War in Ukraine

Following up....

Servicing that Debt is calculated to reach 1.4 TRILLION per year in 10 years.

That's not factoring for another covid like excuse spending orgy, double digit inflation, energy crisis, war...

Interest payments on the national debt to reach $1.4 trillion annually in 2033: CBO


For perspective: the amount that gave birth to the TEA party? $800 million.

How much Iraq and Afghanistan cost us over 15 years? 1 5 Trillion.

How much debt we added in 1 single month to hold covid at bad? 3.7 TRILLION.

 

Childhood starvation is the least of our problems. Many of the starving children have parent(s) with a drug problem. And like I said, they get fed at school, and there are plenty of charities that work toward solving the problem. A company that I am associated with routinely sends several tons of food to poor neighborhoods in our county and has volunteers hand it out. If we were serious about reducing food waste, we could recover tons and tons of food from groceries that dispose of it before it reaches its shelf life.

And if anyone were serious about solving the debt problem, they would be in favor of investing money now in something that will cause a major and massive reduction in spending for the next decade or more, causing us to save trillions of dollars. Some people would prefer to be cheap and stick their heads in the sand.

 

Childhood starvation is probably the single most compelling issue to those kids dealing with hunger pangs. But I do agree that their parents are largely to blame, and solutions are readily available.

Though I would submit that If we focused on our economy, the parents in despair who turn to drugs for wont of opportunity would decrease drastically.

This phantom. 4-5 trillion you keep pointing to, has little to no basis. Pure conjcture.

WE buried the USSR by coaxing them into spending themselves into ruin.

WE are doing it again!

Except this time, to ourselves.

(...or by China's puppet strings, some might argue).

 

Russian currency collapses again, this time because of the Hamas attack in Israel. People are nervous and looking for a secure currency to invest in, so they are moving to dollars. Roubles are left in the cold again.

Russian ruble slumps to 18-month low as Israel-Hamas war sends US dollar higher in flight to safety

 

The trillions of dollars are not conjecture. It happened in the 1990's, and it can happen again. Look at the history of U.S. defense spending, and then tell me it didn't happen.

U.S. Military Spending/Defense Budget 1960-2023

Year:, % of GDP defense spend, actual defense spend, 2023 equiv defense spend, savings
1988: 6.1% (of GDP) $310B $798B (2023 equiv) Savings = $0
1989: 5.9% $322B $796B Savings = $2B
1990: 5.6% $325B $767B Savings = $31B
1991: 4.9% $299B $669B Savings = $129B
1992: 5.0% $325B $698B Savings = $100B
1993: 4.6% $317B $661B Savings = $137B
1994: 4.2% $308B $624B Savings = $174B
1995: 3.9% $296B $584B Savings = $214B
1996: 3.6% $288B $553B Savings = $245B
1997: 3.4% $293B $547B Savings = $251B
1998: 3.2% $291B $531B Savings = $267B
1999: 3.1% $298B $535B Savings = $263B
2000: 3.1% $320B $562B Savings = $236B
2001: 3.1% $331B $562B Savings = $236B
2002: 3.5% $378B $624B Savings = $173B
2003: 3.8% $441B $717B Savings = $81B
2004: 4.0% $493B $784B Savings = $14B
2005: 4.1% $533B $825B Savings = ZERO

Total Savings = $2.55 trillion

Note that the savings would have continued beyond 2004 except the War in Iraq (as well as the War in Afghanistan) was driving up defense spending.

The costs in fourth column (2023 equiv) were derived by calculating an inflation rate from the following chart:

U.S. Inflation Rate 1960-2023

 

Wow... that thing did get blown to pieces. More so than most of the tanks attacks I've seen. I wonder what hit it.

 

Very few weapon systems can cause a catastrophic kill of a T90, so I’ll bet it was a Javelin.

 

That's one read on the numbers. Here's another: we were no longer at war, as the cold war was was effectively concluded in 1989. That's like pointing to the late '40's through the 50's, in the wake of WW II, and figuring we reduced defense spending from the early to mid '40's, for reasons other than we were no longer fighting WW II.

 

Would a javelin create a similar outcome v an M1A1?

 

drowning kid in the pool

 

Surely, you mean an M1A2, and my answer is that I don’t know but probably in my inexpert opinion. A Javelin operator would tell you absolutely. An Abrams operator might hem and haw but eventually agree that’s possible. A Javelin is a “smart” weapon that targets the tank in its most vulnerable spot.

True story, 20 years ago, so probably no classification issues : in March 2003 at the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, a Marine Corps Abrams, so one of the older A1s, was heading south in Kuwait, away from the forward line of troops, for a mechanical reason if memory serves. Well, an AH-1W Cobra section from a sister squadron (HMLA-269, just to drop a dime) spotted it going south (on its FLIR; this was a no-moon night) and talked itself into believing that it was an enemy tank invading Kuwait all by itself. And, in fairness, unbloodied warriors do get itchy trigger fingers. Well, they smack it with a Hellfire. The tank crew, dazed but for the most part unhurt, just climbed out of the thing. Thank God the section did not maneuver for another shot; maybe they got an urgent call on the radio, and maybe they finally recognized it as an Abrams. But young lieutenant Taipan was treated to being in earshot of some conversations by senior aviators, who after initial relief that the tank crew was not killed were nonplussed that the Hellfire did not destroy the Abrams. I actually heard a colonel say, “Wait a minute. Why didn’t it blow the turret off?” The official story was the Cobra crew accidentally engaged the Abrams with the wrong variant of Hellfire (an “M” blast-frag version designed for buildings, fuel farms, etc) instead of a “K” tank killer. Me, I’m not so sure I buy that between two Cobras they didn’t have a single K on the first day of the war or that the pilot selected the wrong weapon station when it’s printed right on your knee board. I have often wondered if that was the story just to keep quiet how tough an Abrams was. And, again, that was a first-generation type, used by the USMC, not the kind we’re giving to Ukraine.

 

Than 20-year-old (at the time) surplus Desert Storm tanks given by the Army to the Marine Corps after the Army got A2s? Uh, yeah.

I don’t know that they will have all of the bells and whistles that U.S. Army A2s today have, but they should be pretty close. It’s a damn good tank. And its composite armor is still classified 40 years after it entered service.

 

did I just miss your deficit concerns when trump was spending like a drunken sailor?

 

Apparently. I was just about apoplectic over the 3.7 Trillion spending orgy venture into socialism. I did not support Trump at all on that grotesque foray into financial stupidity, nor most of the other drunken sailor idiocy. It was certainly the biggest problem I had with Trump.

I did however, notice a deafening silence from the folks who were crying bloody murder over our spending the 1.5 Trillion over 15 years in Iraq and Afghanistan--hell, even many TEA partiers went silent during co(stup)vid (hence the points of reference included in the follow up post):

 

Sorry, this war’s over. Time to switch out …

 

Russia's surrendering?

 

I’ll bet you believe that Russia’s losing.

 

Ukraine claims to have captured a senior Russian commander near Bakhmut. We will see how accurate that is once they provide a name and current video.

Ukraine announces capture of Russian commander in Bakhmut

 

Also unconfirmed but worth watching