1 Against(?) 26

So if you had to make a bet and your odds of winning were one in 26 what would you do?  If you had to arm wrestle 26 people combined against you would you feel confident you’d win?  Say you’re walking down the alley after a movie by yourself and 26 people came up against you to beat you up would you feel confident in your ability to defend yourself and that you would actually win?  Well…instead of using 1 against 26, switch it out for the U.S. Military versus the next 26 countries in military spending.

This is a little known fact among the world and especially among Americans, but the U.S. military outspends the next 26 countries in military spending…COMBINED!!!!  I'm not pulling your leg.  Check it out.

 

In the words of Yahoo’s famous song/phrase.  YAAAHOOOoooOOOooooo!  That’s a lot of green amigos!  For a good example on green and grasping it woo buddy you ought to check this site out.  Since I'm discussing military stuff and just did a post on the war on terrorism check this link out.  http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/cost_of_war/cost_of_war.html

 

So the next 26 countries…many of them are allies.  If you found out your friend, neighbor, or family member bought not only enough…hmm…socks 

 or guns 

 or buses

or pencils

or swimming pools

 for themselves but just extra/beyond their actual needs what would you think?  Paranoid?  A freak?  Wasteful?  I mean really what would you think?

 

NOW.  We've got the fiscal cliff coming.

 

The cliff is simple really.  President Bush cut taxes.  Some of you remember getting checks in the mail from the government.  I remember my parents opening up their check in the kitchen one evening and it was $600 bucks or so if I remember correctly.  Well the tax cuts are set to expire. 

I've done a little research and in the United States the average paycheck is going to go down 20 bucks a check.  That is 80 bucks a month or 960 a year.  Just for my wife and I that is just under $2000 a year. 

At the same time they're going to raise taxes we also have obamacare to deal with which will make your paychecks just a little less since your premium is going to go up a little.  On top of that with last years debt ceiling fiasco they're going to cut government spending, which is good and bad depending on how you look at it.  You could look at it this way... http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/food_stamps/food_stamp_nation-SNAP.html or this way... http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/us_government_budget/us_govt_budget.html. 

 

Ultimately we make too little and spend too much.  Now immediately for my little world I understand losing out on $2000 bucks.  I also understand that the fiscal cliff will result in approximately $500 billion for the government and now for my ah-ha moment. 

 

Where could we get an extra $500 billion, not lose out on things we actually need or want, and not raise taxes????  Do you remember the first of this blog post 20 years ago?  I do.  We could cut military spending to the level of China, the next biggest spender and get the $500 billion w/o a tax increase.  AND...and and and we'd still have a pretty damn good military considering we're STILL spending  three times the amount we ought to if we do rough math and china has a billion people and the US has a third of that and yet we spend the same amount as China.