Some grad student studies the effects of alcohol on fish, learns something new about biology, publishes it so that other students and researchers learn about it, and a few years later after some new studies based on that initial research we get a new cancer drug.

Somebody spends $1 million studying the effects of music on dairy cows, learns that they produce more milk if calming music is played and farmers increase revenues by $10 million per year by adding speakers to their milking rooms.

The billions of dollars spent blowing up infrastructure in the middle east is just a loss, but money spent on research is how we've cured diseases, increased crop yields, launched satellites, and made it so that everyone can have a supercomputer in their pocket that can stream HD video through the air.

A few others I can think of:

  Government insurance/funding for homes destroyed by natural disasters - why am I bailing out Florida homeowners when their home is destroyed by a hurricane? At best you get the first one free and then you're on your own after that.

  Billions for highway construction that is not needed, which then costs more to maintain and results in more spending on cars, more deaths, higher costs for insurance, &c.

  Various improper payments, billions in subsidies handed out, COVID-19 bailouts and forgiveness

This is the very thing under question in this thread! You have drawn a conclusion and are using your conclusion as an argument in a circular manner rather than engaging with what other people are arguing.

"Other people disagree with me, therefore I am right" is the dumbest thing ever.

I’m open to hearing why you think @bilsbie’s list is valid. I’m skeptical, and I’ll offer some reasons why, but please convince me, I will listen. Is there a credible source for the claim that money is being spent studying the effects of yoga on goats? I’ve looked a bunch already, and the consensus seems clear that the claim is simply not true.

The empty buildings claim seems mis-stated. The actual wording from the Office of Management and Budget is “empty or underutilized” (emphasis mine). The US government’s real estate portfolio is well over a trillion dollars in holdings, and half a trillion in yearly spending, so this “underutilized” concern amounts to in the neighborhood of less than one half of one percent of spending. If that’s true, I’m absolutely amazed it’s that efficient! Corporate real estate isn’t that efficient. The government manages almost a million military and civilian buildings. Hundreds of buildings come and go every single day. Is it possible this “empty or underutilized” claim is temporary and sometimes unavoidable due to move in/out times, shuffling, and planning? Does it count if the figure includes buildings that are listed for sale and not selling? What about buildings that are held as investment and sell for more than they would have if they’d sold the moment they went empty? There are literally hundreds of thousands of people managing the country’s real estate portfolio. Do you know what they need to do to get from the presumably 99.6% utilization to guaranteed 100% utilization at all times?

The smoking claim is real but dramatized for political effect - it’s simply an anti-smoking campaign & survey. Do you know the healthcare costs of smoking in the US? A quick google says direct economic costs in 2018 were ~$240 billion, with Medicare and Medicaid covering more than half of that. That’s taxpayer money, money you’re paying to cover the predictable effects of other people’s poor life choices, and that cost is literally fifty thousand times larger than the anti-smoking campaign @bilsbie complained about - five hundred of your dollars of medical care for every single penny of hipster music whatever.

If the ‘hipster’ anti-smoking campaign was covered purely by taxes on the sale of cigarettes, would that make it okay for you?

The $281 billion “managed to misplace” claim is a mis-characterization. This is the amount of money that didn’t have all proper paperwork, it was not all lost or misplaced. It is “payments that did not meet statutory or administrative criteria”.

The music and cows claim appears to be false. Google mentions the University of Leicester (not in the US) had a “Moosic Study” in 2001 (BTW, come on, that’s funny), and the University of Wisconsin Madison did some trials in 1930 that did not cost $1M.

The fish alcohol claim also appears to be false, an exaggerated carry over of a report from 1975 by Senator William Proxmire, who was the creator of the “Golden Fleece Awards”. Have you read the history of the Golden Goose Awards? It’s seriously worth the 2 minutes. https://www.goldengooseaward.org/history

Yes, so why are you arguing with me? The specific claims aren't what matter (goat yoga) because you and I both know that there are small line items like these that are truly wasteful. I'm not defending the specific list, I'm arguing that we do waste small money on grants and such like what the OP wrote about and regardless of how small the dollar amount is, waste is waste.

Please - if there are valid, good faith examples “like” the list @bilsbie wrote, why don’t you list them and provide sources?

Now, given that I agree with you that the government wastes money, your question why am I arguing with you is a good question, and it’s a question that you should think harder about; why do I agree with the existence of waste but disagree with your examples? You do realize that nodoby wants the government to waste money, right? Well maybe nobody but some of the contractors getting no-bid contracts. The fact that most people agree with you and I on the basic premise means you don’t need to prove that point, and what we need to do is: 1- decide what our goals are, 2- gather true, factual, and accurate information about what waste is occurring, and 3- elect officials that will do the right thing and enact policy that increases our efficiency.

Now again, science funding in the US runs a pretty decent return on investment, economists seem to agree. If you disagree with that, then please provide some sources or analysis. And that includes ALL science funding, whether it sounds silly, whether it fails to produce results, and whether it’s inefficient or even wasteful. The country is getting back more money than it spends on science R&D, therefore it’s difficult to make the case that any one grant is “waste” when it’s part of a portfolio that is performing well and giving returns.

Science funding runs on the very same investment concepts that venture capital does, and sure enough venture capitalists ‘waste’ money on bad investments literally all the time. That is the nature of investment, it comes with risk and it involves failure.

