U.S. Army fudged its accounts by trillions of dollars, auditor finds | Hacker News Reader

U.S. Army fudged its accounts by trillions of dollars, auditor finds

reuters.com

204 pointsokket205 comments

In my experience, this will cause anger and outrage, someone high up will be sacrificed--but that's it.

The military is an absolute money burning machine. In my seven years of experience the following were in-the-open examples:

* End of year spending binges on equipment no one wanted or needed to max out budgets, to justify the next budget year's sum

* Pre-inspection trashing of inventory to mitigate write ups for discrepancies between on-hand and on-book items.

* I met a team of inspectors in Iraq who were tasked with finding some number of billions worth of equipment that was paid for, but no one was able to locate.

* Getting rank often involves pushing through big expensive projects, no matter the need, in exchange for bullet points on personnel review files.

* My favorite: an enormous dining facility was built on a base in Iraq, but it was too close to the exterior fence, which presented a situation where there would potentially be slow-moving line of hundreds of military, closely grouped together, within "throwing distance" of the perimeter fence. Thus, the contractors were required to complete the building, to make-good on the contract, to force the military to pay them in full, for a facility that was unusable due to above.

> * End of year spending binges on equipment no one wanted or needed to max out budgets, to justify the next budget year's sum

This seems pretty standard in any large corporation. The best times to ask for new "shit" is during the holiday season. Thanks corporate Santa! :/

I will NEVER forget working as a student in the college bookstore during EOY spending. I watched department chairs throw anything and everything into shopping carts, as if they were gameshow contestants trying to beat the clock.

"What is this Mathematica software? What does it do? I'll take 4 copies."

The idea of course was insanity to me: if you didn't spend your department budget, you were in danger of having it reduced next year. So you were punished for leaving money on the table.

"... punished for leaving money on the table"

Are there any alternative strategies to this?

I find this concept insane whereby spending more and more is good but spending less is bad.

allow them to rollover leftover budget to the next year and never lower their budget. If you do this departments will just carry huge surpluses over every year and not spend money then when something big comes along they will just use their surplus for it rather than ask for their budget to be increased. If you allocate money to a department and they never spend that money it can be kept in the bank earning interest rather than be wasted on things that are not needed. If you really micromanage it you can create shadow budgets where you over promise knowing they are not going to spend their full budget but this is really dangerous and only work in small orgs

force ROI reports on all expenditures? sure you will get a lot of BS, but there is a disincentive to recklessly spend

There's a lot of stuff you can't put an ROI on. So instead people waste time trying to come up with a poor model.

Yes it's use it or lose it, and worse if you close a year 20% under budget they'll cut the next year's one by 40% because if you did it once surely you can repeat it again.

Reminds me a lot of Afghanistan where I watched a massive multi-story headquarters building be built. Draw downs were starting, and no one was ever going to occupy it, and they knew that before they even broke ground. But it was cheaper for the government to finish the construction than cancel the contract.

Camp Dwyer built a massive barracks/billeting project that never got utilized due to the drawdown. It was an astronomical waste of money.

I'm curious, which FOB and which DFAC? Kind of reminds me of the really big one on Victory.

I'm left with two thoughts.

First, who is getting fired for this and what outsider will be brought in to fix this to keep it from happening again.

Second, is a larger question. Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military?

2-a. The Unites States spend 3.3% of it's GDP on the military. This is in line with other countries. Japan and EU are spending less only because they are under NATO (US) defense umbrella. France, for example, is at 2.1%, so 3.3% is hardly disproportionate.

2-b. Military spending (along with other public spending) is the cornerstone of Keynesian economy. It's the best way known to man to stave off deflationary spiral.

2-c. Military spending is the driver of innovation. Pretty much all of US technological dominance is rooted in military spending. Nearly all of our jobs here on HN came form that.

2-d. Projection of power brings tangible benefits to the US economy.

So 3.3% is a real bargain, all things considered.

[EDIT] Many comments ignored the benefits part of my argument. Yes, 3.3% is larger than 2%, it was not lost on me. Now consider that in exchange for the 1.3% the US managed to snag the first place in the high-tech industry with a huge lead over the rest of the world. Until just recently almost everyone who is anyone in the high-tech world was based in the US. Boeing, Intel, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Hewlett Packard, Google, Yahoo, Uber, AirBnB, the list goes on and on. It's not an accident. That 1.3% comes back many times over. And it's just one of the benefits.

Look, I dislike people-killing as much as the next guy. But you can't ignore the economic realities, especially if you want to change the status quo.

> 2-a. The Unites States spend 3.3% of it's GDP on the military. This is in line with other countries. Japan and EU are spending less only because they are under NATO (US) defense umbrella. France, for example, is at 2.1%, so 3.3% is hardly disproportionate.

That's not true - majority of countries don't come close to speding 3.3% of their GDP on military (world's average is ~2.3%?). For example highest EU spenders are Poland with 2.2%, France with 2.1% and UK with 1.9%. Everyone else spends significantly less than 1.5%. And that's just looking at the % and ignoring the fact that USA has largest GDP in the world.

US is nowhere near "in line with other countries." Unless you count "other countries" only the handful of Middle East countries like Oman, Israel, Jordan and Iraq.

(Source: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?year_h... )

You know why Europeans get away spending pennies, coz Uncle Sam will come to their rescue when the big bad bear attacks them!

It amuses me when Americans make this claim as if it's a badge of honor. I wonder what would they think if, say, America subsidizes Denmark's public schools so that Danish kids would pay less for textbooks than American kids.

If Americans got to choose the textbook content, they'd likely be very pleased with that arrangement.

Institutions have larger life, NATO is not dissolved after Cold-war, so we are on the same page when it comes to US should push its so called allies to pay more into NATO and do more, but for now the things are that way. It is not a badge of honor, I am stating the facts.

But, if US citizens didn't want this then the US could clearly work with Europe to transition away from being protector of Europe. So, I'm left wondering why Americans want to subsidize Europe in this regard?

Probably because it justifies having American forces stationed in Europe and ready to deploy against Russia. While not the feared enemy of the Soviet Era, Russia remains a large geopolitical adversary of the US and is the only non-western country capable of manufacturing sophisticated armaments (although China is getting there).

> So, I'm left wondering why Americans want to subsidize Europe in this regard?

Because Europe's wars cost us dearly in the 20th century.

Hardly. By any reasonable metric of post-war success, America, Germany, and Japan were the three winners of WW2. America profited massively, enjoying an enormous economic boost from the war effort, the bill for which they handed to Britain (and which was finally fully paid off in... wait for it... 2006!) and subsidizing the development of the latter two countries through the Marshall plan.

Economically, it's blatantly obvious. But it's not a perspective that's in anyone's interest to push.

I have no doubt that if the eagle-boner's wildest wet dreams came true and the US had to intervene on Europe's behalf, there'd be a big fat bill at the end.

