Back when the Big, Bad USSR was a going concern, a SF major whose opinions I respected told me that he didn't worry about the Russians. All of those old gray men you'd see every year scowling from their May Day reviewing stands, in their greatcoats, homburgs, and 'Hero of the Soviet Union' medals? They had actually witnessed, first-hand, with their own eyes, the deaths of 27 million Russians. That was not some academic abstraction; that was as real to them then as it was in 1944. Any rationale justifying a repeat performance was simply unthinkable to them. Who you had to worry about was the next generation. Most human brains literally can't grasp such numbers, they become mere abstractions, and when such death isn't real to you, that's when you can start imagining scenarios where hundreds of thousands or millions of dead just might be justifiable, because they're only numbers at that point; 27 million or 270 million, or 2.7 billion, cognitively they're all the same. Most people struggle to fully grasp the concept of thousands. Millions, billions and trillions are simply unintelligible abstractions, beyond our a posteriori experience and a priori reasoning ability. The war in Afghanistan cost $2.261 trillion dollars. That’s $300 million dollars per day, every day, for twenty years. That's $50,000 for each of Afghanistan's 40 million people. Considering that the average Afghani subsists on about $1.37 a day, instead of invading Afghanistan, perhaps it would've been more practical and cost effective to simply buy it. President Harry Truman temporarily raised top tax rates to 92% to pay for the Korean War. President Lyndon Johnson temporarily raised top tax rates to 77% to pay for the Vietnam War. President George W. Bush initiated the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War, and instead of raising taxes to pay for them, cut the top tax rates for the wealthiest by 8%. President Barack Obama twice extended the Bush tax cuts, then made them permanent. President Donald Trump lowered the top tax rate to 37%. By 2025, the total impact of these tax cuts on the deficit will be -$13.6 trillion, with nearly two-thirds of the benefits accruing to the richest one-fifth of Americans. President Bush put the “Global War on Terror” on our grandchildren's credit card, with every succeeding administration, Republican and Democratic, co-signing the loan. True bipartisanship. By 2050 the interest alone on our Afghanistan War debt could reach $6.5 trillion. That amounts to a liability of $20,000 for each and every U.S. citizen. The U.S. dollar bill is .0043 inches thick. If you stacked a billion one dollar bills on top of each other, the stack would reach 67.9 miles high, about 12 times the height of Mount Everest. If you stacked a trillion dollar bills in the same manner, the column would reach 67,866 miles out into space. A stack of 6.5 trillion one dollar bills would reach all the way to the moon 1.8 times. Remember; that's just the interest. When you add the principal, a stack of $8.761 trillion would be over half a million miles high; 594,474 miles; nearly 2 ½ times the distance to the moon. Just something to remember the next time your alleged "representative" in Congress empathizes, truly he does, but by golly, we just can't afford to provide health care, education, housing and food for all Americans; you know, that whole "provide for the general welfare" thing in the Constitution. The Militarized Budget 2020
Excellent Piobaire. It's so fuckin' illogical , especially when it comes to the issues like those mentioned in your last sentence. Downright immoral.