Did you read about the Golden Goose Awards yet?

I said the OP was right to point those specific items out, I didn't say they were accurate. I haven't personally looked at each one, but it's certainly believable that the government might fund such things if for no other reason than we just fund a lot of things and some of them are unbelievably stupid.

The continued arguing about it is why I think they were right to point those specific items out. The more people protest "that didn't happen!1!!" the more I believe they probably did happen because if they didn't happen why are you spending so much time trying to convince me they didn't happen?

My point of view is this: yes the government sometimes wastes money on egregious things. While those things are typically relative small-dollar items, it still matters that such waste is stopped. If you disagree with that, I simply will never see eye to eye with you or anyone else. It's not about the specific items, they are either true or close to true in form, it's about the general point.

> Now again, science funding in the US runs a pretty decent return on investment, economists seem to agree. If you disagree with that, then please provide some sources or analysis.

I don't disagree with that. But that doesn't mean all "science" funding is created equal. I support science funding, generally speaking, but it's worth pointing out that supporting funding for science isn't necessarily the same thing as funding other academic pursuits.

I have personally looked at each one of the items in @bilsbie’s list, as you can plainly see above. I totally recommend that you take some time to do the same, instead of just thinking it’s believable. You’ll either have real ammo for the thread, or more understanding of why people here are protesting. Either way you win, you get more real factual information.

By aligning yourself with these “specific items”, and by assuming that protest of them somehow makes them more believable, you’ve made it quite a bit harder to get your own general point across in this thread, speaking of waste.

> I support science funding

Yes! Me too. See, we agree on a lot of things. I just wanted to make sure it’s clear that doing science necessarily involves some failure, and it’s not possible to invest in science without expecting some of the grants to not work out. There’s no such thing as 100% efficiency when it comes to investment. Some waste will happen. The grants I would call waste are the ones that involve grift or scientific dishonesty, and not the grants that go to silly sounding things.

Science funding in the US is under fairly intense budget pressure, BTW. Many many (probably most) academics complain about the lack of funding. The people who tend to make lists like @bilsbie’s often seem to be somewhat ignorant of the process of applying for funding and how much scrutiny goes into every grant.

> it’s worth pointing out that supporting funding for science isn’t necessarily the same thing as funding other academic pursuits.

Great, let’s start there. Take all the science grants out of @bilsbie’s list, and let’s discuss the non-science academic funding that’s wasteful. Three of the seven items were complaining about science funding, and the other four items were non-academic. So what would that be? What “other” academic pursuits would you put on the list of waste?

Because I don't care about those specific items and whether those specific items are true or not. What does it matter? The broader point is the government wastes money, and sometimes those dollar figures are relatively small (few million here or there) but nonetheless we should stop wasting money.

> Three of the seven items were complaining about science funding, and the other four items were non-academic. So what would that be? What “other” academic pursuits would you put on the list of waste?

Wasn't one of those goat yoga? I'm all for having folks do research on things like that if they'd like, but should the government sponsor such "scientific" research? Maybe there's a compelling case for it. I am not too sure which is why I continue to emphasize I'm not overly concerned with the specific items on the list that was shared - instead I was concerned with folks who seemed to think that just because it's a few million we don't need to care. You can read the responses for yourself. Here's a selection:

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49125445
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49126154
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49130720

If you don’t care about those specific items, then why are you defending them as representing the broader point? They are not true, therefore they do not support your broader point. If you care about the government wasting money, you should care about whether the examples are true or not, and you should reject misleading and bad faith claims because they will cause people to label you as a political shill, and more importantly they might impede fixing any real actual spending waste.

If you want to reduce waste, it’s critically important that the list of waste be factually accurate. Otherwise, you’re adding to the waste and not reducing it. If you can’t make an honest and true list of waste, it calls into question whether there is any such waste, it directly challenges your broader point.

The list @bilsbie provided is a list that Elon Musk retweeted, and Elon Musk has at this point earned a reputation as a fabulist when it comes to government spending and efficiency, he has lost nearly all good will and has done damage and caused additional government waste without fixing any problems.

> Wasn’t one of those goat yoga? […] should the government sponsor such “scientific” research?

The government DID NOT sponsor goat yoga. It’s a fabricated false claim.

There is a 50+ year history of bogus political attacks on science funding, which is why I keep bringing up the Golden Goose Awards. The fact is, science funding is not wasting money. Unless there’s dishonesty involved, there are no small science grants you can point at that demonstrate government waste, you’re looking in the wrong place.

We do need to care about waste, but we need to care about the big waste first. The war in Iran has wasted more money this week than @bilsbie’s entire list (even if they were true, which they aren’t).

If we had congress enact a law to ban studying goat yoga with federal funds, what would we achieve? We would have spent several million dollars to battle a problem that does not exist. We would waste money.

FWIW your language about “waste” is coming off as being pretty naive. Your conception of the problem is too vague to be actionable. That’s why we need real examples. As I mentioned above, you seem to be focused purely on spending while completely ignoring any ROI.

You’re also failing to prioritize, as many people here are trying to point out. Fixing the small line items before the big ones would be a massive waste of tax dollars. We can’t fix the small ones until we fix the big ones.

