Right at the beginning: He claims it's "fairer" to see military spending as percentage of GDP. WHY??? Just because you are richer you need more military than the next 8 militaries combined? If that's the "logic" of the presenter I don't think he is worth listening to. It's not like I'm not open for argument - but this isn't an argument, it's just silly. Here's how an argument could go: You look at the NEED for a military, and THEN you argue for size. To argue for an oversize military size just "because you can" is stupid. And is that even true, *can* the US afford it? Aren't there some minor issues with employment (and level of pay even if you have employment), infrastructure, etc.? Oh well, never mind. Unless of course one sees the military as a means to have some planned government-controlled economy and socialism through the back door, with a focus on the economic part of the military, the production of arms, the jobs. Which part from any economic or political arguments has the advantage of creating additional military capabilities that would not have been created had the focus been on the military-needs-analysis to begin with. Those capabilities then are available to be used -- and therefore *will* be used (because it's already there).
Great comment, however it completely miss' the point. The point being that data and statistics are completely construed by lots of people/organizations/countries etc including yourself in your comment, because no valid argument can just be made on a nominal value. So comparing military spending as part of a countries GDP is the most sound thing to do. Why? 1) GDP represents all goods produced and services rendered over a period by a specific Country. 2) That way one can compare a meaningful value to a meaningful value and this enables more conclusions to be made. "So 4% spent on military, 9% on health care etc etc vs 20% spent on military, 2% on health care...." 3) It is a standard agreed upon tool to use for measurement (compare apples to apples) From this one can deduce, oh look the spending is in proportion, or whoa man so much spending on this and so little on that etc
You ignore how arbitrary GDP itself is already -- www.economist.com/news/briefing/21697845-gross-domestic-product-gdp-increasingly-poor-measure-prosperity-it-not-even to link to just one of numerous publications on this subject. Worse, you also ignore my point, to which I don't see you supply even a single counter-point. I wrote about setting a reasonable size of a nations military. Whatever you mean by "comparing" doesn't seem to have anything to do with it. Unless you want to "compare" in order to determine what is a reasonable size for the military - in which case I refer to my original comment.
Right at the beginning: He claims it's "fairer" to see military spending as percentage of GDP. WHY??? Just because you are richer you need more military than the next 8 militaries combined? If that's the "logic" of the presenter I don't think he is worth listening to. It's not like I'm not open for argument - but this isn't an argument, it's just silly. Here's how an argument could go: You look at the NEED for a military, and THEN you argue for size. To argue for an oversize military size just "because you can" is stupid. And is that even true, *can* the US afford it? Aren't there some minor issues with employment (and level of pay even if you have employment), infrastructure, etc.? Oh well, never mind.
Unless of course one sees the military as a means to have some planned government-controlled economy and socialism through the back door, with a focus on the economic part of the military, the production of arms, the jobs. Which part from any economic or political arguments has the advantage of creating additional military capabilities that would not have been created had the focus been on the military-needs-analysis to begin with. Those capabilities then are available to be used -- and therefore *will* be used (because it's already there).
Great comment, however it completely miss' the point.
The point being that data and statistics are completely construed by lots of people/organizations/countries etc including yourself in your comment, because no valid argument can just be made on a nominal value.
So comparing military spending as part of a countries GDP is the most sound thing to do.
Why?
1) GDP represents all goods produced and services rendered over a period by a specific Country.
2) That way one can compare a meaningful value to a meaningful value and this enables more conclusions to be made.
"So 4% spent on military, 9% on health care etc etc vs 20% spent on military, 2% on health care...."
3) It is a standard agreed upon tool to use for measurement (compare apples to apples)
From this one can deduce, oh look the spending is in proportion, or whoa man so much spending on this and so little on that etc
You ignore how arbitrary GDP itself is already -- www.economist.com/news/briefing/21697845-gross-domestic-product-gdp-increasingly-poor-measure-prosperity-it-not-even to link to just one of numerous publications on this subject.
Worse, you also ignore my point, to which I don't see you supply even a single counter-point. I wrote about setting a reasonable size of a nations military. Whatever you mean by "comparing" doesn't seem to have anything to do with it. Unless you want to "compare" in order to determine what is a reasonable size for the military - in which case I refer to my original comment.