America profited barely at all ( by law, war profiteering was like a ... firing squad offense, okay not quite but... ) - we'd run more debt than anyone thought possible at the time, consumer demand had been suppressed since 1929 and the thing just exploded. Eventually. After 1949-1950.

The critical thing is all that debt and industrial capacity, presented with the prostrate markets of the world.

I think people are afraid of tinkering with existing security arrangements because they seem to have worked. There hasn't been a major war between two countries in Europe for seven decades.

Personally, I don't see any reason to station US troops in other countries, but I'm outnumbered.

Because Americans used willing suspension of disbelief to transition from a nation purely interested in itself to a nation interested in the entire world.

When the music stopped in August, 1945, guess who was most widely deployed, had the people and wherewithal to lead? Guess whose closest partner - the UK - was wholesale getting out of the Empire business? Disregard the industrial Golem we had.

We have entire cable channels dedicated at least partly to rerunning propaganda designed for consumption by Americans for WWII to his day.

I bet $1 that it has something to do with destroying long range ballistic missiles during boost phase.

The image of protector of Europe is probably an illusion maintained to ensure that the US can put its forward radars and anti-missile batteries in strategically superior locations.

I thought that there was no defence against ICBMs, it turns out that we likely do now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-ballistic_missile

Regardless, I'm not sure why a US base is required in Europe for the sole reason of housing a defensive ABM.

It's actually probably more useful to have the big radars in Europe, for anything not specifically targeting that piece of the continent. Hitting a ballistic missile during boost phase is difficult, especially one launched by the US, Russia, or China, who are willing to pay for more and better ABM countermeasures on their launch vehicles. Having forward radars to detect and track the launch makes it easier to hit later.

It also makes it easier to estimate the target area for each vehicle, and assign priorities accordingly.

The US and best buddy Israel have developed some incredible anti-missile and anti-artillery technologies [0][1]. While really expensive, they do ensure that a very clear and obvious act of war has to occur in order to seriously damage a defended area. A handful of guys with plausible deniability can no longer just fire some rockets and mortars over the border and expect to get away, to do it again later. The projectiles that might have killed someone are destroyed in midair, and return fire is already incoming to the original firing positions.

It is possible that the US has fielded systems on its own that are at least an order of magnitude more expensive than those shared with Israel and Europe, but are not known to have been tested by live fire, because of the increased difficulty and expense in firing missiles that can hit US territory. Iron Dome protects cities and towns. Whatever the US has probably protects whole states, if not the entire continent. The military certainly isn't spending all 3% of the whole US economy on individual soldier benefits. And not everything produces as much disappointment as the F-35. Sometimes the big expensive thing actually works as intended.

Telemetry stations in Europe are not necessary, but they are cheaper to operate than the alternatives. And they provide the PR benefit of, "Oh yeah, I guess we can provide first-strike deterrence for your country a little bit too, while we're at it."

You need only look at the recent history of the Crimean peninsula to know that your country has to have some strategic importance to the US in order for the American military (or diplomatic corps) to even attempt to defend it. The more recent additions to NATO would be wise to see to their own defenses, under the presumption that NATO is far more able to avenge than protect.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Dome [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_3

I can tell by your posts that you're idealistic, probably young. If you think citizens of any country really have a "say" or "seat at the table" when it comes to big decisions, you are in for some good life lessons.

That is not how the world works at this time. "Citizens" are here to provide work for the state. Voting is illusory and until the masses wake up (not holding my breath), it will remain the case.

Can I ask why you feel the need to act condescending and dismissive?

Just old and bitter?

Rather than get into a "feelings and perception" contest... let's talk about the facts.

Citizens are allowed to vote. For the sake of this argument, lets leave out the actual process of voting. Citizens elect official.

Citizens are NOT consulted for major decisions post election of said official. Citizens can bluff and buster all they want. Elected official can do as they please.

Lobby groups have more access to decision making process than citizens, and way more pull as they control the purse strings to re-election and keeping elected official with a job.

Therefore, I posit that it is simply naive to think "citizens" could demand the US to retreat from Europe anymore than they could demand an invasion of Europe. The world simply doesn't work that way. I am not saying it can't... it is going to take a whole lot more than electing Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump or Hillary or some horrible clown to get the power into the hands of the Citizens.

The bigger question(s) are; has power EVER been truly in the hands of the masses/citizens? Why do people cling on to that as a good way forward? Leadership by committee in my experience has been horrible beyond reproach...

I agree about your larger question, and would enjoy exploring that. But, for this conversation I find it most interesting and relevant that the citizens don't even see the military budget as an issue. On this issue we need not even worry about my naive belief that citizen's have power, because in fact the citizens don't even see the need to change anything as they fully subscribe to the belief--put forward by the rulers--that the military budget is essential.

So, yes, citizens could stand to wake up, I agree.

Hopefully better than how it dropped the ball all around the world since Vietnam.

Thank you for posting this. I was stationed in Germany for two years.

2-b: This is not true, and is a harmful and common fallacy. Keynesian economics is not permanent government spending. It's government spending only in rare cases of overall economic depression. In fact, what Keynes would argue is that if a depression occurred, you need government deficit spending to replace the decrease in the overall economy. This has nothing to do with the normal level of government spending in the economy.

He didn't advocate digging holes and filling them back up as a normal thing - he advocated it only in rare cases of economic troubles.

> He didn't advocate digging holes and filling them back up as a normal thing - he advocated it only in rare cases of economic troubles.

He didn't advocate that even in case of economic troubles. I absolutely agree with the parent. US military spending is one of the major engines that powers the American economy and the American Research University system. Quite contrary to digging ditches and filling them back up, military funding trickles down to fund advanced mathematics, fundamental science and so on: even if indirectly.

While its true that economic growth can be achieved without Keynesian economics, it is hard to sustain economic growth and prosperity at levels that the US has managed to do. While its not all because of the Military, they have had a large (although little acknowledged) hand.

> US military spending is one of the major engines that powers the American economy

I always get lost on this argument. Americans largely see socialism as evil (obvious consequence of the cold war). Yet, the argument put forward above is essentially arguing for a special form of socialism that applies only to military contractors.

Yep. "To provide for the Common Defense" is in our Conftituion. It may be worth reading a bio of Eisenhower to see just how big a shift the pre-WWII drawdown was to the post-WWII equilibrium ( after a span).

America was founded against the idea of a standing army for almost all its history.

It makes sense when you see it from a political viewpoint. Its easier to justify spending money to keep evil at bay, to remain the superpower, for our soldiers etc. Its much harder to convince people that we should be spending more on society, for the poor etc. The rather disappointing results of the "War on Poverty" left many disillusioned with Federal government programs for societal benefits.

> He didn't advocate digging holes and filling them back up as a normal thing

Keynes didn't advocate them at all. He did argue that something like that would be simultaneously be better than the nothing that some others advocated as a government response to a recession in the private sector, and worse than actually investing in (e.g.) useful infrastructure.

Saying that he advocated digging holes and filling them back up is like saying that a person who says that they'd rather have their arm ripped off than be decapitated is begging to be dismembered.