The list Musk & @bilsbie forwarded is not actually a list of waste in the sense you’re talking about, it’s a politically motivated statement about our country’s goals. The actual intent behind that list and the many many such lists started by Proxmire and amplified by Fox News and Republicans over the years is to cut science funding. They have said so explicitly. It’s trying to sow public mistrust, and convey the idea that we need different goals, not that certain line items are inefficient.

It seems to be working, you clearly don’t trust that funds are scrutinized properly. But do you actually know how the funds are allocated, and what processes currently exist to minimize and prevent waste?

Ok but I am not trying, nor have I given that impression, to find individual examples of government waste and specifically fix those.

As I’m repeating myself yet again… government waste exists, sometimes that waste is relatively small dollar line items, and when we find such waste we should eliminate it. That’s it. I already provided examples where folks were disagreeing with my comments about fixing small line items. The specific item isn’t relevant or of interest to me in the context of this conversation.

You can read the words I’ve written here and say yes Eric you are right (I am, of course), or you can say that the line items are too small to matter or don’t exist. That’s the only two options. That’s what any conversation about this topic involving me in this thread is about.

> You’re also failing to prioritize, as many people here are trying to point out. Fixing the small line items before the big ones would be a massive waste of tax dollars. We can’t fix the small ones until we fix the big ones.

Not every government agency handles the big ticket spend. The FDA can eliminate waste within its organization while Social Security or the DoD is reformed or whatever. Not a single tax dollar is “wasted”.

You can then extrapolate this to within agencies or Congress or the Executive itself. Do you work for a company? I bet they cut costs for projects big and small.

Yes, you did. You gave that impression when you said OP was right to point out the list of specific items.

People weren’t disagreeing that small items exist, they were pointing out that worrying about them doesn’t fix very much waste, which is true. So they were also right.

If you aren’t going to come up with true examples, and you aren’t interested in what’s true, what’s broken or how to actually fix the problem, what value is your opinion, right or wrong? If you don’t care what’s true, then why should anyone else care if you’re right about something? And why would I think you’re right when you refuse to bring any actual evidence?

I’m trying to invite you to do more than repeat yourself, and provide some more thoughtful ideas on how to improve government efficiency, and how to evaluate inefficiency. I do work for a company, and my company wastes some money. All companies do. As others pointed out, it’s not possible to avoid some amount of “waste”. This is why it’s important to understand the waste. Without understanding, you have nothing and can’t fix it.

and so far it does not appear that reducing waste would properly fund the government? a couple patriot missiles worth is not the debt, and would not allow for much more efficient single payer health care - the single biggest opportunity the US government has to reduce waste in american society

However, if this was something that worked in the real world, we wouldn't be having this conversation because e.g. DOGE would have been successful.

Getting bogged down in line item spending is a trick politicians use to divide us. Net discretionary spending is only 27% of the budget, social security, Medicare, and military spending make up the other 73%. If you eliminated all discretionary spending, we’d still be running a budget deficit.

Politicians? You're sitting here arguing about the line item spending instead of just admitting we should cut obviously bad spending. That's the division that's taking place and it's happening right here in this thread and it's your doing! lol

That said, 1.5 million on goats, 1 on cows, 1.7 million on fish, these are all perfectly reasonable research costs compared to the potential benefit to agriculture on the scale of the USA, well within the "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" kind of territory; likewise 5 on an anti-smoking campaign and th health burden of smoking in a nation as big as the USA.

$859 billion to DoD

$339 billion Veterans benefits

Then when we look at the $952 billion in interest, a good chunk of that is due to past military spending.

Plus even more - tens of billions of the military nuclear budget is done via the DoE, not the DoD in the budget line.

There's always a hand waving that previous debts accumulated like veteran's benefits and military related debt interest are not military spending, but they obviously are.

There's room to debate military spending, but if you view the world as a dangerous place and that the US should not become isolationist, we have to spend the money and have equipment ready and capable whether that's in Europe or in Asia. Alternatively we can disband much of the military, stop paying for this stuff, withdraw from NATO, remove overseas bases in countries like Japan and South Korea, and leave the world to deal with its own problems.

But let's not make some bullshit up about a million dollars wasted on some non-sense, when we have real problems with the DoW, which can't even audit itself, sucking up almost a trillion dollars.

Hi former active duty soldier here - I'm all for generally increasing pay, but you're just making claims here without any basis for them. It cost a lot of money to maintain the industries capable of producing weapons. We can stop the spending, but then they go out of business and now that capability is lost. Look at Europe. Depends on the details. What specific waste are you talking about? Here's [1] an article that came out recently highlighting how much of our explosives and munitions manufacturing is reliant on just a few locations - cut the DoD budget, and then these are the kinds of things that happen.

Secondly, you have no expertise or authority to make claims as to whether we're spending the right amount of money - whether that's too little or too much, without additional specific logic or factual claims. When you say the DoD is sucking up a trillion dollars you're implying that it's all waste - sorry don't think that's true. And when you look at the performance of equipment that other countries provide versus the US, you know our stuff actually works as advertised. Maybe the US is actually spending too little, and other countries are spending proportionally much less on vaporware?

[1] https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/western-powers-race-to-brin...

> you have no expertise or authority to make claims as to whether we're spending the right amount of money

To

> Maybe the US is actually spending too little, and other countries are spending proportionally much less on vaporware?

But more on topic, the real question is if this is spending that is worth going into debt for. No family anywhere in the world can sustain a long period of overspending relative to income.

