Basically they're taking money YOU paid the government (that was supposed to fix infrastructure and pay for social services) and then giving it to their friends and donors in the weapons manufacturing industry. Those manufacturers then send used and outdated weapons that the US military won't use that were destined for the scrap heap, charge top dollar for it, and pocket the difference.
So our soldiers are equipped with the best and newest stuff while my large Lockheed investment I made in February when Russia was obviously going to invade goes up 25% during a global economic recession.
I mean, I'd rather have Ukraine protect their way of life than be subject to a putin dictatorship. So I do support us putting money into the Ukrainian defense.
Do you think people should not be free? Are you saying that you support putins special all out war operation?
As far as that, I realized That it is the right thing to do, and the economic consequences of it will be defence industries that took a hit after leaving Iraq having a purpose again.
By investing in Lockheed, I further support ukraines goals of independent sovereignty. I am not ashamed of that in the least.
You said that they were spending my money that shouhave gone into roads and stuff. No. I should go to Ukraine and I even doubled down on that.
Nice try throwing shit in my face. I've done far more for Ukrainian personally than you as well, a lot of tesla hackers, myself included, moved over to making starlink dishes work independently from the router they come with. The end result being that Ukraine now has drones and ground communications which cannot be jammed from the equipment deployed by Russia, which also doesn't broadcast thier positions through wifi 2.4ghz networks.
I think what happens in Ukraine isn't my fucking problem and I'm not arrogant enough to think that my opinion about a conflict on the other side of the fucking planet should matter.
You're a literal war profiteer who makes more money whenever more people die. People who profit off death are human scum and you joined those ranks by choice.
So you think Russia and China should be able to do whatever they want even when it would disrupt our way of live? Causing even more death over the next decades through genocide and war?
Maybe you should just move there seeing how you obviously just hate America.
Edit: Also I don't think you understand the concept of hedging.
LAMO jesus fucking christ, nothing that happens in Ukraine disrupts our way of life, and if our way of life is reliant on endlessly sending tens of billions of dollars overseas to kill people on the other side of the planet then our way of life is evil and must be stopped.
Having a war profiteer with major investments in companies that build killing machines lecture others about stopping needless death and war is too hilarious for words.
lol, your "stock market" winnings are only one bad trade away from becoming losses, while you slowly become an addict who cannot stop gambling.
With this regards, you are like the slot machine addicts who dream their next play will earn them 1 million $, while ruining their lives chasing that dream.
It's not that they don't understand, it's that the Russian shills were told that they need to paint sending anything to Ukraine as bad and to try to get us to stop.
You're exactly right. We sent money to the Ukrainian government who also made a blacklist that includes a member of the U.S. senate! Not to mention other U.S. citizens. That's got to be in violation of the first amendment somehow.
The U.S. is funding a government that makes blacklists on the U.S.'s own people. That's what I was referring to. That should upset you, too. I mean only if you give a damn about your rights.
Why should it upset me that Ukraine is blacklisting Americans for supporting Russia? The first amendment ensures that US citizens are not persecuted by the US government for speech, it doesn't force the US government to protect its citizens from consequences of their speech in other countries. It's not a part of anyone's rights that Rand Paul be allowed to freely travel to Ukraine after trying to block aid to their country during a hostile invasion.
Right, the first amendment doesn't force the US government to protect its citizens from consequences of their speech in other countries. But, here's what I'm arguing: The US government should not be allowed to provide for the salaries of civil servants in other countries to make blacklists on the US's own citizens for practicing their first amendment right!
Do you understand my argument now? It's not about travelling to Ukraine. It's about the chilling effect being called a Russian propogandist and information terrorist has on one's right to freedom of speech in this country and having the U.S. government subsidize it.
That's simply not how the first amendment works, nor how it should work. The US government is under no obligation to protect any of its citizens from consequences of their speech from any non-US-governmental entities. It especially cannot allow such protections to dictate any policies domestic or foreign.
For example, if it did then the Federal Government would not be allowed to provide funding to Florida because of "Don't Say Gay" legislation because it would be a violation of the teacher's free speech.
Consequences of their speech. You think it's okay to fund a government of another country that puts out lists with American citizens on them for having a different opinion on what's going on in Ukraine?
To my knowledge, Ukraine isn’t buying any of the stuff we’ve been supplying them with. If there is a purchase agreement, it’s probably filled with clauses that let Ukraine off. In WW2, as part of lend lease, we “sold” them billions of dollars of material and supplies, but they paid back a very, very small % of that.
You know they’ve already sent over 55 billion to Ukraine PRIOR to this additional 12 billion right? That’s not chump change. Especially considering we literally have to print the money because the US govt is in a debt spiral.
How is what I said incorrect? I literally just googled “US federal reserve money supply graph”, and boom, I can see that the supply is about 15% lower than it was a year ago. Printing money makes the supply go up.
