Look up how underfunded Germany’s Bundeswehr has been these past few years, how France’s push to build up European defenses is going, how Eastern European countries rely on NATO.
When you get defense for “free” from an overstretched US military, you obviously have more budget to develop your own country.
The U.S. has barely any public transportation infrastructure, it's ridiculously car-centric, it has enormous inequality, lacks a functional healthcare system (leading to dystopian situations like "medical bankruptcy"), suffers from insidious pollution (PFOAs are an American invention; meanwhile, a lot of drinking water in the U.S. does not meet requirements for safe levels of lead, and the U.S. is still mostly on fossil fuels), and has a deeply dysfunctional political two-party system that constantly threatens democracy.
A lot of people visiting from the U.S. or other countries marvel at my European country's high quality of life. We have great public healthcare, and a significant social safety net for the disadvantaged. We have a great public transportation infrastructure, a surplus of green energy (no coal), and there's generally little need to own a car for many people, nor a car-obsessed culture. We work less and allow more time for family and friends. Everyone gets 5 weeks of paid vacation every year, by law. Sure, we get paid less, but financial wealth isn't everything. Considering healthcare, we (both individuals and the state) spend a lot less than the U.S. I don't have any data on the sizes of apartments, but plenty of people live in big (perhaps not by American standards) detached houses here.
They are. But they're still expensive(†). My point is that GP says the US can't have nice things because they're spending all their money on the defense of the rest of the developed world and Europe is just rolling in dough to spend on public infrastructure. The US absolutely has money that it can spend on these things if it wanted to, but it doesn't. $60k pickup trucks (the median cost) aren't a thing anywhere else in the world, and in every thread here on EVs it's full of excuses of why these vehicles are ESSENTIAL to the functioning of US society. If all of that money was spent on public infrastructure instead, they could have much nice things.
I totally agree that lots of people are suffering in the US. It's not being spread equally. I totally agree that US politics are completely dysfunctional. I agree that that is the problem. I'm just refuting GPs argument that "it's because we're sending money overseas". It's because you're misallocating money locally.
GP is saying Europe can have these things because the the US is defending them. I'm saying the US has more than enough money to do these things, if they allocated it the same as Europe does (even after removing military spending)
(†) Debt, sure, but Japan's national debt is 200% of GDP and people are touting them in this thread as an example of how you can have your cake and eat it too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
Off topic: China has done a great job pulling half a billion people out of poverty and it shows.
This is the major flaw with democracy and the reason it’s a moral imperative for the US to spread democracy. It’s easy for a small group (in reality, many disparate small groups) to manipulate a large population.
While technically it’s true the people of the US could fix this with voting, in reality it’s an insane way to operate. Our democracy was originally founded with restrictions on who could vote as well at a time when we had much stronger cultural bonds. Limiting who could vote mixed in with a healthy culture is necessary for democracy to work - otherwise it is exploited.
We need and deserve leaders who want to do the best for their people. Representative democracy allows for parasites to prevent this while placing the onus on the voter for their woes, knowing full well the voter will never be able to organize in a meaningful capacity because the population is too large and diverse. If the answer to our problems is always “get out and vote better”, nothing is ever going to get done and anyone pushing that idea is either ignorant or malicious.
Don't forget that is not "free", the US has benefited from a lot of perks due to the position they're in.
But it is true sovereign countries should take care of their defenses beyond what the US has to offer, but that will also come at the cost of the US.
You can't have the cake and eat it at the same time - which is what some people seem to be forgetting among all of those internal politics complaints, and the mixing of the US geoplitics with internal politics.
Because you can't be the "leader of the free world" and get all the benefits from it, while you cherry pick what it entails. Now you might argue that you don't see the benefits of that position, which is fair, but a lot is going on more than just military bases in Europe.
And the world will carry on, and those voids left by the US will be filled. China is very happy to fill those empty spaces.
In that case, if the US decided that they don't really care about a potential nuclear war for the sake of some distant Eastern European countries, we would be caught with our pants down. Only Poland was somewhat prepared.
Many European countries grew fatter and lazier under the American defense umbrella. It was easier to stuff money into popular projects than into guns and soldiers. Only, it turns out, sometimes you really need those guns and soldiers even in the 21st century.
"Si vis pacem, para bellum."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38579988
The average people in powerful democracies have a responsibility to avoid the circumstances which historically have led to mass civilian casualties. For USA, the toll of nuclear strikes is an approachable example. Other great powers have a worse record in avoiding malicious mass suffering.
The part relevant to your comment is that the US military now needs to prevent war rather than excel at it. And it has chosen to look as formidable as possible to rational enemies. I think Europe agrees with this, but I don’t know if there are other ways.
I have been saying for decades, they need to pay tribute. Never before in history has a super power defended smaller nations and expected nothing in return. The US taxpayer should enjoy some relief from foreign governments who want to be defended.
> I want affordable housing. Affordable healthcare. High speed rail. Better zoning laws. New subway lines.
Are you saying we only need 12% of the budget to fix these things? Note that coincidentally medicare is already accounting for ~12% of the total.
Say the military budget goes to zero (which it can't), and we spend half of that on medicare (it would be 18%). Will it fix the problem?
I think the problem is much deeper than wasting this 12%.
>While prescription drug costs only accounted for 8 percent of total U.S. healthcare spending in 2020, the price of such drugs has risen substantially over the last few decades. ... The U.S. spends twice as much on prescription drugs as other comparatively wealthy nations, on average.
https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2022/11/how-much-does-the-united-s...
> Pharmaceutical breakthroughs are financed by the high prices paid by American patients (and backed by abundant venture capital); government-run health systems in Europe then bulk-buy the same drugs for much less. Europe has had some successes—German companies were among those pioneering mrna vaccines—but most of the cutting-edge research in science and technology is done at universities and companies elsewhere.
[1] https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/02/26/europe-is-the-fr...