Apologies if I misrepresented him. As you say, he did think digging and filling holes would be good for the economy. And I think for people unfamiliar with his reasoning, that is the example that is most clear of his viewpoint: that deficit spending is good during recessions, regardless of that spending's actual value.

Just to clarify, because again you're kind of misrepresenting him: digging and filling holes is better than nothing in a depression.

3.3% of GDP but what percentage of tax dollars?

It just seems a shame that a country that somehow can't afford to pay for the health care of it's citizens manages to lose track of literally trillions of dollars.

Oh my. Can someone check my numbers?

    France revenue:   953,000 million EUR
    Military budget:   41,300 million EUR (approx)
    = 4.33% of tax revenue military spending

    USA revenue:     4,260,000 million USD
    Military budget:   597,500 million USD
    = 14.03% of tax revenue military spending

Damn.

I used:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_... (2015 numbers)

https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-united-states.pd...

https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-france.pdf

I believe your numbers are accurate but I also don't think that they tell the whole story. Is France's subsidy of Airbus military spending? Because America's subsidy of Boeing is. Is French scientific research spending military? Because America spends its research dollars via DARPA. And so on...

If I understand your process, you multiplied US GDP by average tax burden, which makes sense, but here's another source that added other sources up: http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/total_revenue_2015USrn and got ~6,500 billon USD for USA Revenue. Using the same military budget, that makes = 7.69% of tax on military budget.

I think I see why everyone uses GDP: tax revenue is difficult to calculate, especially when it involves 50 states and a few territories.

Largely inconsequential.

The article is not very clear. The money that is not accounted for is $62.4B. The reason that money is unaccounted for is because of trillions of dollars of accounting adjustments in budgets.

That trillion dollars figure is just summing up the magnitude of all accounting adjustments throughout all the records of the DoD. The moral equivalent of:

    SELECT SUM(ABS(trans_amount)) FROM transactions WHERE trans_type = 'Adjustments';

In an imaginary accounting DB. The $62.4B figure was the same thing minus the "ABS()"...

> It just seems a shame that a country that somehow can't afford to pay for the health care of it's citizens manages to lose track of literally trillions of dollars.

Its not trillions of dollars. Its trillions of dollars of adjustments, when you count the absolute value of all the adjustments to individual accounts. But that's -- as stated in the article -- in part because not only does every error involve at least two accounts, but also because the accounts are nested, so most adjustments in a detail account also involve adjustments in several parent accounts.

US revenue (Primarily taxes) for FY2014 was $3.02 Trillion, while defense spending was ~$640 Billion, so you could guesstimate roughly 20% of tax dollars for defense. That ~$640 Billion is out of a ~$1.1 Trillion discretionary spending by the US, while non discretionary (mandatory, things like social security and medicare) spending is over $2.4 Trillion.

If you add it all up, military spending makes up about 16% of total government spending.

Well, it didn't lose track of trillions of dollars, it lost track of tens of billions. Which is still awful, don't get me wrong, but the Army doesn't have trillions of dollars to lose.

We pay alright, social security & healthcare are nearly 50% of the federal budget.

The US spends a huge amount on healthcare too.

Poor returns, but a huge amount spent.

I disagree that our military spending is reasonable, or a bargain.

http://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison

http://i.imgur.com/PhHo3eh.gif

"The United states spends more on defense than the next seven countries combined."

That's in absolute dollars though. A percentage of GDP is a much more fair comparison.

I disagree.

Military contests, like any other, are about the relative strengths of the opponents.

Comparing percents of GDP might tell you if you're in running with the pack or not, but the outcome of a fight between Lower Plonkova (spending 20% of the resources extracted from 2M dirt farmers and basket weavers on their military) and the United Saviors of Everything (spending 3% of the resources extracted from 400M first-world baristas and code monkeys) isn't in question.

The absolute number is absolutely relevant.

Well-put. I've heard the GDP argument so many times and never seen anyone call attention to this vitally important point.

It's not though; it's still a poor way to spend taxpayer dollars with entitlement liabilities accumulating, that are unfunded, while we continue to poor money into military waste, regardless of the percentage of GDP.

EDIT: I believe using percent of GDP is a poor measure.

Give me a percentage of your take home pay. Let me burn it in front of you in a dumpster. No worries! Its a small part of your take home pay!

I wasn't commenting whether it's right or wrong to be spending that much, merely that if one is going to do a comparison, it should not be misleading.

The absolute spending numbers will translate into capabilities though.

For instance, the US maintains about 1/2 of active aircraft carriers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in_s...

I guess the strategic problems with aircraft carriers vs missiles make them a less compelling example of capabilities, but they are a nice illustration of the spending gap.

Later: 1/2 maybe isn't the best choice for a number there, as it includes some smaller carriers that mostly support VTOL craft. On the other side of it, the US super carriers carry a lot more planes. If the next generation planes come through, the smaller US carriers do end up comparing reasonably well to the other small carriers.

We already have a portion of our take home pay burned in front of us. Do you see that Medicare and Social Security deduction on your pay stub? Yeah......

I wonder if all the folks downvoting you honestly believe that they will see a single penny of the Social Security they've been paying all these years?

At least the military budget is a) constitutional b) a reasonable expenditure for a government (as opposed to a mutual-aid society).

Of course you won't see a single penny that you put in, because that's not how Social Security works.

When us younger Americans start drawing our Social Security, it'll be that era's young whose pennies we're drawing.

Social security isn't "you pay in, you get back out what you put in" it's "you pay in for today's olds, and when you're old, young people pay in for you".

I didn't actually down vote, but yes, I expect to see money from social security and Medicaid. I also see my parents retiring and using the money I'm contributing right now. I really don't feel like my money is being lit on fire in this case and he didn't make any argument to convince me I should.

That's called "paying for civilization" versus "lets bomb another 100k innocent civilians with precision guided munitions".

Hard to argue with that logic... wow.

Why? Does the difficulty of military protection (where it would make a difference) scale with GDP? Otherwise, you're just grabbing an arbitrary big number as divisor.

Edit: if this is a stupid question, I'd like to be looped in so I don't ask it again.

Devil's advocate here: That's a nice sound byte, but the US also has a MUCH higher GDP than any other country. China is the only other one even past $10T. Not including China, eyeballing the numbers the US has a higher GDP than the rest of the top 10 countries combined.

> 2-a. The Unites States spend 3.3% of it's GDP on the military. This is in line with other countries.

No, its not "in line with other countries", generally speaking. 2.29% of world GDP is spent on military; the US's 3.3% is quite high.

(I mean, its not Russia or Saudi Arabia high, but its nearly a time-and-a-half the global average, even after the distorting effect it has on the global average, given the US's huge share of world GDP.)

>France, for example, is at 2.1%, so 3.3% is hardly disproportionate.

You just said the US spends 50% more on the military than France. ((3.3-2.1)/2.1= .57). That is a very large difference

>> Japan and EU are spending less only because they are under NATO (US) defense umbrella.

