Re: Were Americans Safe in 1965? in 1970?

we were less safe if you compare what terrorist are willing to do at
this
time
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they can do a lot more damage

we were very naive back then
---
more like lucky that the animals in the middle east just hadn't been
pissed off enough by American interventionists.
it was just a matter of time.

the longer the interventionists stay in the middle east the more
attacks we'll see.

On May 13, 7:50 pm, geoffrey theist <gtheist...@gmail.com> wrote:
> we were less safe if you compare what terrorist are willing to do at this
> time we were very naive back then.
>
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> On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 3:05 PM, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> >  *Were Americans Safe in 1965? in 1970?
> > *Posted by Michael S. Rozeff <ms...@buffalo.edu> on May 13, 2012 09:47 AM
>
> > I conjecture that Americans were no less safe from foreign threats in 1965
> > and 1970 than they are now. How much did national security cost back then?
> > In 2005 dollars that adjust for changed price levels, "national defense
> > consumption expenditures and gross investment" ran at about a $60 billion
> > annual rate in 1965. In 1970, it was running about $88 billion per year.
> > This includes all military spending on paying military and support
> > personnel, equipment, airplanes, bombs, wars, bases, etc. Suppose I am
> > wrong. Suppose that Americans were not spending enough to feel safe. How
> > much "under" might they be? Suppose that defense spending had to have been
> > twice as large to make them feel safe. (Being off by a factor of 2 is
> > intuitively generous, is it not?) Then, if you are a defense hawk who
> > believes that military spending was too low to make Americans happy, I
> > grant you figures of $120 to $176 billion.
>
> > Now, come ahead to 2012, also in 2005 dollars. This series is running at a
> > rate of $808 billion (down from a high of $844 billion in mid-2011). I am
> > saying that if Americans are no less safe now than then, military spending
> > can be cut from $808 billion to $60-$88 billion without loss of security.
> > That's a cut of about 90 percent or more. If you are a defense hawk, then
> > the cut is to $120-$176 billion, which is a cut of 78 to 85 percent. This
> > doesn't take into account population growth, which has risen by 50% since
> > 1970. But counteracting that is the fact that the Soviet Union is gone, and
> > I've allowed a factor of 100 percent for defense hawks. I conclude that
> > defense spending could be cut by a minimum of 80 percent without
> > compromising American safety. And if this were done, terrorist threats
> > would actually decline because American provocations in foreign lands would
> > be curtailed.
>
> > I've checked these numbers. The data are available here<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?id=FDEFX>.
> > They are real (price-adjusted) figures. I checked that here<http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb2011/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=1...>
> > .
>
> > It seems unbelievable (astonishing) that real expenditures for the
> > military could have increased so greatly without there having been any
> > large-scale wars and in an era in which government didn't mobilize the
> > whole population for war or impose wartime measures, until recently, that
> > is, when it has instituted the DHS, the Patriot Act, disregarded the
> > Constitution, ramped up torture and assassinations, started ruling by
> > executive orders, and has taken police state measures.
>
> > But it did happen. It happened in two periods mainly: 1973 to 1992 and
> > again from 2001 to the present.
>
> > In my opinion, the government's nature and its spending have both been
> > hugely influenced by the military-industrial complex in this era. Between
> > 1952 and 1965, military spending was between $55 to $60 billion a year,
> > roughly. The Korean War drove it up from the $20 billion mark and it never
> > went back. The Vietnam War drove it up to the $100 billion mark, and it
> > never went back. After that war, it just went up, up and up relentlessly
> > under Carter, Reagan, and Bush I until Clinton took office in 1992. Bush II
> > resumed the upward drive and it hasn't yet stopped under Obama.
>
> > There is absolutely no need for such high spending. Americans were just as
> > safe in 1950, 1960 and 1970. They didn't need to go to war in either Korea
> > or Vietnam to have stayed safe, much less ramp up a military force after
> > the Vietnam War ended.
>
> > The proponents of this war footing have persuaded large numbers of
> > Americans that they are unsafe and must have an empire abroad to be safe.
> > Goverment finds support in the press and in Congress for spending enormous
> > amounts of money to maintain American military personnel overseas and/or to
> > deploy expensive weapons systems everywhere.
>
> > This level of spending is totally irrational and unnecessary for safety. A
> > look back to 1950, 1960 and 1970 reveals that. The collective purchase,
> > deployment and use of excessive armaments is like any purchase of a good in
> > that its utility is psychological. Pardon me, then, for saying that the
> > psychology of the American public that keeps electing hawks and big
> > military spenders to Congress is warped, sick and pathological. It is
> > paranoid, overly fearful, overly aggressive, and stupid in its hatreds and
> > prejudices.
>
> > This spending is also tremendously wasteful and harmful to economic
> > progress. It is no accident that while this spending has been sharply
> > rising, the median family income in the U.S. has been stagnant. Taxes are
> > extracted to finance military spending that has no payback. Those taxes
> > throttle private investment in projects that improve labor productivity,
> > wages and productivity. The pool of savings that could go to free market
> > activities is diverted into military waste. This is a heavy burden on the
> > American economy.
>
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