Cost of War - Trade-offs in Jobs and infrastructure

[chill_wind]

From the Cost of War website

The (at least) $1.3 trillion of Department of Defense war spending in the past decade averages out to $130 billion per year. While these funds did indeed create jobs in the military and in related sectors, the opportunity cost of this spending is the additional jobs that would have been created if we had spent these funds on other domestic programs.

$130 billion per year could have created a net increase of jobs in other sectors: for example, more than 300,000 jobs in construction, or 900,000 jobs in education or about 780,000 jobs in healthcare, assuming here that the education funds are distributed to state and local governments to fund public education in primary, secondary, and higher education.

Key Findings

War spending created fewer jobs over the last decade than would have other forms of federal spending

This is because war spending is less labor-intensive and more often goes overseas

An additional 300,000 jobs per year could have been created in construction

Instead, an additional 900,000 jobs per year could have been created in education

One and a half times as many jobs could have been created in home weatherization


more at the link- http://costsofwar.org/article/lost-jobs

main page: http://costsofwar.org/


downloadable paper in pdf:
http://costsofwar.org/sites/default/files/articles/26/attachments/Garrett-Peltier%20%20Jobs.pdf

[nashville_brook]

1. great graphic!

[chill_wind]

2. Hope more will pass it along.

:hi:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. But..but..education and construction is wasteful. War and munuments to war are productive.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H.L. Mencken

[chill_wind]

4. "Of all the enemies to public liberty

war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

— James Madison, Political Observations, 1795

http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending

:thumbsup:

[swilton]

5. Kickety Rickety

[chill_wind]

6. Tankity thnx.

[chill_wind]

7. kickin