People really don't understand about the Renminbi. It doesn't function as a freely exchangeable currency at present. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/772e516c-35aa-11e3-b539-00144feab7de.html

Sure military spending isn't as high as all entitlement programs combined but it is still a big chunk (around 17-19% recently).  Just take a look at the ill fated F-35 Lightning program.  The program is project to cost trillions over the lifetime of the aircraft.  How many bad ass planes do we need?  If we canceled about a hundred of the total order you probably could feed all the homeless in USA for a decade or support other programs.  Soon it will be all drones flying.  There is plenty of waste in the military budget.  Hell, the pentagon lost track of billions (perhaps even trillions) in the Iraq war.  Don't even mention the no bid contracts to Halliburton, etc..  Pretty much USA needs to stop fucking "nation building" and focus on rebuilding its crumbling infrastructure.  All that money for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars could have been better spent rebuilding the USA.  The wars in the middle east were nothing but a money flush down the toliet. 

Not long now, that's why there preparing all the FEMA camps and the DHS has been stock piling weapons and food, be prepared.

The thing is, the US actually does a lot so that the US can be a reserve though.

Stuff the Euro and Yuan just don't do, and likely won't anytime soon.

The Euro central banks would need a much tighter grip on money production and each countries individual debt.

The Chinese would need to rid themselves of the belief that they're cooking their books economic numbers wise.

I'd say it's far more likely reserve currencies just be abandoned, or at least any individual reserve currency.  You'd be more likely to see the dollar still dominate but say only be ~50% the reserve for any country.

A move to all drones would be a catastrophic mistake.

While modern warfare is currently different.   There is nothing to suggest that there won't ever be a war against two developed nations with developed weapons.

To suggest there never will be a conventional war again is silly at worst, dangerous at best.

There is plenty to be said about keeping an edge in military technology.

As for the F22 Lightning...   that's a videogame... and the F22 is one of the best modern fighter planes developed.   I can only imagine you mean the F35.

Which was supposed to be a fighter better suited for onesided unconcentional warfare that could still fight in the skies.  It essentially was supposed to just be exactly what you want.  A fighter meant for more modern wars... that you need a lot less of.

It's costs balooned out out of control, but that occasionally happens when you build unknown technologies for the first time.

They want to buy around... 225 I think?   That seems... pretty reasonable honestly considering it's over the course of like... 10 years or something like that?

Plus a move to F35's means the US can start selling F22's for some money. 

As for feeding all the homeless... all the homeless already get fed.  At least the ones who are sane enough to follow the procedures to get to where the food his.   In general longterm homelessness is above all else a mental health disorder, as the long term homeless almost all uniformly have a mental illness and refuse treatment.  

That's the real burden of taking care of the homeless.

For once I agree with you. Drones are cannon fodder for any remotely developed air defence and EW.

Production run has been stopped afair at 187th aircraft > price is astonomical, cost of maintance skyrocketed, on top of all there're constant flight restrictions, that makes them barely operational and not battle ready. Likely it never go for sale. Failed programme all in all.

And no, the machine was designed for conventional warfare, typical cold war product, had a few 'total change of plans' along its devlopment, stuck in devlopment hell, made few people rich, and now general brasshats don't know what to do with it. Meanwhile Boeing is offering new modifications of old machines, because existing are nearing critical age, ~25 years on average.

The bankers fucked over Americans. Thanks to frational reserve banking we'd have to start at square one. Thats almost a centuries worth of inflation. Theres nothing worse than currency backed based on faith.

Serious? 

They already can, on both Lybia and Iraq.

Oh wait.

But civil war and an illegal military invasion can happen to anyone, right?

Oops... Not sure how I got the F-22 and F-35 mixed up...  My drone statement was a little exaggerated but there probably won't be another program for a manned fighter such as the F-35 in the future.  The F-35 might be one of the last manned fighters for the USA. 

F-35 program as a whole has been a disaster.

"a new report says F-35 pilots can’t see that well out of the cockpit."

"Last winter, the Pentagon’s top buyer, Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, told a defense conference that the George W. Bush administration had committed “acquisition malpractice.”

“I can spend quite a few minutes on the F-35, but I don’t want to,” Mr. Kendall said. “This will make a headline if I say it, but I’m going to say it anyway: Putting the F-35 into production years before the first test flight was acquisition malpractice. It should not have been done, OK? But we did it.”

"Gen. McPeak said that the real mistake occurred decades ago, as the Air Force basked in the success of Desert Storm.

The Air Force aimed to replace the F-16 Falcon — considered one of the most successful low-cost fighter productions ever — by designing a successor in its image: lightweight, technologically advanced, with flexibility to adjust to new threats.

But then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin overruled the Air Force, and decreed that the next generation of multi-role fighter jets would be “joint” — one plane for three services — to cut costs.

“We did what we were told,” Gen. McPeak said, adding that , 20 years later, the Aspin decision has had the opposite effect.

Trying to build three versions of the same aircraft has required adding layers of different features to meet the demands of each service. Development and production has been overseen by a succession of different program managers from the three services, each with their own tweaks for the final product."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/6/prices-soar-enthusiasm-dives-for-f-35-lightning/?page=all

and the most ironic problem of the F-35 Lightning...

"The $237-million F-35B has been banned from traveling within 25 miles of a thunderstorm, amid fears that lightning could cause its fuel tank to explode.

The aircraft, which is ironically known as 'Lightning II,' is not permitted to fly in thunderstorms until an oxygen gauge in the fuel tank is redesigned."

http://rt.com/usa/f35-lightning-design-flaw-360/

Anyways, the feeding homeless was kind of a blank statement.  I pretty much meant you could do a lot more with that money than the money pit the F-35 has been.  Mainly I am for rebuilding USA infrastructure.  Do we need a strong military? Sure, but we need to stop trying to be the world police force.  I am more of an isolationist but if one of our allies is attacked then we should respond.  I view the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as a complete waste of time, money and life.  At most we should have just let the Northern Alliance take over Afghanistan with the help of CIA, special forces, and air power.  Putting bases and stationed troops on the ground in Afghanistan only pisses off the locals.  Who wants foreign troops setting up bases inside their country? 

So replace the homeless statement with rebuilding USA failing infrastructure.  We have numerous bridges that are becoming structurally unsound, highways that need to be expanded and built, and other forms of transportation to built.  What do we have now?  Well in shitty Texas we have highways being built with public money which are sold (usually to foreign private companies) to be toll roads.  I thought double taxation was illegal?