Massachusetts provides the answer. Unlike the studies from AIA or the Pentagon, it is an independent analysis. It was funded by no industry or government agency — that is, no institution with a special interest in the outcome. Updating their previous studies from 2007 and 2009, Pollin and Garrett-Peltier compared the effects on jobs of spending an equivalent amount on the military, on clean energy, healthcare, education or simply returning the money to the private economy in the form of tax cuts. Among these options, military spending was the weakest job creator.
The number of jobs in each category has changed slightly compared to their earlier work — $1 billion doesn’t buy you as many jobs of any kind as it used to — but the overall conclusion is the same. Cutting military spending would cost fewer jobs than all these other options by a factor of between 50 percent and 140 percent.
The larger flaw in the effort to head off defense cuts with inflated jobs claims, of course, is that military spending is not supposed to be a jobs program. We ought to decide which military systems effectively defend our nation, then fully fund those programs and no others. Investing in our national military is like buying insurance. Since insurance purchases don’t do anything to improve their standard of living, families should only buy as much as they need to secure themselves from disaster. Likewise, societies need to buy as much military insurance as they need, but to spend more than that is to squander money that could go toward improving the productivity of the economy as a whole: with more efficient transportation systems, a better educated citizenry, and so on.
This is the point that retiring Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) learned back in 1999 in a House Banking Committee hearing with then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Frank asked what factors were producing our then-strong economic performance. On Greenspan’s list: “The freeing up of resources previously employed to produce military products that was brought about by the end of the Cold War.” Are you saying, Frank asked, “that dollar for dollar, military products are there as insurance … and to the extent you could put those dollars into other areas, maybe education and job trainings, maybe into transportation … that is going to have a good economic effect?” Greenspan agreed.
One trillion dollars in military cuts over 10 years would bring us, in real terms, to the same level we spent in 2007. More than we spent during the Cold War. As much as the rest of the world put together. More than enough insurance.
Monday, November 14, 2011
New study links TCE with Parkinson's Disease
TCE, which is contaminating Woodstock's groundwater thanks to the carelessness of the local weapons contractor, has long been known to be extremely poisonous, linked with cancer, heart defects, liver and kidney disease, and more. Now a study published in the Annals of Neurology has found a six-fold increase in the risk of Parkinson's disease among people exposed to the chemical. Another civilian legacy of the war economy...
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
The Military Spending Fairy
by Dean Baker From CEPR Blog
Faced with the prospect of cuts to the Defense Department's budget, the defense industry is pushing the story of the military spending fairy on members of Congress. They are telling them that these cuts will lead to the loss of more than 1 million jobs over the next decade.
Believers in the military spending fairy say things like "the government can't create jobs," but also think that military spending creates jobs. Under the military spending fairy story, if the government spends $1 billion dollars paying people to do research or to build items related to the civilian economy it is just a drag on the private economy; however if the same spending goes to military related purposes, then it creates jobs.
It's not clear exactly how the military fairy blesses projects to make them helpful to the economy rather than harmful. For example, the highways were built in the 50s ostensibly in part for defense purposes. They made it easier to move troops and military equipment around the country in the event of an attack. Government subsidized student loans were also originally dubbed as defense loans since they were ostensibly intended in part to produce more graduates in science and engineering who could help us compete with the Soviet Union in defense related technologies.
Using this same logic, perhaps President Obama could get the military spending fairy to bless some of his stimulus spending so that it will be economically useful. He could again call student loans "defense loans." He could also have the research into clean energy technologies be viewed as providing alternative sources for energy for the military in the event we are cut off from oil imports in a war. (It makes as much sense as the highway story.) Then the military spending fairy can bless the stimulus as creating jobs.
For people who don't believe in the military spending fairy, the story is simple. During a downturn where there are lots of unemployed workers, any government spending will create jobs, regardless of whether or not it is on the military. In fact, military spending is likely to create fewer jobs than spending in most other areas (e.g. education, health care, conservation) because it is more capital intensive.
When the economy is near full employment, military spending is a drag on the economy. It pulls resources away from private sector uses, lowering investment and increasing the trade deficit. This leads to job losses, which are likely to be felt most severely in manufacturing and construction.
In short, for those who do not believe in the military spending fairy, military spending will cost jobs in either the short-term of long-term. If the spending doesn't make sense in terms of advancing national security, then it doesn't make sense period: end of story.
Faced with the prospect of cuts to the Defense Department's budget, the defense industry is pushing the story of the military spending fairy on members of Congress. They are telling them that these cuts will lead to the loss of more than 1 million jobs over the next decade.
Believers in the military spending fairy say things like "the government can't create jobs," but also think that military spending creates jobs. Under the military spending fairy story, if the government spends $1 billion dollars paying people to do research or to build items related to the civilian economy it is just a drag on the private economy; however if the same spending goes to military related purposes, then it creates jobs.
It's not clear exactly how the military fairy blesses projects to make them helpful to the economy rather than harmful. For example, the highways were built in the 50s ostensibly in part for defense purposes. They made it easier to move troops and military equipment around the country in the event of an attack. Government subsidized student loans were also originally dubbed as defense loans since they were ostensibly intended in part to produce more graduates in science and engineering who could help us compete with the Soviet Union in defense related technologies.
Using this same logic, perhaps President Obama could get the military spending fairy to bless some of his stimulus spending so that it will be economically useful. He could again call student loans "defense loans." He could also have the research into clean energy technologies be viewed as providing alternative sources for energy for the military in the event we are cut off from oil imports in a war. (It makes as much sense as the highway story.) Then the military spending fairy can bless the stimulus as creating jobs.
For people who don't believe in the military spending fairy, the story is simple. During a downturn where there are lots of unemployed workers, any government spending will create jobs, regardless of whether or not it is on the military. In fact, military spending is likely to create fewer jobs than spending in most other areas (e.g. education, health care, conservation) because it is more capital intensive.
When the economy is near full employment, military spending is a drag on the economy. It pulls resources away from private sector uses, lowering investment and increasing the trade deficit. This leads to job losses, which are likely to be felt most severely in manufacturing and construction.
In short, for those who do not believe in the military spending fairy, military spending will cost jobs in either the short-term of long-term. If the spending doesn't make sense in terms of advancing national security, then it doesn't make sense period: end of story.
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