I hint of bias in Uni\'s perspective? Naw...couldn\'t be.
No its not. It is very Important for me to note that I am not complimenting China for having the potential to become a superpower despite the poor wealth of the people.
Also take into consideration that China and the US are under two 2 different economic systems. One is bureaucratic capitalism were everything belongs to the government and people just adapt and accept everything because of their fear and uncertainty that a different system could send billions into starvation, while the second is a system of free economy with uneven distribution of wealth, were the middle and high class have some control of the economy not just the government that have more motives to protest.
But if you have too many poor people, they could topple the elitist class in place via revolution (that is if Marxist Conflict Theory is correct). Then they are back in square one. Plus they don\'t have the capital yet to build up arms and industry.
True. And I agree
But if you check how things work in China, people feel that they are quaranteed that they will get a home, and food under the current system even if its the lowest.
Mao also used to say that for the communist system to succeed (not that Mao was a good example of communist), the workers must not have too much comforts.
Also people tend to revolt when they can compare theirselves to a higher class, for which they work for like slaves while getting nothing in return (everything flows to the higher class).
They cant do this in China. In China flows the false impression (of pseudo communism) that everyone produces for a labor owned government. With other words they feel like they produce for social benefits. They produce for the goverment which will redistribute evenly social benefits back to them.
How do you think the US became a superpower? We built up arms against the Soviet Union and from the R and D came new technologies used in civil applications. Besides, if you are a "super power" with a weak military, a military superpower can pretty much screw you over. A point of being a superpoer is being economically stable as well as militarily strong.
Ofcourse. But unlike the Soviet Union the US had capital inflows and great influence on trade. That financed the R&D (which is considered always as a cost not an investment) for military.
Otherwise the US would have sunk like the Soviet Union if there was no other source of inflow/ revenues.
But that was back then.
Now though the US is facing a few problems that make things similar to the dead ends the Soviet Union found. Low exports, high imports, capital outflows, depreciation of the $, huge amounts of employied low cost labor imigrants(decrease of GNP), all these increase national debt and result at lower inflows. Throwing moeny in R&D for the military or spending too much government expenditures on the army without revenues increase national debt because the government must borrow money from abroad to finance these. This has a negative impact on the wealth of your income in the long run.
I dont\' think that\'s true. We spend a lot of military research money but a lot of those researching are private companies, stimulating our economy (ie: Lockheed Martin)
Who pays them or quarantees them back their returns though? Would that be the government? These private companies are few and also consist mostly of specialiazed human capital. With other words these companies arent like other companies that can expand and open new positions to hire labor in which anyone can take part in.
Also their production isnt consumable. It mostly benefits the human capital\'s wages and businessmen\'s that work in such companies. Their products are either stored for future use (excess supply) or either used in a warzone (Excess demand by whom? Not the everyday USA citizen). They arent consumable.
As for the link, that is a retarded link. Its just a counter. That is not exactly what they are paying. Besides, wars aren\'t cheap. You expect us to go in and only pay like 10 million dollars? Soldiers need to be payed, ammunition costs money, Humvees cost money, fuel costs money especially now, tanks used today are more than a million dollars to build, military aircraft are also in the millions (i don\'t think they are being built for the war though, same with tanks. Humvees and transports might be the only things now that are being built). That link you posted is just as reliable as a Ford Edsil.
The counter is calculated on the yearly national budget. It uses actual numbers divided by time. The counter flows such way as by the year\'s end it will equal to the calculated yearly expected expenditure decided in the national budget.
So if for example the congress expects 1 billion for military expenditure to be spend in a certain year, the counter will flow accordindgly as to equal 1 billion until the end of the year.
It divides the expected expenditure by time variable with other words.
It gives a mean/average number of spending at any moment of time
