The Military ruined this country

[jeff47]

91. So many errors....

The American economy is significantly based in the production of war machinery.

2010 US GDP: $14.45 Trillion

US Military Budget 2010: Procurement $140.1 billion, Research and Development $79.1 billion. So $219.2 Billion spent on the production of war machinery.

So, 1.5% of GDP was spent on the production of war machinery. 1.5% is not "significantly based". For comparison, we spent $421 Billion at Wal-Mart in 2010, which was 3% of GDP.

Let's put the entire 2010 defense budget in there: $683.7 billion. 4.7% GDP. Still hard to call less than 5% GDP as 'significantly based'.

Why use 2010 numbers? It's the last year there was a budget.

Sources: (DU won't put them in as links nicely)
GDP: http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=us+gdp
Military Budget: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Budget_for_2010

War machinery has almost no value outside of wartime.

I trust the irony of saying this on the Internet is lost on you. Perhaps you should go reheat some Turkey-day leftovers in your microwave oven. Or you could call someone using your cellular telephone.

Another resource subtracted from the system are young people, who, would otherwise be working at the factory producing washing machines or table saws or clothing if they weren't in Germany providing security over any resurgence in Nazism.

Unemployment among factory workers is currently very high. If those soldiers were "back home", it's unlikely they'd find nice factory jobs.

Ironically, high-paying factory jobs in the US are primarily in building equipment for the military - they can't outsource for classification reasons.

America followed the war weapons industry the way China followed the make everything else industry. Look who won.

The US.

US 2011 GDP: $15.09 Trillion, 315 Million people, $47,904 per person.
China 2011 GDP: $7.32 Trillion, 1.35 Billion people, or $5,422.22 per person.

"China's kicking our ass!!" is a false right-wing talking point designed to slash US worker paychecks. Additionally, China's stability is based on unsustainable growth. They're starting to have some problems since they can no longer maintain their growth.

We are now arguing over whether class sizes should be increased, social security should be decreased, and all because America decided that making tanks and warships and jets were the answer to everything.

You're finally brushing up against the actual issue - it's not that our economy is based on making weapons. Too much of our Federal Budget is sent to the DoD.

Double taxes on the rich and use the money on social spending, and our military spending is fine. But since we're not going to do that any time soon, we need large DoD cuts because they consume too much of our budget.

At the best engineering schools, military recruiters are snatching up the best and brightest to go design another weapon or drone. These same minds are sequestered and will not improve the competitiveness of America globally or even domestically because what they're producing is worthless.

No, DoD civilians are still government employees, subject to the government's pay scale. The government simply doesn't spend enough on employees to hire "the best and brightest" from the best engineering schools. And military pay is terrible compared to what these people can make in the civilian world.

Now, you could theoretically make a case that military contractors are sucking up these "best and brightest", but they don't have nearly as much money as other parts of the economy - remember how Wal-Mart alone was 3% of GDP? The "big money" comes from engineering something for Wall Street.

So let's not pretend that the fiscal cliff has nothing to do with the stolen resources that make up the American Military Industrial Complex.

Well, you'd have to demonstrate the size of those stolen resources first. 1.5% of GDP is dwarfed by lots of other "stolen resources" - such as virtually everything done on Wall Street.

The Military also has the status of being it's own country. It has it's own land, court system, and even hospitals and shopping centers.

The military has no land. The Government has land, upon which they build military installations.

And if you're upset by the UCMJ, you should probably explain how civilian courts are supposed to enforce rules in other countries. All those people you complain about being in Germany aren't within the jurisdiction of US civilian criminal courts.