You talk about weapons and stuff but just understand that you're handing over your bargaining power because the rest of the world controls your debt. And at these ratios thats significant leverage.

By now you can win a war without a single shot being fired.

You made a general, pedestrian claim about spending, I questioned your claim based on what you wrote. That's all. I wouldn't read in to it more than that.

> But more on topic, the real question is if this is spending that is worth going into debt for. No family anywhere in the world can sustain a long period of overspending relative to income.

Sure but then we can just cut in other areas that aren't the military, if that's what we decide to do. You're not making a serious claim that we're overspending.

> You talk about weapons and stuff but just understand that you're handing over your bargaining power because the rest of the world controls your debt. And at these ratios thats significant leverage.

Not really. Most US debt is owed to Americans, and in the circumstances in which we're worried about some other country amassing so much debt that they can leverage us, well, it's a good thing we bought all those ships, planes, and tanks and whatnot so we can fix the issue with kinetic force.

> By now you can win a war without a single shot being fired.

Yea true enough in some cases. I'm not sure I'd disband the US military, withdraw from NATO, relocate US personnel from overseas bases supporting allies in the Philippines, Japan, Korea, and elsewhere under the assumption that maybe we can win a war without any weapons. But I'm certainly interested in your view here.

I didn't do anything, that wasn't me.

> You're not making a serious claim that we're overspending.

This is the thread about debt to GDP ratio hitting 123%. I don't claim anything, but if this isn't overspending then I think we agree to disagree.

> Not really. Most US debt is owed to Americans, and in the circumstances in which we're worried about some other country amassing so much debt that they can leverage us, well, it's a good thing we bought all those ships, planes, and tanks and whatnot so we can fix the issue with kinetic force.

According to [1], 23.5% is owned by foreign investors. That's a minority of the total, but you don't need a majority to cause a big problem because trust is all that matters (see 2008).

You want to solve that with weapons?? That'll only make everyone drop the dollar, as simple as that.

> But I'm certainly interested in your view here.

The US military is there in all of those countries for influence, more so than for actual defense. The US can defend every NATO country simply by reaffirming article 5, you don't have to be present.

Not even Russia would attempt an attack, they've been in a war of attrition for years now with a non NATO country with no end in sight for limited gains in territory.

They've done this for the past 70 years, starting from 1945. Whether this is something the US has benefitted from can be debated, I think they certainly have.

The Russia vs Ukraine war and the Iran conflict show that super powers can try to use their military power but 'winning' is hard. No matter how superior you are based on the numbers. Iran isn't winning on the battlefield, their most potent weapon is economic, that has turned out to be more powerful than all their weapons combined.

1: https://www.us-debt-clock.com/blog/who-owns-us-debt-breakdow...

Ok you're defending it.

> I don't claim anything, but if this isn't overspending then I think we agree to disagree.

Ok if it's over-spending then let's cut the programs that align with my ideology instead of cutting military spending.

> You want to solve that with weapons?? That'll only make everyone drop the dollar, as simple as that.

Not worried at all - those dollars become worthless in a fire sale. The strength of the dollar is because of the actual physical reality and capabilities of the United States.

> The Russia vs Ukraine war and the Iran conflict show that super powers can try to use their military power but 'winning' is hard. No matter how superior you are based on the numbers. Iran isn't winning on the battlefield, their most potent weapon is economic, that has turned out to be more powerful than all their weapons combined.

You're directionally right but also wrong w.r.t America. What you've shown here isn't a weakness of the US, but a strength of the US. Unlike Russia we spend and that spending (overspending according to some) ensures that our equipment works. That's why when Iran went and bought Russian and Chinese air defense for example, we blew it up with impunity.

Iran is of course hard because we have some political considerations which would only get worse over time as we would have continued to do nothing, Iran would build more missiles and drones and then seize control of the Strait of Hormuz and then it would be too costly to do anything to stop them from doing that or continuing their nuclear weapons program.

Specifically in the case of economic warfare, Iran is losing badly. The worst outcome is some MAGA coal rollers have to pay more for gas. Iran's economy literally doesn't function due to our blockade (which means we also control the Strait of Hormuz). I'd rather pay extra at the pump (well I drive an EV but w/e) then have like 80% of my economy held hostage.

But this also reinforces the need for a higher military budget and the need to spend more to acquire more arms and capabilities. By the way, the military budget isn't actually that high as a percentage of GDP. You're welcome to do that comparison yourself.

No, the worst outcome is Iran continues to mess up everyone else in the region until there's nothing left to damage, leading to:

  • $300+/barrel for a sustained period
  • US GDP falling 10%
  • 10-15% inflation overall, mostly in fuel, but also up to 30% in food
  • Unemployment reaching 12%
  • The Strategic Petroleum Reserve hits engineering limits (which happen well before "running out") in 1-2 months

Also in the "however" list: you may hit the limits of the SPR anyway, just from the reduced supply through Hormuz. And the situation between Ukraine and Russia may do something like that to food all by itself that this would compound on top of.

* really cheap, making it possible to saturate target's defence

Which is precisely the reason to attack now before this problem becomes much worse and then Iran adds in nuclear weapons too.

> However, right now Iran seems to have the strategic and weapons (no really*) advantages vs. the USA that Ukraine has vs. Russia, so it is a risk worth taking seriously.

