Military question

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Also, it's good to hunt monsters. It's good to put an end to genocide, torture cells, etc. We are taught to value life, but oftentimes we put a mirror on it and we value AMERICAN lives. Which is a bit hypocritical of our teachings as well.

Why not let the others hunt the monsters. The result will probably be the same. The world is opened up to trade.

[Knife]

Also, it's good to hunt monsters. It's good to put an end to genocide, torture cells, etc. We are taught to value life, but oftentimes we put a mirror on it and we value AMERICAN lives. Which is a bit hypocritical of our teachings as well.

Why not let the others hunt the monsters. The result will probably be the same. The world is opened up to trade.

Again, because nobody else is going to look after OUR interests. Only theirs. Our interests are global there fore we try to keep the ability to enforce our intersests globaly.

[tharkûn]

You are treating the payout level as an intrinsic feature of the system. It is not.

It is written into law, is not part of the discretionary budget, and requires one of the most contentious votes in congress to change. For all intents and purposes it is.

The only thing which is "pyramidal" about this scheme is that there happened to be a huge birthrate after it was started. Naturally, that produced very generous payouts for the people retiring after that baby boom hit the labour market. But how does it follow that this ratio of payout to payin is now fixed?

Its the law and only an act of Congress can change it. This is not a line item in the budget that can be dicked up or down at whim; it is an independant program with independant ass backwards funding.

Until Congress gets off its ass and treats this as a social programme where you CAN change the level of benifits it is a pyramid scheme.

So you're seriously saying that stock IPOs for overrated companies are all pyramid schemes? All you're doing is proving my point: you have a vastly overbroad definition of "pyramid scheme".

Look at the dot-com IPO's, how were they anything but pyramid schemes? They had virtually ZERO assets, they never returned dividends ... the only way people profited from them was because new investors poured money in. When the new investors dried up, the whole thing goes bust ... just like a pyramid scam.

Actually, a pyramid scheme does not merely require a "positive" rate of new members as opposed to dying members; it requires an exponential increase in members over time.

In order to maintain the present social security system the "positive rate" must be a geometric increase greater than the geometric increase in the retired population. Right now a 2% per annum increase is not sufficient to sustain the system; social security requires an even larger exponential increase in "investor" population.

Again, you treat it as an investment scheme. It's not an investment scheme, it's a social program. People already have individual investment schemes.

No it isn't, or if it is it happens to be horridly screwed. It is seperate from the rest of the government's budget, it pays out the most money to richest members of the population, and it promises benifits comiserate to the amount payed in. If it is a social program, it happens to be among the most ass backwards in the world.

But it would show that the US now considers health care to be a national priority, whereas it did not before. This indicates a major shift in policy and attitude, which is the point you keep ignoring.

Because I don't see your point. So the federal budget grew? Who gives a damn? Your priorities are determined by the amount of money you spend on them, not on if they are adminstered by the private sector, the local government, the regional government, or the federal government.

Further many priorities don't require massive funding. Take gay marriage, it takes virtually no money to institute it (or to prohibit it); and it can be a far higher priority than something mundane (like highway construction) which takes more cash.

Why does the relative size within the federal budget reflect priorities? Why can you blithely ignore money spent by individuals, by state governments, by localities?

I believe it's still a fair question to ask why the US needs such a large military, then. Of course, if the US runs around occupying other countries, it needs this level of armed forces. But that's the rub; most western democracies seem to have backed off the mindset of dominating foreign nations in order to expand one's power.

Compared to previous world powers it is an amazingly small military. If America wants to be the world hegemon, and it seems they do, they need a military capable of doing it. The size of the military they field is the smallest relative force of any hegemon in history.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Again, because nobody else is going to look after OUR interests. Only theirs. Our interests are global there fore we try to keep the ability to enforce our intersests globaly.

If we do it, what is to say another nation wouldnt be as benevolent. It is not like they are fascist dicatatorships Just kidding anyway. I get your point.