You forget the amount allies spend because of US forces. Canada in particular spends much on accommodating US demands and on systems to better integrate with US forces. Does anyone here think Canada would even consider spending money on the f-35 if the US wasn't first so committed?

(Fyi, as an example of the integration, about 1/3 of the people watching things inside Cheyenne mountain are Canadian.)

No, we would have just bought new F-18s from the US.

Canada and the US are about the 2 closest allies you can find. Integrating with the larger US military makes sense, especially with Russia around.

> Now consider that in exchange for the 1.3% the US managed to snag the first place in the high-tech industry with a huge lead over the rest of the world

No, it didn't do that in exchange for "1.3%". Both the world and the US rates of military spending right now are much lower than most of the period over which that occurred, and the ratio of US to world average share of GDP spent on the military was higher through most of the period; e.g., in 1988 (which wasn't the peak for either) world military spending was 3.4% of GDP, US was 5.6%.)

> Look, I dislike people-killing as much as the next guy. But you can't ignore the economic realities

The US government could take the share of GDP it spends above the world average on military spending, and spend it directly on civilian technology and technical infrastructure and produce more benefits in terms of the tech industry then any side benefit it gets tangentially from military spending (plus, produce more direct benefits for domestic quality of life.)

2a - Relativity. France is at 2.1%, US 3.3%. In other words the US is spending fifty seven per cent more than France. How is that "hardly disproportionate"?

What's that quote? "The US spends more on defense than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom we list as allies".

It is 3.3% of GDP but it accounts for 16% of our total federal spending in 2015. Percent of GDP is a good metric, but it needs to be tempered with the amount we reap in taxes. I'm sure it's an easy calculation/google search, but I need to work now.

Holy cow, i thought something like %40 of the US economy went towards military? I have obviously never researched that, if anything i'm saying this because i believe my belief is somewhat common. Why do so many believe military/defense is so highly spent?

Also, where the hell is all of our money going haha. I'm googling, some random images/sources/etc are saying that Military is ~19%, with social health/security/aid/etc being around ~60% percent. But the numbers in so many of these sources differ greatly. That, combined with your 3.3%, everything seems so drastically different.

What were you basing your 3.3% off of?

> Holy cow, i thought something like %40 of the US economy went towards military

No, you're thinking of welfare/social security

Edit: anyone care to explain the downvotes? My data comes from here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/interactive-budget

Add together social security, income security, and other welfares, and you get ~40% of the budget.

No one likes to hear the truth. I gave you an upvote because saying that medicare, social security waste, and welfare are more expensive that the military ruins the little utopia's HN'ers have built up in their minds.

He's quoting % GDP of USA, not % of budget. I think that is a discrepancy.

The spending is still massive in comparison to pretty much any country in the world. As I said in the other post, just a handul of worlds countries come close to spending 3% of GDP on military - now couple that with the fact that USA has largest GDP in the world and you get a staggering amount of money spent.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?year_h...

3.3 from GDP. 19% from Federal budget.

3.3% of GDP. The ones where military is a huge share as are SS/medicare is the federal budget.

2-e. Global stability & peace for 3.3% of GDP, I'd take it in a heartbeat.

Edit: The middle east is a mess, sure, but all the superpowers seem mostly on amicable terms, which is a big deal if you look at the last few centuries.

> 2-e. Global stability & peace for 3.3% of GDP, I'd take it in a heartbeat.

Is this irony? Because, the gigantic mess we have now in middle east is absolutely not the result of massives US military spendings, a little more than 13 years ago...

The Iraq war was a giant mistake and is still a giant mess. Yet isn't nearly as big it used to be.

For perspective, compare this to the giant mess of the WW2, which was the last time the question of the world domination was up for debate. We're talking about roughly two orders of magnitude in human life cost (tens of millions vs hundreds of thousands).

WWII killed 4% of all humans on the planet. Perspective, please...

For perspective on the Middle East, there is always "A Peace to End All Peace."

2-a reminds me of something:

Biggest Air Force: USAF

2nd Biggest Air Force: US Navy

That's how much the US spends

3rd biggest: The US Navy's Army's Air Force...

"...is the cornerstone of Keynesian economy".

Yep.

One of the Bush Administration's top guys was actually caught making this argument for the adventure in Iraq. My jaw dropped.

Actual people-killing is an extremely limited part of our military. As pork, it has the justification of "provide for the common defense" and generally, bipartisan support.

2-a. 2.1% to 3.3% is a 44% difference. So, yes, I'd argue that is disproportionate. The difference is compounded by the fact that the US is the largest economy. So, I think disproportionate is the right term.

The rest of your points skirt the question. Spending on the military isn't supposed to be the driver for the economy or the engine for innovation, those are side benefits. If those really are the goals then the citizens should be demanding that money be spent directly to achieve those benefits. I find it curious that argument is never put forward.

Sadly directly funding basic research or even translational research is not nearly as popular politically as funding military research. Basic research is often deemed wasteful by the public.

> I find it curious that argument is never put forward.

Because the argument you're making isn't a good argument.

The perceived waste would just happen in a different "industrial complex" with the perception that security is now weaker. Right or wrong, perceptions are what they are.

> The perceived waste would just happen in a different "industrial complex"

But with significantly less waste of human life.

The US spends 57% more on military than France. France spends 36% less on their military than the US.

Your 44% doesn't really make sense.

The percentage difference between 2.1% and 3.3% is 44%.

That doesn't mean anything.

1. Nobody

2. Because it allows us to project force globally which is what actually allows us to be the one true global super power.

The sad thing is, all want I for my kids is great health and great education, and those are the two areas where the US performs the most poorly. That's such a spectacular failing of the basic social contract. I've never once hoped for them to be citizens of a "the one true global super power".

I've always wondered how much of the world superpower is sold to us as "to keep us safe" when the honest reality is "too feed our national ego". I do believe that the world is a safer place than it was 30 years ago. But I can't think of a conflict since WWII where U.S. efforts in the region seemed to be the stabilizing factor.

I'm not sure what your point is here... our healthcare and education is excellent. It's expensive, but it's excellent.

"America's wealthiest and best-educated young adults still lag behind their peers in other countries in the literacy, numeracy, and computer-age problem-solving skills needed to compete in the global labor market." http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/02/18/us-millennials-...

"The U.S. spends more on health care than other high-income countries but has worse outcomes." http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/20...

"American Schools vs. the World: Expensive, Unequal, Bad at Math" http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/america...

If you have money.

You may want to ask the Eastern European countries who were under the yoke of the Soviets for 45 years whether or not that spending was worth it. Or for that matter, the Western European countries as well.

I don't think they really have the much to do with each other.

Yes, you could cut military expenditure and push the money elsewhere. I really think unless you change things about the way that money gets spent you are just tossing it away.

> I can't think of a conflict since WWII where U.S. efforts in the region seemed to be the stabilizing factor.

Korea First Iraq war Yugoslavia

The US presence in Europe and NATO creation during the cold war?