I just disagree. Even in your scenario for example the US GDP falling 10%, well, we can stomach that. If we can't, we should pack up the military because any war is going to threaten GDP and we won't be able to defend NATO against a Russian attack (nor can Europe because GDP will fall) nor can we defend Taiwan. I think you and many others are confusing "I don't like this war" with "we can't tolerate temporary disruptions and price shocks".

But in any case Iran's GDP falls 90%, that's much more devastating. Their unemployment rate goes close to 90%. They are already blockaded and we control the Strait of Hormuz too (in order to control the Strait they have to be able to allow access as well, not just deny - we deny too so technically either neither party controls it or we both do).

You're certainly right to point out additional potential damage to regional partners and allies (which further proves the point that this problem must be resolved else Iran can threaten this at any time), but if Iran were to attempt to execute such an attack, it would create a global problem necessitating a global response, troops on the ground, the actual Iranian regime dead - don't forget they do have lives they want to live and we can ensure they and their families don't have that privilege. Iran just the other day struck a ship in the Suez Canal - these global chokepoints can't live hostage to an Iranian regime just because whoops they decided they don't like that the US sold Patriot missiles to Ukraine which they're using to defend against Iran's buddy Russia so you better stop or we'll attack the Strait and the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. We simply cannot and will not live under threat.

Separately I wouldn't liken Russia vs Ukraine to Iran vs America. They're not at all similar outside of a small discussion about the increasing important of drone warfare which the US is already well aware of.

Perhaps. However, there are many alternatives to "attack" besides "do nothing".

> Even in your scenario for example the US GDP falling 10%, well, we can stomach that. If we can't, we should pack up the military because any war is going to threaten GDP and we won't be able to defend NATO against a Russian attack (nor can Europe because GDP will fall) nor can we defend Taiwan.

You can't defend Taiwan, full stop. If and when China decides to attack, they're smart enough to make sure to use the right weapons for the conflict, and that any allies Taiwan has won't get involved.

Right now, the US is making this even easier for China by depleting the only weapons it does have, though this is only of minor relevance as what the US has is not even a good match for a China conflict in the first place. The best Taiwan can hope for in the near-term is a mix of promising it will be pyrrhic, and possibly surprising everyone with some anti-drone solution that has yet to be demonstrated.

> I think you and many others are confusing "I don't like this war" with "we can't tolerate temporary disruptions and price shocks".

> But in any case Iran's GDP falls 90%, that's much more devastating.

With this, you are making the same mistake as with Vietnam, "We thought we were winning because we killed more of them than they killed of us", or whatever the quote was.

Iran's a dictatorship, they DGAF. You're not a dictatorship (not yet, and long may it remain so), your government answers to the people, and the people repeatedly demonstrate they can't tolerate temporary (though in this case I mean "a year or two") disruptions and price shocks.

This issue in your nation has been made worse by the piss-poor comms from the White House, that seems to simultaneously want everyone to think they totally wiped out all possible threat from Iran in the previous strikes, and yet also simultaneously Iran remains a threat requiring further and more expensive military expenses and action.

> Iran were to attempt to execute such an attack, it would create a global problem necessitating a global response, troops on the ground, the actual Iranian regime dead - don't forget they do have lives they want to live and we can ensure they and their families don't have that privilege. Iran just the other day struck a ship in the Suez Canal - these global chokepoints can't live hostage to an Iranian regime just because whoops they decided they don't like that the US sold Patriot missiles to Ukraine which they're using to defend against Iran's buddy Russia so you better stop or we'll attack the Strait and the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. We simply cannot and will not live under threat.

The global response so far has been "America caused this mess. Sure almost all of us think Iran's leadership is awful, but this is America's mess, America can damn well clean up after itself."

Quite a lot of us are even hoping you'll get stuck there, wasting your weapons and personnel, just so you don't make another threat against the sovereignties of technically-still-allies.

The allies in the region have the more immediate threat from Iran. But half of Europe already noped out in no small part because of Greenland.

Yes, and we've tried lots of different things.

> You can't defend Taiwan, full stop. If and when China decides to attack, they're smart enough to make sure to use the right weapons for the conflict, and that any allies Taiwan has won't get involved.

You're making the same mistake others do here by assuming that China can do things and the US can't respond or also strategize based on what they may do.

China's smart enough to use the right weapons for the conflict (when was their last war?).

Ok the US is smart enough to also use the right weapons for the conflict.

> Right now, the US is making this even easier for China by depleting the only weapons it does have, though this is only of minor relevance as what the US has is not even a good match for a China conflict in the first place. The best Taiwan can hope for in the near-term is a mix of promising it will be pyrrhic, and possibly surprising everyone with some anti-drone solution that has yet to be demonstrated.

Why? This is precisely the kind of conflict the United States is good at - air and naval power

And if you don't think the US can defend Taiwan then why concern is there about depleting missiles we can't and won't use to defend Taiwan anyway?

> With this, you are making the same mistake as with Vietnam, "We thought we were winning because we killed more of them than they killed of us", or whatever the quote was.

No, it's been, what, 60 years since Vietnam? We're not trying to stop an internal revolution. Circumstances are different. Internet exists. &c. - there may be loose comparisons but Vietnam isn't and has never been strategically significant to America, necessitating different calculations.

