2007-03-23
War Costs
A lot of people have tried to say that this war is expensive. Well here are the numbers. WWII cost nearly 50% of GDP while the combined Afghan and Iraqi wars are costing 1% of GDP. If our ancestors could see us now they would be rolling in their graves. Come to think of it, shouldn't they still be alive? Maybe we should ask them to roll about in their beds or something? These are all American figures.
I was doing some research into Australia's economy. There is a great graph here showing where our money comes from and goes to. Over the course of this conservative government (11 years), they have just managed to get rid of our net debt. I'm really pleased about that. We have an approximately $1 trillion dollar economy and the government gets about 20% of that in tax. Our population is 20 million, so about 1/15 that of the US. Defence spending is $18 billion. Now if we could just direct that $18 billion into something useful, like deploying soldiers overseas instead of buying planes which we wouldn't require if we asked the US nicely to station some planes here (either that or we preemptively wipe out Indonesia's air force!!!). You can see the ridiculous number of planes that the US has here. I guess New Zealand did the right thing after all by essentially getting rid of its air force. Maybe we can lean on them to take over peacekeeping duties in East Timor so that our troops are freed up for duty in Iraq?
Honestly, I'm really impressed by our economies and our governments. They've both done a damn good job. So much has been achieved in Afghanistan and Iraq for so little. We're finally giving some foreign aid that isn't just pouring water into sand. Instead, it's the best bang per buck available anywhere on the planet. The gift that keeps on giving. Even ignoring the end of institutionalized human rights abuses and the absolute joy of seeing people with purple fingers and parliamentary debate etc etc. Honestly, we're all set up for the future. What we need to do now is export what we've already got to the rest of the world. Now if only we can get 50+% of the Australian population to see that and agree with it and demand a continuation of current policy. Before we disappear up our own arses trashing our beautiful secular capitalist liberal democracies.
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I was doing some research into Australia's economy. There is a great graph here showing where our money comes from and goes to. Over the course of this conservative government (11 years), they have just managed to get rid of our net debt. I'm really pleased about that. We have an approximately $1 trillion dollar economy and the government gets about 20% of that in tax. Our population is 20 million, so about 1/15 that of the US. Defence spending is $18 billion. Now if we could just direct that $18 billion into something useful, like deploying soldiers overseas instead of buying planes which we wouldn't require if we asked the US nicely to station some planes here (either that or we preemptively wipe out Indonesia's air force!!!). You can see the ridiculous number of planes that the US has here. I guess New Zealand did the right thing after all by essentially getting rid of its air force. Maybe we can lean on them to take over peacekeeping duties in East Timor so that our troops are freed up for duty in Iraq?
Honestly, I'm really impressed by our economies and our governments. They've both done a damn good job. So much has been achieved in Afghanistan and Iraq for so little. We're finally giving some foreign aid that isn't just pouring water into sand. Instead, it's the best bang per buck available anywhere on the planet. The gift that keeps on giving. Even ignoring the end of institutionalized human rights abuses and the absolute joy of seeing people with purple fingers and parliamentary debate etc etc. Honestly, we're all set up for the future. What we need to do now is export what we've already got to the rest of the world. Now if only we can get 50+% of the Australian population to see that and agree with it and demand a continuation of current policy. Before we disappear up our own arses trashing our beautiful secular capitalist liberal democracies.
# posted by Paul Edwards @ 21:53 