> The sad thing is, all want I for my kids is great health and great education

That sounds great, but even more than that I hope you want for them to be alive and free. Without a strong national defense, their chances of survival as free citizens are pretty low.

Without a strong national defense, their chances of survival as free citizens are pretty low.

Where does this sentiment come from, the same as in the argument that the USA protects Europe? Do you really believe all countries would constantly try invade each other if they had less weapons? Citizens are not that eager to get killed on the battlefield, especially in developed notion with pretty good living standards at home. Maybe I am a bit idealistic but I just can not imagine the world falling apart if we had lesson weapons. I am not saying zero weapons, it is certainly not a bad idea to have some defense capabilities just in case, but being prepared to fight another world war seems over the top to me.

Even if on average most citizens are peaceful, it only takes one ambitious lunatic to tip the scale in the wrong direction [cue Trump/Putin/Kim].

While I don't necessarily agree with the large US military spending, I feel better knowing we have more national defense than necessary rather than not enough/just enough.

Ukraine just recently experienced what it's like to be a country with less weapons than another country and without a strong tie to a coalition that includes the dominant military power in the world.

Or you're just used to a world protected by the US?

"Without a strong national defense, their chances of survival as free citizens are pretty low."

I don't think this is an accurate statement.

Explain why you disagree and don't cite some western European social democracy which knows that the US would bail it out if push came to shove.

Assuming 2 is true, shouldn't Americans then be more concerned with spending those hundreds of billions of dollars a year more efficiently, so USA's power could be 2x, 4x (just by cutting the waste/corruption alone), or even 10x bigger (by using the money buy smarter/more effective technology than say...more tanks, or F-35's)?!

People who keep supporting more military spending aren't patriots. Quite the opposite. Those that want their army to run well and effectively are the true patriots.

Former military here.

The #1 way to reduce waste would be to change the accounting rules. As it is, if you don't spend your full budget for the year, next year's budget will be cut by that amount. And you aren't allowed to keep a "rainy day fund".

This causes problems when you have expensive equipment that only fails occasionally. You have to budget for a possible replacement, but if you make it through the year without a failure, you've got all this money that you have to suddenly find a use for.

Former military and former intelligence contractor here. No quarrel with what you are saying.

The answer to "why not" is lobbying, constituents, and corruption. Military spending influences the economy in literally every state. That's why they don't close bases. That's why the legislature optimizes for maximum spend rather than ROI.

He is basically challenging the idea US being a maritime power projecting its power across the globe. I am more interested your answer to that line of questioning rather than institutional quid pro quo to get favors and support from senators.

As the UK declined as the maritime power, the US filled the gap. This is on a line of history going back to the Dutch and the Spanish.

sure, let's spend our tax dollars more efficiently. point me to the government bureau that magically manages its finances "efficiently".

I can think of one. The SSA spends just a fraction of a percentage point of its disbursements on administrative costs. There's probably others.

Like private industry, government is huge, contains many agencies at many levels, and some of them are well run and some of them are poorly run and some of them are somewhere in between.

.39% of "assets" (debt issued by other parts of government). vanguard charges about a quarter this (with vehicles delivering substantially better risk adjusted returns). their "plan" is also slated to go bankrupt without adjustment.

It's true that their costs are greater than vanguard which is literally the cheapest private mutual fund company around. Try comparing it to an industry average; 0.39% is quite fair then.

The "plan going bankrupt" has nothing to do with the administration of benefits, however. It's not happening because the bureaucracy is screwing up and wasting too much money -- even if they worked for free, you'd only gain 0.39% more per year. It's congress that is underfunding (or overprovisioning, or some combination of the two) -- could be fixed in two seconds with a bill cutting benefits and/or increasing taxes without any real change for SSA. Also, when it "goes bankrupt" as people misleadingly call it, they'll still be able to pay about 4/5 of the benefits currently promised. In effect, congress by doing nothing has already implicitly reduced future benefits to 4/5 of the current statutory amounts. If you just assume you'll get 4/5 of what is being promised, then it's in no way bankrupt and is self sustaining forever. 4/5 is not chump change.

I've started to realize this whole "social security is a failure" talk may be FUD being spread to get people to accept further raiding of social security because "whatever, it's already broken"

The "efficiency" of the SSA is simply because of the vast flow of money the SSA distributes.

Similarly, the IRS is hugely "profitable", because its administrative costs are a tiny fraction of the money it brings in.

Exactly, the rest of the world is super good at efficiently spending tax dollars... USA excluded.

Laughable comment. You think India gov't spending is efficient? Vietnam?

That was the point I didn't think I needed a sarcasm tag. Government inefficiency is a universal "known", like fire is hot, right?

"When Japan surrendered, the US was faced with a choice: Either disarm, as we had done in the past, and enjoy the prosperity that comes from releasing so much wealth and energy to the private sector, or maintain ourselves on a full military basis, which would mean tight control not only of our allies and such conquered provinces such as West Germany, Italy, and Japan but over economic–which is to say political–lives of American people. As Charles E. Wilson, a businessman and politician of the day, said as early as 1944, “Instead of looking to disarmament and unpreparedness as a safeguard against a war, a thoroughly discredited doctrine, let us try the opposite: full preparedness according to a continuing plan.”

The accidental president, Harry Truman, bought this notion. Although Truman campaigned in 1948 as an heir to Roosevelt’s New Deal, he had a “continuing plan”. Henry Wallace was onto it, as early as: “Yesterday, March 12, 1947, marked a turning point in American history … Yesterday, President Truman proposed, in effect, America police Russia’s every border. There is no regime too reactionary for us provided it stands in Russia’s expansionist path. There is no country too remote to serve as the scene of contest which may widen until it become a world war.” But how to impose this? The Republican leadership did not like the state to be the master of the country’s economic life while, of the Democrats, only a few geopoliticians, like Dean Acheson, found thrilling the prospect of a military state, to be justified in the name of a holy war against something called communism in general and Russia in particular. The fact that the Soviet Union was no military or economic threat to us was immaterial. It must be made to appear threatening so the continuing plan could be set in motion in order to create the National Security State in which we have been living for the last forty years.

What is the National Security State? Well, it began, officially, with the National Security Act of 1947; it was implemented in January 1950 when the National Security Council produced a blueprint for a new kind of country, unlike anything the United States had ever known before. This document, known as the NSC-68 for short, and declassified only in 1975, committed–and still, fitfully, commits–us to the following program: First, never negotiate, ever, with Russia. This could not continue forever; but the obligatory bad faith of US-USSR meetings still serves the continuing plan. Second, develop the hydrogen bomb so that when the Russians finally develop an atomic bomb we will still not have to deal with the enemy without which the National Security State cannot exist. Third, rapidly build up conventional forces. Fourth, put through a large increase in taxes to pay for all this. Fifth, mobilize the entire American society to fight the terrible specter of communism. Sixth, set up a strong alliance system, directed by the United States (this became NATO). Seventh, make the people of Russia our allies, through propaganda and CIA derring-do, in this holy adventure–hence the justification for all sorts of secret services that are in no way responsible to the Congress that funds them, and so in violation of the old Constitution.