> The global response so far has been "America caused this mess. Sure almost all of us think Iran's leadership is awful, but this is America's mess, America can damn well clean up after itself."

I know, and unfortunately the globe has yet again had an immature and unrealistic response which is precisely why the United States is increasingly eschewing militarily useless allies and taking matters into its own hands.

> Quite a lot of us are even hoping you'll get stuck there, wasting your weapons and personnel, just so you don't make another threat against the sovereignties of technically-still-allies.

Well it's impossible for us to get stuck there. We can just like, leave if we want and then the rest of the world will have to pay Iran's tolls. You're lucky we even care to stop them. We should have attacked them for supplying drones to Russia in the first place.

Until Trump came along and discarded those other things, several of those other things were working.

> Ok the US is smart enough to also use the right weapons for the conflict.

Demonstrably not today you aren't, but worse than that, the Trump-class battleship is clearly a step backwards. We don't yet know what a conflict with China (and anyone, let alone the USA) will look like because of the rapid changes we are seeing to drone warfare turning things from manoeuvre warfare to attritional warfare, but we do know China-vs-Taiwan would have a logistics chain of a few hundred kilometres while the USA entering theatre would need to cross the Pacific, so it would depend on either being there full time in sufficient numbers to deter (with necessarily very visible assets, which also makes the Chinese calculus very easy, even though the US calculus remains hard because a China that wants to invade will do the opposite of showing off), or having a lot of regional allies (who are currently all getting pissed off by US erratic behaviour).

(If I was Taiwan, I'd be doing three things right now: a novel anti-drone system, anti-ship drones, and actual literal nuclear deterrence).

> And if you don't think the US can defend Taiwan then why concern is there about depleting missiles we can't and won't use to defend Taiwan anyway?

Running out of even the wrong munitions for a fight against China, still means you've got nothing left even for other smaller conflicts where those weapons would have been useful.

> Why? This is precisely the kind of conflict the United States is good at - air and naval power

Before munitions started to get depleted, the 2023 war games I've seen said the US would lose a significant number of ships almost immediately, including 2 aircraft carriers in the baseline. That's a scenario where Taiwan is still successfully defended.

But 2023 was before Ukraine scaled drones to the level of saturation attacks. Unless you've got a much better anti-drone defence solution than anyone knows about yet, you'd likely lose every ship you send, and China wouldn't even need to be at sea to perform the attacks.

> No, it's been, what, 60 years since Vietnam? We're not trying to stop an internal revolution. Circumstances are different. Internet exists. &c. - there may be loose comparisons but Vietnam isn't and has never been strategically significant to America, necessitating different calculations.

You're trying to cause one (or at least Trump sometimes says words to this effect, who knows what's going on upstairs), Iran has a heavy hand on the internet, and Vietnam was seen at the time as of strategic importance WRT domino theory. You were in Vietnam for rather too long a time, and lost rather too many people, for it to be credible to claim "Vietnam isn't and has never been strategically significant to America".

All that said, "Circumstances are different" is both true and not hugely important to the argument I made: wars continue until one party reaches their pain threshold, and the US has a really low pain threshold compared to Iran.

The USA electorate's pain threshold could be higher, but (a) you're the aggressor, (b) your cobelligerent has been making itself wildly unpopular domestically for the last few years, and (c) Trump clearly prefers to punish his domestic opponents rather than bring them on board, even where it would help him.

> Well it's impossible for us to get stuck there. We can just like, leave if we want and then the rest of the world will have to pay Iran's tolls.

Nope, you're currently stuck there. You don't have to be, but you are.

If you let the world (and "the world" would include you too because of how the oil markets work) pay Iran's tolls, you tell the world that you can't beat small regional powers with control over important straits, so everyone does it.

Also, you've got Trump in charge, and his ego won't let him out.

Without Trump, you might be able to patch up the former with appropriate diplomatic arse-covering to get out without the downside, but right now, you're just as stuck as Russia is stuck with Ukraine.

Of course, Trump is the reason why the world wants you to be stuck in the first place, so that he can't use your armed forces to threaten us, which he's still doing e.g. the most recent comment I'm aware of from him about Greenland was last Friday.

> You're lucky we even care to stop them.

Stop them from what, exactly? The thing they only started doing in response to a coordinated strike from the US and Israel?

> We should have attacked them for supplying drones to Russia in the first place.

Ukraine did this all by itself, you will notice.

Which ones were working?

> Demonstrably not today you aren't,

> Running out of even the wrong munitions for a fight against China, still means you've got nothing left even for other smaller conflicts where those weapons would have been useful.

That's not necessarily true and it's easy to demonstrate without getting in to specific numbers.

> Before munitions started to get depleted, the 2023 war games I've seen said the US would lose a significant number of ships almost immediately, including 2 aircraft carriers in the baseline. That's a scenario where Taiwan is still successfully defended.

Which war-games have you seen?

Separately, of course the US would lose significant amounts of military hardware if a conflict were to, unfortunately, unfold against China. Perhaps you and the Chinese now are under the childish delusion that they can bomb others and not be bombed back? What do you think will happen if China attacks, say, Kadena or Osan?

> But 2023 was before Ukraine scaled drones to the level of saturation attacks. Unless you've got a much better anti-drone defence solution than anyone knows about yet, you'd likely lose every ship you send, and China wouldn't even need to be at sea to perform the attacks.

