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Why have nukes?? (pg. 5)
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| DJ_Elyot |
War is Peace
Ignorance is Strength
Slavery is Freedom
It seems that the only way to acheive peace is through the threat of war. Kind of counter-intuitive, but that's the way political doublethink is sometimes. |
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| Zild |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Umm so are you saying the allies should have allowed the Red Army to steamroll through the Japanese mainland causing the same type of death and destruction that the Red Army wrought on eastern Germany and Berlin ... and subsequentely giving them total post war control over Japan as a Soviet sphere of influence? Or are you saying that the allies should have proceeded with operation Olympic and operation Coronet, invading Kyushu and Honshu, which would have resulted in a million+ allied casualties and civilian deaths 5 times the number of deaths experienced on Okinawa? You're saying that the campaign of strategic warfare embarked upon all participants of World War 2 suddenly becomes an invalid system of warfare in 1945? Nice ad-hominem against American history education ... |
Personally, yes I would have liked to have seen the Red Army steamroll Japan. I believe the US knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor and purposely didn't do anything about it. We shouldn't have entered the war in the first place. I've really gone of on a tangent here but yes thats how I feel. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zild
Personally, yes I would have liked to have seen the Red Army steamroll Japan. I believe the US knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor and purposely didn't do anything about it. We shouldn't have entered the war in the first place. I've really gone of on a tangent here but yes thats how I feel. |
I would disagree with that assessment of FDR's awareness, however, that theory aside, you would be an isolationist advocate of Germany's occupation of Europe, UK, the Middle East and Japan's dominance of South East Asia? So at point when the United States is economically and politically isolated would it be a prudent to go to war? Or would we simply wait until Hitler and Yamamoto decided it was time to confront the last obstacle against world dominance? |
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| Zild |
| Plain and simple, war is always good for the economy but those aren't the ideals I hold. I can see why we did what we did but thats not my point of view so I won't agree with it. Sorry but there is no right or wrong answer. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zild
Plain and simple, war is always good for the economy but those aren't the ideals I hold. I can see why we did what we did but thats not my point of view so I won't agree with it. Sorry but there is no right or wrong answer. |
That's a myth constantly refuted by economists who label it the broken window fallacy:
One of the more enduring myths in Western society is that wars are somehow good for the economy. Many people see a great deal of evidence to support this myth, after all World War II came directly after the Great Depression. This faulty belief stems from a misunderstanding of the economic way of thinking.
The standard "a war gives the economy a boost" argument goes as follows: Let's suppose that the economy is in the low end of the business cycle, so we're in a recession or just a period of low economic growth. The unemployment rate is high, people may be making less purchases than they were a year or two ago, and overall output is flat. But then the country decides to prepare for war! The government needs to equip its soldiers with the extra gear and munitions needed in order to win the war. Corporations win contracts to supply boots, and bombs and vehicles to the army. Many of these companies will have to hire extra workers in order to meet this increased production. If the preparations for war are large enough, large numbers of workers will be hired reducing the unemployment rate. Other workers may need to be hired to cover reservists in private sector jobs who get sent overseas. With the unemployment rate down we have more people spending again and people who had jobs before will be less worried about losing their job in the future so they'll spend more than they did. This extra spending will help the retail sector, who will need to hire extra employees causing unemployment to drop even further. A spiral of positive economic activity is created by the government preparing for war, if you believe the story. The flawed logic of the story is an example of something economists call The Broken Window Fallacy.
The Broken Window Fallacy is brilliantly illustrated in Henry Hazlitt's Economics in one Lesson. The book is still as useful today as it was when it was first published in 1946; I give it my highest recommendation. In it, Hazlitt gives the example of a vandal throwing a brick through a shopkeeper's window. The shopkeeper will have to purchase a new window from a glass shop for a sum of money, say $250. A crowd of people who see the broken window decide that the broken window may have positive benefits:
"After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be ... that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor." (p. 23 - Hazlitt)
The crowd is correct in realizing that the local glass shop will benefit from this act of vandalism. They have not considered, however, what the shopkeeper would have spent the $250 on something else if he did not have to replace the window. He might have been saving that money for a new set of golf clubs, but since he has now spent the money, he cannot and the golf shop has lost a sale. He might have used the money to purchase new equipment for his business, or to take a vacation, or to purchase new clothing. So the glass store's gain is another store's loss, so there hasn't been a net gain in economic activity. In fact, there has been a decline in the economy:
"Instead of [the shopkeeper] having a window and $250, he now has merely a window. Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window or the suit. If we think of him as a part of the community, the community has lost a new suit that might otherwise have come into being, and is just that much poorer." (p. 24 - Hazlitt)
The Broken Window Fallacy is enduring because of the difficulty of seeing what the shopkeeper would have done. We can see the gain that goes to the glass shop. We can see the new pane of glass in the front of the store. However, we cannot see what the shopkeeper would have done with the money if he had been allowed to keep it, precisely because he wasn't allowed to keep it. We cannot see the set of golf clubs not purchased or the new suit foregone. Since the winners are easily identifiable and the losers not, it's easy to conclude that there are only winners and the economy as a whole is better off.
The faulty logic of the Broken Window Fallacy occurs all the time with arguments supporting government programs. A politician will claim that his new government program to provide winter coats to poor families has been a roaring success, because he can point to all the people who have coats who didn't have them before. It's likely that there will be several new stories on the coat program, and pictures of people wearing the coats will be on the 6 o'clock news. Since we see the benefits of the program, the politician will convince the public that his program was a huge success. Of course, what we do not see is the school lunch proposal that was never implemented to implement the coat program, or the decline in economic activity from the added taxes needed to pay for the coats.
