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| Military spending in billions |
Over the last few months any number of publications including the Wall Street Journal and Businessweek have used the headline above (You can't copyright a headline can you?) but all with different answers to the question, "But WTF is it? I proposed an answer in my post, "Squandering the Peace Dividend on War", along with Seth Godin, as did Author, John Rachel in his blog using the illustration to the left. If you haven't sorted out the answer yet, look again at the chart. The big bar on the left is America's military spending in comparison to the rest of the world. Hmm. Simple you would think. But our government seems to think that all this war is somehow good for the economy, and job growth, and innovation, and whatever else we lack. Clear answer: It isn't. And hasn't been for the last ten years. Time Magazine asks recently, "Is America the World's Next Banana Republic?" in its comparison of North and South American financial standards - as China keeps military spending in check whilst building a modern infrastructure that makes America look like the 1800s. Sure, we may be able to beat the crap out of any banana republic or even China or Russia in a war, but what is that buying us? Not a future, that's for sure.
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