General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe high cost of war is damaging the global economy. Economic stability demands that we find peace
From the financial and humanitarian cost of supporting millions of Syrian refugees to the interruption of trade links with China and Russia, political conflict is bad for the world's economy. Here's why.
Refugees arriving in the Greek village of Idomeni AFP
Satyajit Das
2 hours ago
The post-1989 economy reaped the benefits of a peace dividend. There was actually no peace. Economists contest the empirical reality of the dividend. But the global economy did gain in a number of ways.
First, defence spending declined, freeing up resources for other expenditure. US defence spending fell from around 5.5 per cent of GDP in 1989 to 2.6 per cent of GDP in 2000. The reduction in defence spending was more marked in Western Europe and in the Russian Federation.
Second, scientific and mathematical resources previously employed in the defence-industrial infrastructure were re-deployed, helping accelerate the growth of other parts of the economy, especially technology industries.
Third, it allowed the integration of former communist economies into the Western trading economy opening up new markets. That increased the global labour pool from approximately 1.5 billion workers to nearly 3 billion workers, reducing production costs and keeping inflation low. And fourth, the dissolution of Cold War alliances, and improved security conditions for trade and commerce, provided impetus to globalisation of production and capital flows.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-high-cost-of-war-is-damaging-the-global-economy-economic-stability-demands-that-we-find-peace-a6977066.html
Screw the economy, it's the biosphere we are destroying with every round fired and every bomb exploded. We can survive economic disaster, the crash of the biosphere is something we will not survive.
malaise
(269,022 posts)They love war
Human101948
(3,457 posts)In 2007 George W. Bush Revealed The GOP's Global Agenda Now And Forever: 'Money Trumps Peace'
malaise
(269,022 posts)Let's kill the humans for profit and the other animals for sport.
alcina
(602 posts)Is that, compared to the current republican nominees, he almost sounds thoughtful and intelligent.
malaise
(269,022 posts)He is their mentor in way more ways than you may care to acknowledge
alcina
(602 posts)I was just commenting on the contrast. At the time, he presented as a complete buffoon; but the republican bar has been lowered so much, he now comes across rather different.
-none
(1,884 posts)You know, the common person, like you and me?
It's expensive being part of the 1%, that's why we need more war all the time. The war on terrorism is the perfect kind of war. The more terrorists we kill, the more terrorists we make. Guaranteeing perpetual profits far into the future.
EndElectoral
(4,213 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)If the American empire says "Jump!", I don't trust him not to ask "How high?". And yes I know he's the best of the lot in foreign policy, but that's not good enough. We need to break completely with the empire, not just make it "kinder and gentler". Anything less runs the real risk of species extinction for humanity.
malaise
(269,022 posts)All US Presidents are hawks - or they wouldn't get near power.
It is the entire system that has to change because the ideology of Western empire is capitalism, exploitation of the poor and the racism everywhere that feeds it.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)on the old Reform or Revolution question.
malaise
(269,022 posts)Rosa and Gramsci always made sense to me
rug
(82,333 posts)It drives the control of the means of production and distribution; it provides an untouchable rationale for state power in the service of those interests; and it perpetuates the division of working people, internationally and domestically.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)him that he'd been too isolationist and let the totalitarians win
there's always the danger in "lightweight" interventions: two choppers to take out OBL? what could go wrong? AQ will just fade away and definitely not look for new recruits elsewhere
pinpoint strikes, drone wars, precision assassinations: no boots on the ground