Comment by CleanedStar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by CleanedStar | Hacker News Reader

The US has a military base in Djibouti. It has a military base in Cuba - which the Cuban government has been asking the US to get out of for over half a century. The US has military bases in Germany. It is now openly bankrolling anti-government forces in Syria. The US has 10 aircraft carriers in service and is spending a massive amount of money to build a new class of supercarriers. No other country has more than 1 aircraft carrier other than Italy which has 2 - and it is unlikely the US will go to war with Italy any time soon.

None of this of course is on the chopping block. I've paid into Social Security my entire life. It's one of the few things my massive federal taxes are going to give to me in this life. Of course, this one "entitlement" (it's apparently an entitlement to at some point pull out some of the thousands I pushed into Social Security) is the only thing really on the chopping block in any form.

There was an economist who wrote a book about a century and a half ago how the economic system would eventually lead to slow growth, with ever larger recessions, depressions and economic crises, with ever higher unemployment etc. The economist was Karl Marx, and the book he explained this in is Capital. It seems the higher unemployment goes, the worse the economic crises get, the less any kind of left prognosis seems to come around, the establishment view from Paul Krugman to the Cato Institute is full steam ahead. Thus for any other kind of answer one must look outside the establishment view.

>I've paid into Social Security my entire life. It's one of the few things my massive federal taxes are going to give to me in this life. Of course, this one "entitlement" (it's apparently an entitlement to at some point pull out some of the thousands I pushed into Social Security) is the only thing really on the chopping block in any form.

The bases around the world were how the US bought global security, upon which our economic growth for several decades was premised. Without (what looks like) a sprawling military with bases everywhere, we would have less safe/reliable sea lanes, which means higher prices of inputs and lower value for exports, and we would also have much of the advanced world spending ever more of its money on defense goods (it's called a nuclear umbrella for a reason).

Social Security is one of the few things your massive federal taxes are going to give to you in this life THAT ARE OBVIOUS. The other stuff is just as important, though way less obvious.

The bases in Germany were certainly "necessary" after WWII, but 70 years later, do we still need so many and do they need to have so many personnel? Especially with all the "force multiplying" technology that's been developed since WWII.

We definitely need to revisit how much of this is "necessary" today. I will say this though, for the populace in Japan/South Korea/Eastern European countries, the necessity of the nuclear umbrella is not theoretical vis a vis China (in Asia Pacific) and Russia (in Eurasia, particularly after the events in Georgia a few years ago)

Question: What inputs does the US need that cannot be found or created in one form or the other in the US?

Is there some natural resource that the US does not have access to within its own borders?

Rare earth metals for one. Human capital for 2 - there are simply more smart humans outside the US than inside (simply because there are more humans outside the US than inside it.)

Inputs found outside the US sort of misses the point though - we dont live in a world that is getting less connected. Instability elsewhere will find it's way here in one form or another, hence the need for someone to underwrite security. For the moment (and for the last 90 years or so) that someone has been mostly the US. It wont always be - eventually it will be another country, or coalition, but someone will underwrite global security, or the globe will be far less secure than it is today, with the attendant costs.

As an aside...the bottom of the web page mentions help from Peter Thiel. Thiel has been standing up and saying he has had the brilliant insight that competition hurts capitalism, and this sort of thing. He says he is stating economic truths no one else has said.

While I can't concur with everything Thiel says, I think what he says about competition is correct, and he's also correct people don't say it. But they don't say these things because these ideas are part of capitalism's raison d'etre. It's kind of like him wondering why no one is mentioning the wife of the cocktail party host is ugly. It's something everyone knows, but doesn't say. I guess we should be thankful he's being candid about such things. Perhaps the 1% is so powerful nowadays they feel they can be candid about such things.

When did Thiel say competition hurts capitalism?

I don't think he did. If I remember correctly, he said you - as an individual entrepreneur - should seek out markets where you will not have to compete.

http://blakemasters.com/post/21169325300/peter-thiels-cs183-...

The usual narrative is that capitalism and perfect competition are synonyms. No one is a monopoly. Firms compete and profits are competed away. But that’s a curious narrative. A better one frames capitalism and perfect competition as opposites; capitalism is about the accumulation of capital, whereas the world of perfect competition is one in which you can’t make any money. Why people tend to view capitalism and perfect competition as interchangeable is thus an interesting question that’s worth exploring from several different angles.

yeah, that's not saying competition hurts capitalism. Its saying avoiding competition is more profitable for the individual or company. We already knew that.

The fact that competition exists makes us try for unique offerings that fill unmet needs better than the existing offerings and avoid direct competition.

That's not saying "competition hurts capitalism", as originally asserted.

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