| Rab said: Pemalite If that's you in your avatar then I thank you for your volunteer service (State Emergency Service), years ago I had the honor of being part of the SES, so I understand the time and effort it takes |
It is me. I am in three different emergency services organizations (SES, CFS and MFS retained paid.). No need for the thanks, it's a big passion of mine.
| Rab said: Australia's economy, education and healthcare systems work more efficiently than the US system, so if the US wasn't engaged in massive trillion dollar tax breaks for the Very Rich, spending yearly $700 billion in it's corporate military industrial complex, huge bureaucratic costs of its health system, under funding its public education system resulting in some of the Worlds worst outcomes (one of the best outcomes being in Finland's cheaper per head FULL public system), massive tax payer funded Wall Street bailouts... then it might just be a few steps closer to the efficiencies we enjoy in Australia |
And because of those efficiencies... We manage to garner larger results per dollar of expenditure than the USA...
Sometimes more "free market" isn't the right choice... Both Socialist/Capitalistic approaches have Pro's and Con's... And thus far the majority of the developed western world in general has proven that using a bit of both aspects is actually the perfect balance to getting the best results for all.
It's like during the Global Financial Crisis... The USA spent trillions bailing out big business... Guess what Australia did? They gave money to middle/low-income earners who in turn went on a spending spree... Which meant we saw a greater bang-for-buck economic improvement as businesses profited, consumers spent... In turn we avoided any recession.
| EricHiggin said: The question would be how much to cut and where exactly? Just look at the American military, and what it's done for the world overall since the world wars. Many of these first world countries can only operate as they now do, because of the overall peace the American military has kept for the most part. How much should they cut? Half? More? Only American defense or defense overall for the 'world'? If another country needs America's help and they can't respond in a worthy manner, is that worth it as long as Americans have better healthcare at home? Maybe America needs to charge other countries more for protection, which very well could lead to those countries having to cut into things like healthcare for their people to pay for it. |
The American Military is highly bureaucratic and extremely inefficient with what it spends it's cash-flow on.
Plus... They aren't leveraging cost-saving measures via modernization in manufacturing and automation...
Which is the advantage China has going forward, extremely cheap workforce and they just underwent their own industrial revolution, so they can get more military capability per buck than the USA can.
The USA needs to leverage it's technical prowess and make cost reductions across every sector of it's military economy... They don't need to specifically cut spending, they just need to make it more efficient so they can get more per taxpayer dollar.
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The Flipside is... Does the United States actually need a $600-$700 billion dollar a year military bill? What would it mean if it was half that? Would it mean they would need to work their diplomatic ties with other like-minded nations such as the British, Japan, South Korea, European Union, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, swathes of South America.... And so on? Because combined, those like-minded nations will always have more capability than even a rising China who is set to overtake the USA anyway.
Should the USA charge other nations for protection? One could argue it already does... Especially if the benefit is trade... Or in our case, we actually train, support, feed, house and work with American soldiers on our soil, our intelligence agencies provide the Americans with information... And save them a buck that way. And vice-versa... And we provide a platform for the Americans to counter threats in the Pacific region and secure resources for wartime.
Nations have actually been developing such ties for decades... And there are various strategic reasons for that.
I mean, Australia doesn't need the USA to remain relatively safe, invading such a inhospitable continent of this size is a logistical nightmare anyway, hence why the Japanese didn't do it, but there are benefits to working together.
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