What's the range on those drones? Talk to me about the US's anti-drone capabilities. Are you familiar with the specific weapons implemented on US naval ships? I think you're just making stuff up.

> All that said, "Circumstances are different" is both true and not hugely important to the argument I made: wars continue until one party reaches their pain threshold, and the US has a really low pain threshold compared to Iran.

I reject non-specific comparisons to Vietnam. I've already said as a matter of fact (not for debate) why those comparisons don't work.

You are right that the US has done a poor job of selling the importance of the war, but again you are mistaken in understanding the ability for the US to stomach higher gas prices versus the ability of people in Iran to not have an economy at all. It's only tolerable for so long.

> Nope, you're currently stuck there. You don't have to be, but you are.

We're not though we can just leave and give Iran control. We won't and shouldn't do that, but we can. So, factually you are wrong here.

> Stop them from what, exactly?

Supplying drones to Russia to bomb Ukrainians - that's reason enough in my mind. But stop them from building a nuclear bomb, stop them from increasing their missile and drone stockpiles even further so then we simply can't do anything when they decide to take over Hormuz, stop the funding of their proxy forces in Iraq, Yemen Syria, Lebanon, and other areas which are causing destabilization and death for no benefit. There are plenty of things.

The thing they only started doing in response to a coordinated strike from the US and Israel?

This is really either disingenuous or actively anti-historical in interpretation. Even if you wanted to discard every single event prior to 2022, you can look back at Iran's proxies and their attack on Israel as a continued chain of events. The war didn't just randomly happen in an isolated environment.

> Ukraine did this all by itself, you will notice.

Did what?

Yes, I think the question of whether or not the US is living above its means is settled. Where you cut is a political decision. I certainly think the US can reduce its military spending, with an emphasis on reduce.

> The strength of the dollar is because of the actual physical reality and capabilities of the United States.

I don't think this is true at all. It's value is a result of being the reserve currency of the world and as a result a lot of things being denominated in USD. The financial system will lose so much if the dollar devalues significantly that that's a bad outcome to almost everyone, not just the US.

I think the actual capabilities of the US have 0 influence there. Certainly military capabilities. That kind of stuff is true for drug cartels, not global financial stability. You cannot force anyone to buy dollars by force.

> You're directionally right but also wrong w.r.t America.

I think you're wrong here. But not in the sense you might expect.

You present your reading as a fact. I think how you read the current situation with Iran is a question of how you interpret the situation.

For example, you say

> Iran's economy literally doesn't function due to our blockade (which means we also control the Strait of Hormuz).

The US has never controlled the strait. The biggest win for Iran is that it has asserted being able to block it. The US can block any ships going to and coming from Iran's ports. It cannot and has never been able to guarantee safe passage through the strait. That last fact is Iran's biggest win of the conflict as it has now shown that even when the US goes full scale war, it can still shut off the strait for all intents and purposes.

The other miscalculation is that while you might have air superiority, it should be clear by now that the US can't win from the air alone. And Iran might have known/gambled that the US wasn't willing to commit to a ground offensive. As bad as it sounds to be bombed whenever your enemy wants, from a strategic point of view I think this makes sense. Horrible for the population but the regime doesn't care.

> The worst outcome is some MAGA coal rollers have to pay more for gas.

Uh no. The US lost quite a bit of respect I think for this intervention. We need to see what a final cease fire might look like but the whole world is essentially asking what the hell this whole endeavour was for. The whole world is paying higher gas prices and in a lot of other countries especially south east Asia there is a much bigger dependency on Middle East oil. Those people aren't happy about this at all. It might not even be higher prices but outright shortages. And wait for food prices to shoot up because of more expensive fertilizer for example.

The problem with a lot of this is that the American view doesn't extend past its borders. You see spending on bombs and some higher gas prices. Other countries see shortages and higher food prices. Just remember how pissed off America was when egg prices went up because of avian flu. Now imagine a foreign power being responsible. The decision makers can't even explain the actual goal, and when they try it seems to be shifting all the time.

> But this also reinforces the need for a higher military budget and the need to spend more to acquire more arms and capabilities.

In the end I think it comes down to one simple assumption. You seem to be convinced that with enough military spending the US can force a country to do what it wants. I think that that's not possible at all (see Russia and the Iran conflict right now) let alone at a cost that any country can bear. The US clearly is already struggling to pay for it all.

> By the way, the military budget isn't actually that high as a percentage of GDP. You're welcome to do that comparison yourself.

Sure, but I never said that. The problem is that you don't raise the money to pay for your spending. It's a significant chunk of the federal budget and that will need to be balanced at some point. Every US household knows this, they have to do it every month.

Tangent: The high egg prices were only partly because of avian flu, a significantly higher impact on the prices was price collusion between producers which ended with a small settlement for the culprits: https://apnews.com/article/egg-prices-collusion-settlement-d...

It's not quite settled. GDP can increase much more, inflation eats away at the debt, &c. But I am not sure cutting the military makes sense, unless you believe the US should retreat from Asia, NATO, &c.

> I don't think this is true at all. It's value is a result of being the reserve currency of the world and as a result a lot of things being denominated in USD. The financial system will lose so much if the dollar devalues significantly that that's a bad outcome to almost everyone, not just the US.

