This is Why Our SS Benefits Could Be Cut 60% Under W's Proposal

[Nbadan]

US defence budget will equal Rest Of the World combined "within 12 months"
By Guy Anderson Editor of Jane's Defence Industry 04 May 2005

Defense expenditure in the US will equal that of the rest of the world combined within 12 months, making it "increasingly pressing" for European contractors to develop a "closer association" with the US, corporate finance group PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) says.

Its report - 'The Defence Industry in the 21st Century' by PwC's global aerospace and defence leader Richard Hooke - adds that "the US is in the driving seat", raising the prospect of a future scenario in which it could "dominate the supply of the world's arms completely".

The US defence budget reached US$417.4 billion in 2003 - 46 per cent of the global total.

Less than two per cent of the US defence budget is spent outside its home market, the report notes, and of this around one per cent goes to UK contractors.

Hooke says: "The message for management teams in all this - apart from the obvious for US contractors to monopolise the industry - is that they will fail to maximise value if they fail to define accurately the business segment in which they operate.

"For Europe and the UK in particular, it means, right now, an increasingly pressing need to develop a closer association with the US market."

Janes.military

Nobody spreads death, and war-driven poverty like the U.S.

[SPARKY]

Much better to be underarmed. No doubt.

[BronxCowboy]

Damn, Sparky, I never really thought about it. You know, I can't really pay my credit cards right now, and my kid's shoes are falling apart, but I really don't want to be underarmed. I better go get a grenade launcher to go along with my Glock and my shotgun. I heard my neighbor has an AK, so I should probably have three of those, too. I'm so glad you helped me see the light.

[The Ressurrected One]

US defence budget will equal Rest Of the World combined "within 12 months"
By Guy Anderson Editor of Jane's Defence Industry 04 May 2005



Janes.military

Nobody spreads death, and war-driven poverty like the U.S.

That's awesome!

[jalbre6]

Does this really surprise anyone? We have military installations on every continent and are involved in full actions in Iraq and Afganistan. Our navy dwarfs any other nations. And not to mention Homeland Security costs. Of course we spend close to as much militarily than the rest of the world combined. I bet even at peacetime we're well over 35-40%.

[The Ressurrected One]

Actually, that's why Social Security should be abolished altogether.

You'll find defense in the Cons ution but, you won't find Social Security.

[The Ressurrected One]

The Same Old Saw On Social Security

Having lured the president out onto a far limb on Social Security, the Democrats have begun sawing. Democratic leaders immediately rejected the president's plan and stood up for all that is good and true and saintedly Rooseveltian -- without, of course, offering any alternative.

To be sure, the president started all this on his own, first proposing personal accounts. Democrats objected that this did nothing about the really important issue, namely solvency. So Bush offered five solvency alternatives in his State of the Union address (four first proposed by Democrats) and welcomed any other ideas. The Democrats answered: "You go first." On April 28 the president did go first, proposing a remarkably progressive reduction in the rate of growth of benefits.


The Democratic leadership, supported by misleading headlines around the country, denounced these "cuts" as the work of a party that never did believe in Social Security and now wants to kill it.

Yes, these are cuts, but only in the growth of promised benefits in the future -- based on formulas written in the pre-baby boomer retirement era that so inflate benefits that they are entirely unsustainable. They cannot possibly be paid by the taxes of the fewer workers in the future who will be supporting the many retirees.

To simplify somewhat, the amount of your first check upon retirement is based on your average wages during your lifetime. Then a formula adjusts that number to wage inflation -- which generally amounts to price inflation plus about 1 percent annually. The Bush proposal is to preserve this ever-increasing, ever-compounding benefit formula for poorer Americans, while gradually phasing out the extra 1 percent as you move to wealthy wage earners.

No one gets cut -- either in nominal or real dollars. Everyone gets at least as much or more than any retiree today, with the poor getting progressively more every year.

