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Defence Cuts
Topic Started: Oct 20 2010, 08:32 AM (3,662 Views)
Ivan
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F*cking plebs.
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The forced nationalisation bit was a joke to illustrate the extent of the government's powers. Of course nationalisation would not be required.

As for the rest of it. it's really not the issue whether the government messed up or not. As far as I can tell the general consensus is that the problems we are facing are due to a combination of a global economic crisis and the previous government's response to that crisis.

In any event, there is perceived to be a problem which needs to be fixed. I certainly didn't cause the problem and likewise the 1/2 million public sector workers who are going to lose their jobs didn't cause it. Yet we are being told that we're all in this together and that the painful medicine is necessary to save the country's finances. Why exactly should a defence contractor be spared this medicine?
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The Eggman
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Tommy McLean
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Setenza
Oct 21 2010, 11:03 AM
Sure we could. But still the government that's messed up, as it always does. Making up the rules as they go, inventing / disregarding laws as they please

Cos defence contractors don't do that :ph43r:
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Setenza
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Knitting with only one needle
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Ivan
Oct 21 2010, 11:13 AM
The forced nationalisation bit was a joke to illustrate the extent of the government's powers. Of course nationalisation would not be required.

As for the rest of it. it's really not the issue whether the government messed up or not. As far as I can tell the general consensus is that the problems we are facing are due to a combination of a global economic crisis and the previous government's response to that crisis.

In any event, there is perceived to be a problem which needs to be fixed. I certainly didn't cause the problem and likewise the 1/2 million public sector workers who are going to lose their jobs didn't cause it. Yet we are being told that we're all in this together and that the painful medicine is necessary to save the country's finances. Why exactly should a defence contractor be spared this medicine?

It's not about sparing some people or not. The government needs to make cuts, they will be felt by everyone. Whether it's some company not having a council contract renewed that puts them out of business, or sacking someone, it's going to happen. Some defence contracts, or other contractors will no doubt suffer along with others.

But the cuts needs to come from someplace, and the government can only do what it can control. It was the government that created well more than 1/2 a million jobs over the past decade or do and ran up a deficit that now needs to be reduced.

Defence seem here to be a popular area to cut. Whether it's public or private jobs, it's still jobs.


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Setenza
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Knitting with only one needle
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The Eggman
Oct 21 2010, 11:30 AM
Setenza
Oct 21 2010, 11:03 AM
Sure we could. But still the government that's messed up, as it always does. Making up the rules as they go, inventing / disregarding laws as they please

Cos defence contractors don't do that :ph43r:

As I said in my post, I'm sure they do, and are critisesed rightly for it.
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The Eggman
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Tommy McLean
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Setenza
Oct 21 2010, 11:42 AM
The Eggman
Oct 21 2010, 11:30 AM
Setenza
Oct 21 2010, 11:03 AM
Sure we could. But still the government that's messed up, as it always does. Making up the rules as they go, inventing / disregarding laws as they please

Cos defence contractors don't do that :ph43r:

As I said in my post, I'm sure they do, and are critisesed rightly for it.

If hundreds of thousands of public workers are to suffer, then the defence industry can suffer as well. And they deserve to. They've made shitloads in the last decade especially.

The government giveth and the government taketh away.
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Setenza
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The Eggman
Oct 21 2010, 11:59 AM
Setenza
Oct 21 2010, 11:42 AM
The Eggman
Oct 21 2010, 11:30 AM
Setenza
Oct 21 2010, 11:03 AM
Sure we could. But still the government that's messed up, as it always does. Making up the rules as they go, inventing / disregarding laws as they please

Cos defence contractors don't do that :ph43r:

As I said in my post, I'm sure they do, and are critisesed rightly for it.

If hundreds of thousands of public workers are to suffer, then the defence industry can suffer as well. And they deserve to. They've made shitloads in the last decade especially.

The government giveth and the government taketh away.

I'm sure they will, I don't have an issue with it. But the government needs to take away from what it's created too.

My main issue was with the more vindictive options, that were apparently a joke.
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The Eggman
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Tommy McLean
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Setenza
Oct 21 2010, 12:02 PM
I'm sure they will, I don't have an issue with it. But the government needs to take away from what it's created too.

My main issue was with the more vindictive options, that were apparently a joke.

To be fair to the Labour Government (and I'm not a supporter), much - most - of the debt wasn't down to them. We can all say they should've done this (splitting up the banks, putting in safeguards etc), but that's just hindsight talk. Had the Tories been in power throughout 97-2008, would they have taken those measures? Would the Lib Dems?

The private sector can't be relied on to create jobs. A couple of years ago I moved from the public sector to the private sector, and I've seen first hand what the private sector does - it strips the workforce down to the bare bones and piles the workload of those ex-workers onto others (many of those others who already had a full workload in the first place, and who then suffer - and the quality of work/service suffers).