It's precisely true. That's what fiat currency effectively is. The USD is just one of many reserve currencies. The dominant one certainly, but it's just one currency held in reserve by banks, hence reserve currency.

> The US has never controlled the strait.

Sure, but neither does Iran. Just to be super clear.

> The biggest win for Iran is that it has asserted being able to block it. The US can block any ships going to and coming from Iran's ports. It cannot and has never been able to guarantee safe passage through the strait. That last fact is Iran's biggest win of the conflict as it has now shown that even when the US goes full scale war, it can still shut off the strait for all intents and purposes.

US isn't at full-scale war, also to be clear. Yes Iran can block the passage of ships. But the US blocks the passage of ships too. What I find interesting here though is this specific comment:

> The biggest win for Iran is that it has asserted being able to block it.

The US and learned people such as myself already knew Iran could block the Strait and the passage of ships. This is only news to the general populace who has not been following Iran's years-long buildup of missile, drone, mine, and other capabilities. In other words, did you not know this was happening? That would explain why you are not understanding why this had to be done as soon as possible.

> The other miscalculation is that while you might have air superiority, it should be clear by now that the US can't win from the air alone. And Iran might have known/gambled that the US wasn't willing to commit to a ground offensive. As bad as it sounds to be bombed whenever your enemy wants, from a strategic point of view I think this makes sense. Horrible for the population but the regime doesn't care.

I don't disagree with you besides calling this a miscalculation.

> Uh no. The US lost quite a bit of respect I think for this intervention.

Ultimately nobody in the US really cares.

> We need to see what a final cease fire might look like but the whole world is essentially asking what the hell this whole endeavour was for. The whole world is paying higher gas prices and in a lot of other countries especially south east Asia there is a much bigger dependency on Middle East oil. Those people aren't happy about this at all. It might not even be higher prices but outright shortages. And wait for food prices to shoot up because of more expensive fertilizer for example.

Right, and again this misunderstanding is precisely the problem. Iran is working toward at least these 3 things:

Nuclear weapons, double/triple/quadruple existing missile and drone and other capabilities as mentioned above, and expansion and further utilization of proxy forces to destabilize other Middle Eastern countries.

When the "rest of the world" is wondering what is going on or what this endeavor for, somehow they are missing that those 3 things mentioned above will not be tolerated. Since the world is unwilling (incapable) of solving this problem, the US has decided to solve that problem and now the rest of the world must just accept those consequences including higher prices.

> In the end I think it comes down to one simple assumption. You seem to be convinced that with enough military spending the US can force a country to do what it wants. I think that that's not possible at all (see Russia and the Iran conflict right now) let alone at a cost that any country can bear. The US clearly is already struggling to pay for it all.

We're not really struggling though. We should be weary of the debt being so high, but plenty of western or western-aligned nations have high debt too. It's not that the US needs to spend more to force a country to do what it wants, that just happens anyway for the most part, but it's to build out the capabilities necessary to shore up defenses. Look at US military spending as a percentage of GDP and compare that to other nations.

> Every US household knows this, they have to do it every month.

Household budgets don't work the same as government budgets.

Most of that money ends up being spent in communities (grocery stores etc) and hospitals. So at least that money flows back into a local community.

There's plenty wrong with the US healthcare system, but since the vast majority gets their healthcare through their employer you'll have to come up with something for when they retire or unable to work. That's just an outcome of how the system was set up.

No, snide and wrong is extremely different!

Social Security spending is already funded by a separate tax and currently running a surplus. It's what our legislators are are debt to when use the discretionary budget to let the President start a game of Battleship in the straight of Hormuz.

Snide and wrong! You must be talking about the OP then and not me.

> Social Security spending is already funded by a separate tax and currently running a surplus.

If someone doesn't want to pay in to it, what difference does whether it's fully-funded or not make?

> It's what our legislators are are debt to when use the discretionary budget to let the President start a game of Battleship in the straight of Hormuz.

Or when they enact a pet project you agree with and others disagree with.

China and Russia, meanwhile, spend about $450 billion. And you know they get a lot more for their dollar than we do.

I agree but i wouldn't be that upset if that money was spent on soldier's pay and buying things or R/D from US companies built in the United States while employing US citizens. To me, that's a decent tax/spend jobs program. Now, military money flowing overseas and propping up some other economy? There could be valid reasons but that deserves to go under a microscope.

the people who came up with these spends thought hard about what to do and how

Because the private sector doesn't spend any money on things that don't work out.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

You talk about millions, that's not even a rounding error. Look around you in any private entity, you don't see them spending any tiny fraction on things you don't think are worthwhile?

> $1.7 billion maintaining empty buildings

Assuming they at some point become occupied again, I don't see the issue. The vacancy rate in the private sector isn't anywhere near 0% either.

> In 2021 alone, the government managed to misplace $281 billion in payments

You'll need to be way more specific than 'misplaced'

Making fun of science that politicians, wanna be politicians, and conservative media don’t remotely understand in order to deflect and hide actual economic problems they cause is a favorite pastime, but is almost always misleading.

The goat yoga thing isn’t true, it’s pure viral talking point made up nonsense. (And none of the points are made in good faith.) Don’t believe everything you read on the internet, especially if Elon Musk retweets it.

Those deck chairs have had a lot of rearranging.

> "American" is a label for a group of consumers living within a defined border, who want to get their oil and foreign goods shipped to that location.

Holy shit.