Why is government spending on a worthless military not "economic stimulus," but deficit spending on domestic make-work, like hiring temporary census takers, is?
The one lesson you have to take away from this is every dollar the government spends on something is a dollar taken from somewhere else. Because the dollar the government spend is taken under the threat of force and government market knowledge is limited because it is a monopoly and not subject to market forces, it will not be efficient in how it spends the resources it has taken or borrowed.
In other words, government spending, whether on the military or not, always makes us poorer in the aggregate.

Do I smell Rick "CUTS" Scott on this video?

- - It's easy for folks to say (as Obama did to get elected); things like "we shouldn't have troops in so many places around the globe" and "war is bad & expensive", "torture un-necessary", etc., BUT when your in the "hot seat" as president Obama has found out - you suddenly realize the truths of the matter.
- - After all. . . a so-called anti-war president still has us in at least two wars, our troops are still needed around the world, terrorist are still being tortured (it's just being done in another place).
- - So that either means he lied to get elected, OR these things are really necessary for our safe survival.....

If only we were accomplishing something with the money spent. Idiots seem to run the CIA and the so-called intelligence personal. And Osama is really only another Bush. I wonder what would happen if he tried to end some of this stupidity? I really think he has been warned not to rock the boat, or he will go the same way some others have gone that didn't follow the correct reasoning. Like all the little plane crashes of people running for office.

More fearsome than the volume of spending is the fact that so much of it has to be obscured in "black budgets" that aren't even acknowledged as existing. How hard would it really be to mark down "$22 billion for Advanced Aircraft Research" (with no need to specify the details of what aircraft are being researched) instead of just pretending that it's not happening? Just how much does it harm the "security" of America for the public to know this much?

I pay taxes. Who pays for all those military ads I see on TV and hear on the radio? What's the reason for them?

Just wondering.

Hurray for US millitary spending!

No global conflicts since 1945!

We share the world in peace or we all incinerate together! What a great idea is MAD!

The two biggest super-powers with deeply co-dependant economies - hopefully that also stays Too Big to Fail.

Take my tax dollars and build a millitary so powerful and deadly that peace is maintained - if only because the alternative is too horrific to consider.

Ok all you pacifists and US haters - let the mud fly! =P

Especially love those 'black budgets' always given to the CIA and their ilk. No accounting necessary. How cool is that?

Love it when liberals scream and complain that we need the government to take care of us and disarm the public and monopolize the guns for police and the military and then they whine about too much money to the military.

You liberals have nothing to blame but yourselves. You wanted socialism and BIG government and now the military industrial complex and the corporations are bigger and more frightning than ever. This is what we get. Hope for your sakes the 2nd american revolution comes soon so we can have a free society again or else its the Gulag.

So Mark.....The square-root of all U.S. Defense spending is....

"None of our God Damn business?!"

Let's not forget that other departments of government treat decreases in the rate of spending or levels of spending greater that fall short of requested amounts as "cuts" as well-it's not just the military.

Where is the Tea Party crying for cutting the military spending?

(I am still waiting for my question to the Tea Party what programs they want to cut and what to cut additionally to fund the tax cuts they are asking for.)

"Military math" is like "military intelligence." It's an oxymoron.

42% of world military budget

The US military budget is a shocking 42% of the world military total.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

(You need to sum the column yourself.)

The 42% portion is less than half. Do you have a source for "If we are to continue spending more than all other militaries of the world combined . . ." ?

Thanks for drawing attention to the crazy spending.

Good cartoon

Military Math . . . it's actually much worse than this cartoon depicts. Only barely scratched the surface of the gobs of cash and convoluted budgeting rats' nest.

-MF