Needless to say, the blueprint, the continuing plan, was not only openly discussed at the time. But, one by one, the major political players of the two parties came around. Senator Arthur Vandenburg, Republican, told Truman that if he really wanted all those weapons and all those high taxes to pay for them, he had better “scare hell out of the American people.” Truman obliged, with a series of speeches beginning October 23, 1947, about the Red Menace endangering France and Italy; he also instituted loyalty oaths for federal employees; and his attorney general (December 4, 1947) published a list of dissident organizations. The climate of fear has been maintained, more or less zealously, by Truman’s successors, with the brief exception of Dwight Eisenhower, who in a belated fit of conscience at the end of his presidency warned us against the military-industrial complex that had, by then, established permanent control over the state."

- Gore Vidal, "National Security State"

The entire essay, along with many of Vidal's other writings is highly recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/United-States-1952-1992-Gore-Vidal/dp...

> Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military?

The military industrial complex is an enormous jobs program. Some of your friends and neighbors probably have a job that supports the military in one way or another.

For your second point you have to consider the bigger picture. If the US drastically cut it's military spending one of two things would happen. NATO or another international military alliance would form to continue the status quo. Or another country would become the world military superpower. If that new superpower was Russia or China it could negatively affect everyday life in the United States. The US military spending is in a local maxima.

Yeh, I've heard this argument before. If you analyze it, you'll realize it's BS.

You can reduce spending without creating a power vacuum. E.g. reducing the budget by 10% isn't going to create a power vacuum nor shock its allies.

The reality is that their is no political will to start reducing spending on the military, nor is their desire by its civilians to do so. The question is why?

The average person probably wouldn't benefit from cuts that much while a minority of people would be deeply negatively affected. You can bet that minority of people is going to be calling their representatives whereas the average citizen won't care either way.

>Second, is a larger question. Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military?

The larger question still is how did you come to the conclusion that they spend a disproportionate amount on military?

Relative to GDP and most other countries it is disproportionate.

Which other countries? Denmark?

US's spending is 3,3% of GDP. That is ~40% less than Russia and ~60% more than China. That sounds proportionate. Considering that the US has the most to gain from preserving the status quo, it's perfectly reasonable to make a large effort in that direction.

User 'toomuchtodo' gave us a good reference earlier in this discussion showing just how much the US spends.

http://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison

Also, I would argue that Russia isn't a good example to compare against because they are the cold war superpower that was overspending against the US to win the cold war, and it seems they, like the, US continue that trend.

So what is a good comparison if not the rival? Who should we compare it to then? San Marino?

> Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military?

Because most of us are too ignorant to know better, and those of us that do are trapped by a de-facto two party system that is more interested in maintaining its own power via the status quo than representing the will of its constituency (for example, DWS and the DNC).

The Iraq war was plagued by accounting problems: pallet-loads of dollar bills being shipped in to pay for rebuilding, then vanishing. I don't think this was ever dealt with.

The large military spending is supported by two factors. The first is the element of American morality that believes in righteous violence: it's not merely an unfortunate necessity but a positive moral act. The same attitude supports both individual people keeping revolvers under the pillow and a globe-spanning military.

The second it the lack of inter-state redistribution. American politics since Roosevelt is very against Keynsianism. Suggest paying people to dig holes and fill them in again and there will be outrage. Paying billions for weapons systems that are never used or equipment shipped to Iraq/Afghanistan and then destroyed new, unused? Fine.

> First, who is getting fired for this and what outsider will be brought in to fix this to keep it from happening again.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not believe the military has ever successfully and accurately completed its accounting in the modern era, so probably not.

It's also not like the military leadership's major concern is accounting practices.

> Second, is a larger question. Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military?

We like and have gotten used to having a military that arguably more powerful than any other in the world. That requires lots of money, but most people big enough policy wonks to understand the degree of waste.

It's how the empire sustains itself, until it's no longer able to sustain itself.

Let's hope the transition to another empire does not happen by force.

Wouldn't it be cool if ALL governments had "fix this to keep it from happening again"?

That is, let's start with nationstates and their banks. Ie. The Fed, Bank of Japan, Bank of England, Deutsche Bank / Germany.

$62.4 billion is a rounding error for most of the "world's" banks.So let's temper the huff and bluster... I mean, its corruption and politics all the way down.

---------

Your second question is interesting. Why does the rest of the world expect the US to "do something" when bad things happen? Don't answer that because it doesn't matter.

> nationstates and their banks [...] Deutsche Bank / Germany

Note that Deutsche Bank is a private, non-state-owned company. You might be thinking of the Deutsche Bundesbank.

Thank you, it was indeed what I meant.

> Why do US citizens tolerate spending a disproportionate amount of their financial resources on their military?

Any congress member that suggests cutting funding to the military gets painted as not supporting the troops during his/her next election.

Also, no major party will adopt the reigning in of military spending platform because then the opposing party will constantly bring up that the unemployment rate increased due to the other party's budget cuts.

That explains congress, thank you.

It doesn't exactly explain the citizenry (it does for those that might be left unemployed from military cuts, but I expect that's a small % of the electorate).

Why the US military spending is so high requires some history. Before WWII, the US was actually quite isolationist: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/american-isol...

The US wanted to stay out of other people's wars and problems and take care of itself. The simple version is that Pearl Harbor showed the US what happens when you do that, although of course it was more complicated than that.

Ever since then, the US has decided, for better or worse, to involve itself in problems around the world. It's in the US's best interests. Many countries have smaller militaries because they are a part of NATO, which is largely backed by the US. So when you compare their military to the US's, it's not really a fair comparison.

I understand the historical context and your argument. It doesn't explain why the US spends more in raw dollars than every other country combined.

It seems whenever I ask the question about spending the response I hear assumes the only other option is to spend next to nothing. Rather, I'm simply curious why it isn't even up for consideration to reduce spending to bring it into line with other countries, or even smaller cutbacks that would leave the US spending above all other nations. I've never ever heard that up for discussion by an American.

> It doesn't explain why the US spends more in raw dollars than every other country combined.

Because a) we spend a reasonable proportion of our GDP on defense and b) we have a really, really high GDP. Multiply a sane proportion by a big number and you get … a really big number.

The answer to your second question, unfortunately, is a combination of "We're scared", "We're number one!" and "Who cares?"

I think that's the idea behind some people's wanting European nations to foot more of their own Nato monies... Asking Japan et al. to rely less on the U.S.... etc.

It could be that no one will be fired. Our spending is in line with the sheer scale of the US as a country.

One thing to consider - Eleanor Roosevelt was extremely successful in making the military an agent for social change. This, coupled with the way things worked with the Cold War draft made the military a significant social program, one with tanks and bombers.

