The Telegraph.uk has an article on possible defense cuts that the UK is about to absorb. Interesting but the difference is that in defense spending you can see the result and the spending reverberates throughout communities.
Cut a base and you hurt a local community. Many civilians are employed by those bases and unemployment will result with the closure.
Cut planes, ships and tanks? The logistics tail from those that work to maintain them...all the way back to those that produce them are endangered.
You don't see that type of synergy when it comes to social spending.
War on poverty?
Still not won and its been going on since the '60's.
War on drugs?
Ditto.
Social spending is a bottomless pit that results in improvements that are difficult, if not impossible to measure.
The UK will and the US to a lesser degree will cut defense spending. The problem is that the increased domestic spending will not result in higher qualities of life. Keeping people employed in hi-tech industries, producing gear that can be touched is a more sensible approach.
British government just released plans to Decentralize Health Care.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/world/europe/25britain.html
From what I have read, it could result in the loss of many government jobs. It would be interesting to compare the ecomomic impact of cutting defense versus social spending in Britain(though that could be a difficult endeavor).
That said, I don't think David Cameron is going to have as much success(his coalition government will probably fall)with cutting social spending, as he will with defense.
I certainly agree. The problem is weaning those for whom the dole has become their major sources of income from the government tit, so say nothing of the bureaucracies that have grown up to support these programs. In Israel, it's a terrible problem. We are approaching the point where half the population supports and defends the other half. Insanity.
ReplyDeleteso it is worldwide.
ReplyDeletei thought we only had the problem here in the US.
An article from 2 weeks ago about the disappearance of the middle class in the US.
ReplyDeletehttp://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-here%27s-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html
yeah and now the middle class is becoming aware of the effects of globalization.
ReplyDeletethe revolt is on.
that's why health care in my opinion was pushed so hard...to mitigate the effects of this new economic push.
but all is not lost. while the US population becomes peasants the Chinese middle class is booming.
history will not be kind to this generation. they will be hated and they will have earned it. the greatest generation produced the most selfish.
Some of those results are due to the fallout from the economic crisis, but the statistics on stagnant wages is the one to watch.
ReplyDeleteThe middle class has itself to blame for much of the mess we are in now. When Greenspan was selling his wares everybody was buying. Down here in Florida people were buying up homes they couldn't afford just to flip them on the market for a profit...that is until the bubble burst.
I have no idea whether it's even practical or possible to reverse this free trade mess. I have not heard anyone come up with anything practical that doesn't reek of the kind of stuff that Germany(or others like it)are doing.