In a real life example, scientist and environmental activist David Suzuki has often claimed that a corporation polluting a river adds to a country's GDP. If the river has become polluted, an expensive program will be required to clean up the river. Residents may choose to buy more expensive bottled water rather than cheaper tap water. Suzuki points to this new economic activity, which will raise GDP, and claim that the GDP has risen overall in the community although the quality of life surely has decreased. Dr. Suzuki, however, forgot to take into account all the decreases in GDP that will be caused by the water pollution precisely because the economic losers are far more difficult to identify than the economic winners. We do not know what the government or the taxpayers would have done with the money had they not needed to clean up the river. We know from the Broken Window Fallacy that there will be an overall decline in GDP, not a rise. One has to wonder if politicians and activists are arguing in good faith or if they realize the logical fallacies in their arguments but hope the voters will not.
Now on to the war.
From the Broken Window Fallacy it is quite easy to see why the war will not benefit the economy. The extra money spent on the war is money that will not be spent elsewhere. The war can be funded in a combination of three ways:
1. Increasing taxes
2. Decrease spending in other areas
3. Increasing the debt
Increasing taxes reduces consumer spending, which does not help the economy improve at all. Suppose we decrease government spending on social programs. Firstly we've lost the benefits those social programs provide. The recipients of those programs will now have less money to spend on other items, so the economy will decline as a whole. Increasing the debt means that we'll either have to decrease spending or increase taxes in the future; it's a way to delay the inevitable. Plus there's all those interest payments in the meantime.
If you're not convinced yet, imagine that instead of dropping bombs on Baghdad, the army was dropping refrigerators in the ocean. The army could get the refrigerators in one of two ways:
1.They could get every American to give them $50 to pay for the fridges.
2. The army could come to your house and take your fridge.
Does anyone seriously believe there would be an economic benefit to the first choice? You now have $50 less to spend on other goods and the price of fridges will likely increase due to the added demand. So you'd lose twice if you were planning on buying a new fridge. Sure the appliance manufacturers love it, and the army might have fun filling the Atlantic with Fridgidaires, but this would not outweigh the harm done to every American who is out $50 and all the stores that will experience a decline in sales due to the decline in consumer disposable income.
As far as the second one, do you think you'd feel wealthier if the army came and took your appliances away from you? The idea of the government coming in and taking your things may seem ridiculous, but it's not any different than increasing your taxes. At least under this plan you get to use the stuff for awhile, whereas with the extra taxes, you have to pay them before you have an opportunity to spend the money.
http://economics.about.com/cs/macro...l/aa032003a.htm |
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| Zild |
| Its not that the war gives us an "economic boost", war costs vast amounts of money, that explodes upon impact, that will never be recouped. However that same war secures our ecomonic interests. k thx |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zild
Its not that the war gives us an "economic boost", war costs vast amounts of money, that explodes upon impact, that will never be recouped. However that same war secures our ecomonic interests. k thx |
Ummm so what was the economic interest of FDR's desire to go to war with Germany? Furthermore you're arguing that our economic interests to engage in free trade is not worth fighting for? Therefore a blockade of our country is in some way justifiably tolerable? How exactly would you go about explaining and justifying this stance to your constitutents? Your welcome. |
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| Zild |
| Killing people for the economy's benefit isn't my thing. I can see how you can see how you don't understand that. You can copy and paste arguments that aren't relevant all you want but it won't change a thing. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zild
Killing people for the economy's benefit isn't my thing. I can see how you can see how you don't understand that. You can copy and paste arguments that aren't relevant all you want but it won't change a thing. |
What exactly have I posted that was not relevant? I can hardly impart clarity upon your posts so I have a better understanding of the argument you are making. As for killing people for the "economy's benefit" I suppose I can see how you don't understand how the economy propogates down to the individual. Silly Iraqis ... complaining about the embargo and trade sanctions. After all, the impact on their economy hardly affects their ability to feed and provide medicines to their people ...
So out of curiosity, where do you draw the line? Is killing people for personal freedoms your "thing"? After all so what if you're taxed without representation? Seems like a minor inconvenience especially when it comes to killing someone I guess. Same thing with the right to speak your mind in public. As long as you can think such thoughts freely in your mind, it's hardly worth killing someone right? Label it as irrelevant arguments all you want, they're all shades of the same thing. |
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| D-res |
| quote: | Originally posted by ::TranceVanDyk::
if this world is seeking peace, why have nukes. what would be the purpose of iran developing nukes, if they are not planning a war? or pakistan, or india?? the cold war's over, and wheres the threat??
i say, if a country is not planning a war, why have nukes at all??:conf: |
i dont know if this has been said, cause i havent read the other posts, but to say simeply its like a false sense of security. no world leader with any common sense at all would use their nukes because they know what it would lead to.
also, any world leader that is seeking absolute peace should be shot. absolute peace is impossible because we are humans. if you can make decisions of yourself at all, chances are that you'll have an opinion that someone else, who can also most likely think for themselves, will disagree with. this disagreement will lead to conflict.
all of you are intelligent enough to probably be thinking that what i just said was obvious, but i think its the most ignorant thing in the world when people think peace is actually possible...
i realise that i basically gave my opinion to the topic in the first paragraph, but whatever... |
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| Trancer-X |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yoepus
The two real reasons:
You don't trust the other guy.
Deterence. |
Good point. |
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| Psy-T |
| quote: | Originally posted by Trancer-X
Good point. |
took you long enough :stongue: |
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