Where Americans hold fast to Rugged Individualism in the larger economy, within the ranks of the military, we get significant lift in training, support and quality of life issues for our troops.

someone with little / no influence will be fired. budgets like this get bloated and abused by entrenched political interests.

the second question has nothing to do with anything really. what's so magical about a military budget that isn't exactly identical to any other government agency budget? do people actually imagine if we cut defense spending the government magically hands back "unspent" money? of course not, they'll piss it away in other departments.

It's the biggest corporate welfare program known to man.

It's not that disproportionate. Most militaries are funded within 2%-6% of GDP. America's economy is just so enormous that the spending seems ridiculous. Yes, there is a lot of waste, a LOT OF WASTE, but it's a small price to pay to feel safe and secure from foreign militaries when one has the benefit of, as the economist put it: "friends to the north and south and fish to the east and west."

The thought that a war could ever occur on our own soil is simply something most Americans don't even contemplate, unless you've spent one too many evenings polishing your favorite firearms and rewatching "Red Dawn."

Even as a percentage of GDP, US military spending is maybe 20th-highest in the world[0]. The countries spending more tend to be some combination of:

- at war, or civil war (ukraine, south sudan, iraq)

- with historical conflict with larger neighbours, and reaso to worry about it breaking out again (Pakistan, Israel)

- sitting on enough oil that GDP gets distorted anyway (saudi arabia, Azerbaijan

So yes, US military spending is way out of proportion to the rest of the world.

[0] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?year_h...

> Most militaries are funded within 2%-6% of GDP.

The global share of GDP spent on military (as of 2015) is 2.29%, and most countries are below that (the US having a huge GDP and spending significantly above that drags up the global share); the US's 3.3% is quite high.

It's also worth noting that the since American military provides such a large security blanket to global trade that most nations who would otherwise tough it out themselves to protect their merchant fleets don't have to, unless they are are in piracy hotspots like Somalia. Many non-American merchant ships often fly the Stars and Stripes illegally to deter those who are averse to pissing off the US Navy.

America does often not like it when countries other than itself goes to war because it makes it hard to sell American consumer goods there, unless those goods are the weapons of war themselves.

In what area of the world are you suggesting that commercial vessels false flag as American? Do you have any references? Because the goes completely against known behavior in major shipping areas. AKA it sounds like you just made that up.

Where did you take the 2%-6% from? World bank reports significantly lower numbers (<1.5% for most European countries for example and pretty much most of the world) and they line up to other reports as well. 3.3% of USA is well in the upper tenth of the world spending.

I'm all about gov't waste, and oh my god numbers are hard, but pretty sure they fudged it by Billions not Trillions. In the article they mention that the total true-up of all the problems was ~65B. So this headline is off by a couple orders of magnitude.

From the article:

  > At first glance adjustments totaling trillions may seem impossible. The amounts dwarf the
  > Defense Department’s entire budget. Making changes to one account also require making 
  > changes to multiple levels of sub-accounts, however. That created a domino effect where,
  > essentially, falsifications kept falling down the line. In many instances this daisy-chain
  > was repeated multiple times for the same accounting item.

bingo, this is an asinine way to do bookkeeping. And reuters shouldn't report based on this kind of waterfall problem. The issue is we're off by ~65B which is over 10% of the budget. That's the scandal someone is misdirecting away from. I want to change the parent to, I get you want to clickbait but seriously??

I think reuters' description is accurate. If you do your accounting in such a way that all numbers are garbage but the errors mostly cancel each other out it's not a matter of being unable to account for 10% of the budget, it's a matter of not being able to trust any numbers at all.

This is deep institutional rot.

65B is still significant. 65B is still almost 1.8% of the total budget for 2015. If you say the government spent 620B on defense, that means 10% of that can't be accounted for. Imagine if you couldn't find 10% of your paycheck at the end of the year. It isn't a trivial amount.

YES. and that's the story that should be highlighted, not some asininely huge number from a shitty accounting implementation. That we are off by more than 10% of the Military budget and 1.8% of the total US budget is nuts.

Unrelated: but after Clapper I don't know how anyone has any faith in the US Gov't. this is just another reinforcement.

I'm not seeing that number anywhere in the article, but it does say:

>the Army made $2.8 trillion in wrongful adjustments to accounting entries in one quarter alone in 2015, and $6.5 trillion for the year

Do you have another source?

That's misleading because it makes it sound like they were off by a total of 2.8 trillion, but that actually means they made that many adjustments. There is no way they were off that far because that's beyond their entire annual budget.

It would probably be better to focus on the number of adjustments that were made rather than the dollar tally (the number of adjustments will give some sense of the scope of the problem without counting the same dollars over and over again).

Unless of course they had money from previous budgets.

I believe he is referring to this part of the article:

>The spokesman downplayed the significance of the improper changes, which he said net out to $62.4 billion.

>At first glance adjustments totaling trillions may seem impossible. The amounts dwarf the Defense Department’s entire budget. Making changes to one account also require making changes to multiple levels of sub-accounts, however. That created a domino effect where, essentially, falsifications kept falling down the line. In many instances this daisy-chain was repeated multiple times for the same accounting item.

Basically 62 billion was effected, they claim trillions because of "write amplification" across multiple accounts.

Source document: http://www.dodig.mil/pubs/documents/DODIG-2016-113.pdf

I think you are confusing the flow of money with the total budget. I think the numbers reported here are looking at individual transactions that can easily add up to more than a trillion dollars.

I'm not confused. The article states that they had 2.8T in adjustments on a ~500B budget. That is totally insane. That the aggregate averages of all those adjustments are 500% of each and every adjustment is inconceivable. Even the most incompetent organizations are not off by that kind of percentage over ALL of their adjustments.

"The spokesman downplayed the significance of the improper changes, which he said net out to $62.4 billion. “Though there is a high number of adjustments, we believe the financial statement information is more accurate than implied in this report,” he said."

Wow, the bubble that is the military-industrial complex. That's 62 Billion dollars that could have gone to education, infrastructure, or helping the poor.

If you were this careless with a fraction of this dollar amount on your personal income taxes you would be thrown in prison.

How about not taxing the shit out of the taxpayers?

Scot Paltrow cover's this beat regularly

http://www.reuters.com/journalists/scot-j-paltrow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scot_J._Paltrow

All the services are at fault. Part of this no doubt has to do with the sheer amount of turnover in the military: people change jobs every two or three years, sometimes in one year. The civilians have more insight, but the active duty officers are virtually guaranteed to make errors in cost estimates for new programs and only shut down old programs after there are obvious overruns.

This appears to be the source document: http://www.dodig.mil/pubs/documents/DODIG-2016-113.pdf

Anyone who has been in the military would be completely unsurprised by a total inability to track spending.

The same is true for almost any government position, unfortunately.

"DFAS also could not make accurate year-end Army financial statements because more than 16,000 financial data files had vanished from its computer system."

I am impressed. I did an internship at a financial company and helped do end of month closing balance adjustments. We had a onsite and remote paper copy storage of each document, an onsite server room that hosted a copy, a off site tape copy and an offsite digital back up. Hard to think of what must have happened to get that level of mishap.