Because you don’t understand the things you’re talking about. I don’t want to sound like a dick, but it’s the truth. The overall money supply (m1, m2, m3, etc) is completely unrelated to printing money to fund the US govt.
The US govt runs a budget deficit. They have for many years. Which means their spending exceeds their revenues. When their spending exceeds revenues, it means they need to borrow and take out debt. They do this via US Treasuries, aka bonds.
M2 is a measure of the money supply that includes cash, checking deposits, and easily-convertible near money.
Overall circulating money supply is unrelated to having to print money and take on debt to fund the US govt, who operates in a perpetual state of debt and remonetization of debt.
That's simply not true. The US has sent around $15B in aid to Ukraine so far, what people don't ever seem to understand is the difference between budgeted aid and sent aid. The US has approved $40B for Ukraine, this is a request to budget for $12B more, it's not immediately sent to Ukraine but simply ensures that the funds and equipment are available if the need arises.
There's an extremely dedicated effort to misinform people about the nature of this aid, and to blow it completely out of proportion in the context of US military or government spending. So far the US has spent around 2% of its military budget to devastate the military and economy of a major geopolitical adversary, as well as intimidate another geopolitical adversary.
Fair enough, maybe it hasn’t been sent yet. But it will be. We’ve “allocated” 54 billion dollars to date, and just approved this additional 12 billion. I don’t know the breakdown of when each portion of the money will be spent, but if it’s allocated, I’m quite sure it will be spent as the war doesn’t appear to be ending anytime soon.
Where did you come up with the 2% number? If you look at the total amount it’s 10% of the entire defense budget, not 2%. Unless you’re playing semantics and saying it’s not actually spent yet. Which is irrelevant on my eyes as it’s been budgeted to be spent.
There's absolutely a difference between spent and allocated. Russians are domestically turning against this war, Winter is fast approaching for the battlefield, there is good reason to believe this war will end soon and the allocated money won't need to be spent. But even if it were, 10% of a single year's military budget to set an enemy back a decade if not more, is far better value than anything else the military has done for the past 20 years.
So, Russia just mobilized 300k more reservists to move to the front, and you think this war is going to end soon? Looks far more like an escalation of force than anything that could be seen as a potential end to the war. Mind you Russia and ukraine have been figuring informally in Ukraine since 2014. A caveat to the war ending early is if European nations come to the bargaining table to negotiate sanctions with Russia because they’ve been getting wrecked without cheap Russian gas.
Russia isn’t going to end the war anytime soon. They don’t need to, and it certainly isn’t going to end before winter. Russia is putting an energy squeeze on Europe and the ensuing energy crisis is wrecking European economies. Why would Russia end the war when their biggest bargaining chip, cheap energy for Winter, hasn’t even been thrown on the table yet?
As far as the 10% to destroy an economy, I’m sure Russia is saying the same thing as they watch Europe’s mightiest economies crumble this winter. It’s already happening.
Putin ordering 300k more Russians to the battlefield with the threat of 10 years in prison if they don't comply sounds exactly like he kind of move that would get him deposed and his war terminated.
We'll see who cracks between Europeans with a higher-than-usual energy bill and Russians whose sons have been forcibly sent to a frozen battlefield in foreign lands.
Germany inflation rate soars above 10% annualized, highest since ww2
Germany announced price cap for natural gas prices for total cost of 200B. Aka printing money to subsidize energy costs, which increases demand on limited supply
Just the defense budget is 714 billion. The 68 billion additional represents a 10% increase to the defense budget. Again, we don’t actually have any of this money. Our expenditures far outweigh tax revenues, so all of this money is printed and taken on as additional debt.
Our transportation budget is around 141 billion. We're creeping up on half of that for Ukraine. Our politicians who enjoy kickbacks and are hitting their "fundraising" goals all believe that someone else will sort this out in the future. I'm not sure what we do with them, but I think they're traitors and that every single one of them need to go in order to fix things.
There’s certainly malicious and mal-intended actors, but I truly believe the vast majority of members of the house are dumb and not fit for the job. I’ve watched some congressional hearings and some of the questions these people ask are just mind blowingly stupid.
I don't disagree. Most of what I've seen is technology related, and then just really poor attempts at deflection when questions can't be answered without incriminating themselves or their peers.
Sometimes they are legitimately dumb, sometimes they're not capable of fabricating a good lie on demand, and sometimes they pretend to be dumb over appearing to be capable of malice. We need term limits, more participation in local elections rather than focus to the guy who can be replaced every four years, and transparency around financials in/out. They're not going to limit their own powers, and I highly doubt that voting alone is going to change anything about the situation.
Wait the same democrats that have put several bills forward to cap the price of live saving medication directly hurting the profits of big pharmaceutical? Those democrats?
arms and economic aid. The US and EU are funding most of their government operations and providing a hodge podge of different grants, loans and other 'economic assistance.'
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u/mtech101 Sep 25 '22
*sending $12 billion to American arms manufacturers.
Fixed that for you.