This is about as fair and progressive a plan as you can find. Even the inveterately, reflexively, often apoplectically anti-Bush Michael Kinsley expressed admiration -- and indeed puzzlement that the president would offer it without any prospect of short-term political advantage.

Leave the quest for short-term political advantage to the Democrats. They have finally gotten a Republican president to openly propose "cuts" in Social Security and they intend to win seats in 2006 running all-out against them.

The White House seems to think that this obstructionism will not work. The Democrats will be blamed for doing nothing. But if A accuses B of doing nothing, and B accuses A of destroying the one social program that everyone supports, who do you think wins?

And Democrats have a wonderful smoke screen. These "cuts" are not only destructive but unnecessary, they claim, because the insolvency does not kick in until sometime in mid-century -- the Democrats' latest comically precise number is 2052 -- when the "trust fund" runs out. (So much for their month-ago concern about solvency.)

As I have been writing for years with stupefying redundancy -- and obvious lack of success -- this idea is a hoax. There is no trust fund. The past Social Security surpluses were spent the year they were created. The idea that in 2017, when the surpluses disappear, we will be able to go to a box in West Virginia to retrieve the money we need to make up the shortfall (between what Social Security takes in and what it pays out that year) is a deception. There is no money there. It will have to be borrowed or garnered from new taxes.

But things are worse than that. The fiscal problem starts to kick in not in 2017 but in 2009. The Social Security surplus, which Congress happily spends every year, peaks in 2008. Which means that starting in four years (and for every year thereafter) a budgetary squeeze begins, requiring new taxation or new borrowing.

If in 2010 tax revenue and spending remain exactly the same as in 2009, the Treasury will not end up with the same size deficit. It will end up with a larger deficit, because the amount of money it was receiving free and "borrowed" from the Social Security surplus will have shrunk.

That surplus shrinks from its peak in 2008 to zero in 2017 and goes negative after that. That is a very serious fiscal problem that starts not in 50 years, not even in 12 years, but in four.

Time for action, you might think. Ah. But before all those years comes 2006. And a chance for power. A chance for Democratic politicians to once again hear that most mellifluous phrase: "Mr. Chairman." Hence, that sawing noise.

[Clandestino]

now, dan is pissed we are the most powerful nation militarily on earth...

[CommanderMcBragg]

now, dan is pissed we are the most powerful nation militarily on earth...

We've been that for years.

[Clandestino]

and dan has been pissed since childbirth.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Yeah, we should disband our military, and be someone's like France or Canada.

Good idea Dan.

Hey, why don't we let Osama run on the totalitarian ticket in '08 too?

[cherylsteele]

My question is since we are involved in the war on terrorism....why are there proposals to close down more bases?

Fewer bases and spending more.....seems kinda backwards to me.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

I don't get it either. I think we should be shutting down some of our European operating bases, ones that aren't relevant and necessary any longer, with the worry no longer being Mother Russia.

[JoeChalupa]

I don't get it either. I think we should be shutting down some of our European operating bases, ones that aren't relevant and necessary any longer, with the worry no longer being Mother Russia.

I think those are the ones we should keep. At least those in strategic locations. I maybe a liberal but I'm also for a strong defense.

And Damn right we better establish a strong presence in Iraq for years, decades to come.

[Nbadan]

My question is since we are involved in the war on terrorism....why are there proposals to close down more bases?

Some military bases are cold war relics, but what I would really be concerned about if I was of draft age is that from all the talk surrounding Rummy, it sounds like they want to target National Guard and Reserve bases this go round. Maybe they figure after the draft is reinitiated they won't need this 1/2 of their force currently in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[cherylsteele]

Some military bases are cold war relics, but what I would really be concerned about if I was of draft age is that from all the talk surrounding Rummy, it sounds like they want to target National Guard and Reserve bases this go round. Maybe they figure after the draft is reinitiated they won't need this 1/2 of their force currently in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I am sure they can find these bases of some use.....I can bet there are better places to conserve our monitary resources than to close bases.

Can't they make improvements on the bases....ABC Extreme makeovers can help out.