Can the world survive 6 more years of Donald Trump?

[Archon_Wing]

Maybe, you're getting bad press because it's the truth?

Funny how spending money on helping people is Communist, yet spending millions of dollars on a fascistic parade is perfectly fine. All I know is that the lives of many is < a parade. If anywhere in your mind thinks this is acceptable, the red cap is blocking your vision.

Yea, media bias that pls.

 

[Commodore]

Funny how spending money on helping people is Communist,

That's assuming the money spent is actually helping people.

 

[Ryika]

Ouch

It's funny how they adopted postmodernist ideas.

 

[Archon_Wing]

That's assuming the money spent is actually helping people.

Well I suppose it could be spent on dropping bombs on people.

While true that it doesn't mean the money would be used correctly anyways, there are some ways that are more prone to waste than others.

 

[Traitorfish]

That's assuming the money spent is actually helping people.

The implication being that because public spending might be misallocated, we may as well just blow it on things that we know are a waste of money?

(And, y'know, I'm being facetious, but it's a general rule that conservatives favour being certain over being right, so who even knows with this administration.)

 

[metalhead]

Nah, conservatives actually have no idea about how government spending works, because their political philosophy operates on blind faith. It has to, because it is entirely disproven by evidence in the historical record.

Not wanting government health coverage because some money might end up wasted is just, like, the dumbest possible argument. Ever deal with a health insurance company or a medical billing department? Know what they are experts at wasting? My time. My time is valuable.

The millions of hours spent by the very fine people on both the provider and consumer sides dealing with medical billing has a huge cost. Eliminating much of that would be a huge boon to providers and patients. I just don't know how anyone can be philosophically opposed to that. Government bureaucracies can be obtuse, sure, but insurance company bureaucracy is needlessly obtuse on purpose.

 

[Socrates99]

Nah, conservatives actually have no idea about how government spending works, because their political philosophy operates on blind faith. It has to, because it is entirely disproven by evidence in the historical record.

Not wanting government health coverage because some money might end up wasted is just, like, the dumbest possible argument. Ever deal with a health insurance company or a medical billing department? Know what they are experts at wasting? My time. My time is valuable.

The millions of hours spent by the very fine people on both the provider and consumer sides dealing with medical billing has a huge cost. Eliminating much of that would be a huge boon to providers and patients. I just don't know how anyone can be philosophically opposed to that. Government bureaucracies can be obtuse, sure, but insurance company bureaucracy is needlessly obtuse on purpose.

Private insurance does waste money. Medicare's overhead is between 2% and 5%. Most private ins companies hover just under 20% only because the ACA mandates a min of 80% gets passed on to healthcare providers. There are some outliers like BCBS that hit ~11% so...um...kudos?

Then being obtuse is completely necessary from their point of view. They have every incentive to avoid paying out. Making it a pain for patients is absolutely intentional.

 

[Commodore]

The implication being that because public spending might be misallocated, we may as well just blow it on things that we know are a waste of money?

Well we know the military isn't a waste of money since it keeps the nation safe merely by existing. Especially in the US. We spend so much on our military to make the rest of the world consider the idea of directly attacking the US absolutely unthinkable. The proposed parade would help with that image of invincibility by putting the US's might on display for the world to see. Personally though, I've never been big on the idea of military parades, but they do serve a purpose. Aside from being a useful propaganda tool against our enemies, such parades can also serve to raise morale among our own troops. I remember right before my brigade deployed to Iraq, we had a military parade so the post commander of Fort Lewis could see us off and so our families could see us in all our glory. I will say, it did make us feel pretty darn good about ourselves.

As for welfare spending, I've never been against it. I have first hand experience on how it helps people get their lives back on track. I was just making the point that how the money is spent is more important than the amount of money that is spent.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Well we know the military isn't a waste of money since it keeps the nation safe merely by existing. Especially in the US. We spend so much on our military to make the rest of the world consider the idea of directly attacking the US absolutely unthinkable. The proposed parade would help with that image of invincibility by putting the US's might on display for the world to see. Personally though, I've never been big on the idea of military parades, but they do serve a purpose. Aside from being a useful propaganda tool against our enemies, such parades can also serve to raise morale among our own troops. I remember right before my brigade deployed to Iraq, we had a military parade so the post commander of Fort Lewis could see us off and so our families could see us in all our glory. I will say, it did make us feel pretty darn good about ourselves.

As for welfare spending, I've never been against it. I have first hand experience on how it helps people get their lives back on track. I was just making the point that how the money is spent is more important than the amount of money that is spent.

The US gets intangeable benefits for running a Military Hegemony, not only dose it have a free hand in setting many international iniatives which directly benefit the US.
It also gets the power of the printing press for the world reserve currency, It gets large share of the arms market to its protectorate states and it still has a bank of prestigue / reputation it can tap into. (Though the Republican presidents have been draining US good will)

Cost of an overly large military dose come with significant benefits for the US.
Though I suspect if Trump pushes hard enough, the West might well look towards germany as an alternate superpower, it would be hilarous is in ten years German Panzers and Uboats and Jet fighters were the most desireable weapons and eating into the US sales arms share.

 

[Commodore]

Though I suspect if Trump pushes hard enough, the West might well look towards germany as an alternate superpower, it would be hilarous is in ten years German Panzers and Uboats and Jet fighters were the most desireable weapons and eating into the US sales arms share.

I actually think France is in a better position to become the next military leader of the West if the US should crumble. They are the only other Western nation aside from the US and UK that invests significantly in power projection capability and French/Belgian weaponry, notably small arms, are starting to become very popular in both the military and private markets around the world. Even here in the US, the FN FAL is a pretty popular rifle to own and our own military uses licensed copies of the FN Minimi light machine gun and the FN MAG general-purpose machine gun. Some of our special operations forces also use the FN SCAR as well.

Plus, Germany did have a lot of buyers for their Leopard 2 tanks until their extremely poor performance in Syria. Now a lot of countries that have purchased them or were considering purchasing them are starting to rethink those plans. Now their Puma IFV is a different story. That's actually a pretty good fighting vehicle. So much so that the US was considering purchasing them as a potential replacement for our aging fleet of Bradley IFVs. The ultimate decision though was to just continue upgrading and modernizing the Bradleys.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well we know the military isn't a waste of money since it keeps the nation safe merely by existing. Especially in the US.

So because military spending can be cost-effective, it is therefore always cost-effective.

But this enchantment doesn't extend to other forms of public spending?

 

[Socrates99]

So because military spending can be cost-effective, it is therefore always cost-effective.

But this enchantment doesn't extend to other forms of public spending?

Bernie introduces a bill for tuition free community college costing ~$60b. The response is "how you gonna pay for that?"
Congress just dumps another $61b on the Pentagon and who complains? Pretty much just Rand Paul.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Yeah I categorically disagree with this too. And let me reiterate, even if you were right I would still rather round up and shoot racists than change any of my positions on immigration.

Could you just stop being an utterly abhorrent human being for 5 minutes?