Depends if it's a mishap or a 'mishap' I guess.

I used to work for a massive retail company and our variance on the total at the end of a single day when cashing up was usually 1p, over 1 pound and people would start looking into it, over 10 pound it had to be reported to loss prevention.

It's a different world I guess.

I can't imagine how the DoD could clean up it's books. There have been long standing complaints that the military uses non-standard accounting software. Combine that with a lack of historical knowledge as personnel rotate in and out within 3 years or so and frankly disincentives aligned against the effort at every level and you have a massive project on your hands to get the right data. I'd have to imagine it would be a 5-10 year project

Well considering me and my soldiers' pay were fucked up regularly requiring us to visit S1 this doesn't surprise me.

> “Where is the money going? Nobody knows,” said Franklin Spinney

An ex army ranger once told me that the 'missing' money in the military budget goes to operations like the ones he was part of, which of course he could not tell me about. Of course there is also waste and pork, but I think the majority of this money is for black ops.

> An ex army ranger once told me that the 'missing' money in the military budget goes to operations like the ones he was part of, which of course he could not tell me about.

Sounds like he fed you some bullshit. I see no reason why it wouldn't be placed under a generic category with zero information regarding it possibly even lumped into something else. This is how it worked with classified projects when I worked in DoD contracting; not sure why this would be any different.

Sure, he could have been lying, so could I. Are you really suggesting that classified projects are on the same level as black ops?

> Are you really suggesting that classified projects are on the same level as black ops?

They're different for sure but the required secrecy is essentially the same. Just because something is a secret doesn't mean it won't get accounted for. Granted the DoD accounting practices are horrific but where they exist it will get counted.

It's corruption that really drives the desire to find out where the money is going. Waste & pork are acceptable on some levels, but most people have zero tolerance for corruption on the public dime, and are thus driven to find it.

Now, how you can give the data to find corruption without revealing black ops, I don't know.

Though presumably not $6+ trillion, right?

If you think about the insane cutting edge technology the Special Forces teams get, 6 Trillion seems a bit. . . .low.

Case in point are the Stealth helicopters they used in the Bin Laden raid. Up to that point, no one outside the military and probably very few inside the military knew they existed.

A fact that would have been concealed had they not crashed one during the operation.

Are you suggesting "Trillions of dollars goes into black ops"? And I think complex accounting internals is the furthest of the concerns any field-operative army ranger would have.

Which is still ridiculous. That spending can at least be a single top level item that the public has a chance to consider directly.

Some of this money is going to secret operations, but also a lot of it is getting embezzled. If even the inspector general can't get a truthful accounting, then there's no way the army is able to prevent that.

Is this really a surprise to anyone? Government historically has no incentive to save money, because if they do, they will get less money the next time around.

I worked for a nonprofit organization based on government funding for almost a decade and this is exactly how the industry (anything based on funding from the government) works. We were told to buy the most expensive of everything and if we had a surplus, we had to spend (and many times waste) the rest.

This is why we need to have less government involved in our economy, not more.

Are we storing this all in cash, or are there bank records is what I want to know.

Both presidential candidates have called for increasing defense spending amid current global tension.

FFS, I despite this kind of lazy reporting. Hello, there are not two candidates for President!!! So the phrase "both presidential candidates" is meaningless. I suppose you mean Gary Johnson and Jill Stein right?

There are two major party candidates. Check out Duverger's law[0]. Basically, a first-past-the-post/plurality voting system very often results in a two-party system. In the US, issues like disproportionate media representation and gerrymandering further enforce this framework.

So, colloquially, it makes sense to say "both" candidates rather than (unnecessarily) acknowledge that there exist third-party options. This article is not about the presidency (although it might be relevant), and the reporting isn't lazy just because it omits Johnson and Stein from its discussion.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

I know all about Duverger's Law, but that isn't the point. There are more than two candidates and refusing to acknowledge that only accentuates the problems caused by the first-past-the-post polling system. It's lazy reporting and people should rail against it.

The article isn't about the presidential candidates or the upcoming election. The article is about U.S. Army accounting. The only mention of the presidency is in a single sentence in a single paragraph:

> The significance of the accounting problem goes beyond mere concern for balancing books, Spinney said. Both presidential candidates have called for increasing defense spending amid current global tension.

They could have omitted this paragraph and the article's contents would still be relevant. The quality of the journalism would be unaffected, because the actual journalism in the article has nothing to do with the presidency.

because the actual journalism in the article has nothing to do with the presidency.

If that were true, then why did the author feel the need to introduce a mention of the candidates for President?

Anyway, all I'm saying is that it's lazy journalism, which it is. It would not have been much harder for the author of TFA to be accurate by simply saying "both major party candidates for President..." instead. That such a small change could have been made, and wasn't, is why it's lazy journalism. That, or introducing an irrelevant sidebar, if your thesis is correct.

There are two candidates with actual chances of winning; so "both presidential candidates" is fine to say.

There are two candidates with actual chances of winning; so "both presidential candidates" is fine to say.

There will be at least three candidates who are on the ballot in enough states to win. Beyond that, we should be very careful of making advance declarations about who and can't win. The media even more-so, exactly because they serve to influence who wins and loses.

>> exactly because they serve to influence who wins and loses.

I would accept this fact but the sad truth is the media are in bed with both parties. Unless you watch Fox News, you probably are only seeing the unmitigated influence from the Democratic side for Hilary Clinton.

FYI I haven't seen a non-biased, objective news cast in probably 15 years.

With a first past the post system, you will not see a third party win without one of the two main parties disintegrating (a la the Whigs in 1856).

Stein cannot win. Johnson cannot win. I'm not making advance declarations; it is simply a fact of how our electoral system works.

It's not meaningless if you know what they mean.

What kind of lazy comment is this that doesn't include James Hedges of the Prohibition Party, Rod Silva of the Nutrition Party, and Vermin Supreme -- the voice of the people who was frankly robbed at the Libertarian Convention just simply he didn't get enough votes.

Why must we always limit ourselves to the Big Four?

You're making an unsupported inference here. Neither I, nor anybody else in this discussion that I see, has made any (serious) suggestion that the article needed to mention anybody else. Not even Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, much less Hedges, etc.

What the author should have done however, is write an accurate statement by simply saying "both major party candidates for President..." instead of "both candidates for President..."

If you look realistically at Gary Johnson's and Jill Stein's predicted chances of winning they are only ahead of me by about half a percent

Why should anybody care about "predicted" chances of winning? That only leads to self-fulfilling prophecy situations.

Don't get me wrong.. of course Gary and Jill are both long shots... but at least one of them, if not both, will be on enough ballots to have a shot at winning. And in this election more so than any I can remember in a LONG time, you see a real serious desire for a 3rd party alternative from the American people. I mean, we're talking about the most historically BAD crop of "major party candidates" in ... well ... hell, maybe ever. It would actually only be a mild surprise, not a major one, if Gary Johnson were to win.

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