Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by unity1001 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

unity1001

> To run a pension

Taxes. You need taxes. Just like how you run the military.

> then what happens if tax revenues are low one year

You tax the top iter of the society to make up for it. Just like how it is done for the military.

> Even communist countries own assets

In no communist country, the well being of their people or societal infrastructure ranging from transportation to military to police or education, was tied to the market. Even today there are many capitalist countries that dont do that.

View on HN

Taxes fund current military expenses. Pensions are designed to fund tomorrow’s expenses with today’s money. You need some sort of instrument to do that.

If you don’t save current resources for future expenses, then you risk needing a very large future amount of the tax base for pensions. If, for example, more people retire.

Even for the military they used war bonds and took on debt in wars when the wars demanded outsized current expenses. They didn’t just raise taxes really high in WWII to pay for everything. They paid for it over time with bonds. The Soviets did the same in agreeing to repay lend lease bonds.

uhhhh no? i don't think most countries levy extra random taxes on the super-rich until their military budgets are met. also i get really fed up with people pretending that military spending is anywhere close to entitlement spending these days. yeah it's too high but please don't both-sides it.

it's unfortunate but usually when there's a downturn, revenues drop. yes including from the super-rich, whose net worths are usually more not less volatile. so now what?

> i don't think most countries levy extra random taxes on the super-rich until their military budgets are met

Most countries don't do that because the funding for military is never excluded from budget calculations. But when such a need arises, like in wartime or emergencies, they do.

> i get really fed up with people pretending that military spending is anywhere close to entitlement spending these days

Only in the US, where military has been made into a teat from which the military-industry sector sucks as hard as it can. That way you end up with gigantic flops like F-35 that go on forever. They are flops for defense, but they are major successes for channeling public money to the industry...

this is just... dead wrong. like factually, you are wrong. FY 2021:

entitlements were $1.18T (social security) + $697B (medicare) + $537B (welfare) + $396B (unemployment) = $3.329T

military was $1.035T.

if it helps, 3.329 / 1.035 = 3.22. that number means we spent over 3 times as much on handouts.

so no, military spending is nowhere close to our handout spending. yeah it's inefficient and wasteful and i favor cutting it at least somewhat combined with efficiency improvements and focusing on spreading defense $ to make the market more competitive. but i get really fed up with people trying to "both sides" our handout and military spending every time someone brings up the cost of the former because they just aren't close.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com