And we will see soon enough many public services suffer. The private sector won't pick up much of the loss of jobs, either. So we'll see a massive rise in benefit payments, and crime will rise as well.
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Ivan
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F*cking plebs.
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Setenza
Oct 21 2010, 12:02 PM
I'm sure they will, I don't have an issue with it. But the government needs to take away from what it's created too.

My main issue was with the more vindictive options, that were apparently a joke.

To be fair, the sentiment was entirely genuine, it was merely the methods which were in jest.

And, I'd describe the sentiment as apathetic, rather than vindictive. I don't wish individual defence contractors ill, per se. I just don't give a fuck what happens to them. They come pretty near the bottom of the groups in society which I have sympathy for. Above rapists but below bankers.
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Setenza
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The Eggman
Oct 21 2010, 12:11 PM
Setenza
Oct 21 2010, 12:02 PM
I'm sure they will, I don't have an issue with it. But the government needs to take away from what it's created too.

My main issue was with the more vindictive options, that were apparently a joke.

To be fair to the Labour Government (and I'm not a supporter), much - most - of the debt wasn't down to them. We can all say they should've done this (splitting up the banks, putting in safeguards etc), but that's just hindsight talk. Had the Tories been in power throughout 97-2008, would they have taken those measures? Would the Lib Dems?

The private sector can't be relied on to create jobs. A couple of years ago I moved from the public sector to the private sector, and I've seen first hand what the private sector does - it strips the workforce down to the bare bones and piles the workload of those ex-workers onto others (many of those others who already had a full workload in the first place, and who then suffer - and the quality of work/service suffers).

And we will see soon enough many public services suffer. The private sector won't pick up much of the loss of jobs, either. So we'll see a massive rise in benefit payments, and crime will rise as well.

I think they are largely respondible though, if not for the debt, but for the deficit. I'd need to check the numbers, but it's increased a lot under Labour. I don't think it's something that can be put down to a party though. I'm sure in the US, Clinton had a budget surplus for the first time in a while, Bush spent a lot to eradicate that (before the credit cruch), where generally conservatives would surely aim to reduce deficit / debt.

Even with these cuts, actual spending by the current government was predicted to rise at one point.

And the private sector does create jobs. In the last 10 years or so, it's created roughly as many as the public I'm sure I read recently. First hand I've only worked in private sector, and it may do as you say at times, but it could be seen as a good thing. I tend to spend most of my day seeing where we can keep costs low and still provide a decent output.

Bottom line I think is a lot of people want excellent services, but won't pay for it. Problalby not many on here to be fair, but the wider public.
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whatsthatonyourback
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Waldo Jeffers
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Naebody
Oct 20 2010, 07:04 PM
whatsthatonyourback
Oct 20 2010, 03:29 PM
If you look at it with your equation, rich countries will always have a higher "cost to protect one person's life and liberty". But then, the cost of most things is higher for people in rich countries. But they're rich, they can afford it.

That's wrong on a couple of levels.

For starters, GNP doesn't correlate at all with defence spend per capita. Switzerland, for example, has the third-richest population in the world per head but is 21st when it comes to defence, spending just $352 per citizen. Pre crisis, Greece's GNP by capita was barely more than Slovenia and Portugal yet it spent $532 per head, which was considerably more than richer economies such as Japan and Germany. Even red-button petrochemical states such as the UAE can't match Greece's valution of its own population. Contrast with Iceland, which briefly rose to the world's fifth-richest per head yet continued to spend zero on defence, largely because it maintains no standing state military force.

Secondly, we're talking about international governmental trade, not population wealth. Why should a richer country's army cost more, given a missile does cost the same whether you're Luxembourg or Sudan? The hardware of war is effectively sold on a level playing field. I accept that the manpower costs are different between borders, but the expense of cannon fodder is generally far less important than the expense of cannons.

With all due respect, that's a load of pish. I assume you were doing something else when you posted it. And when you read my post.

First, I never did say that GNP correlates with defence spend per capita. It doesn't.

Second, I can see why you're veering off to how much a missile costs on the open market as it's the only way to support your argument that a nation's defence spending is measured in proportion to how many missiles it could buy at the current open, international market rate per head of population - an argument I've never heard anyone ever propose before, so full marks for originality.

Unlikely, I would say, that any country blows their entire defence spending on missiles manufactured exclusively abroad and at a standard market rate. And even if they did, they wouldn't be much good without people being paid to operate and maintain them.
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Naebody
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Twat
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whatsthatonyourback
Oct 22 2010, 02:44 PM
First, I never did say that GNP correlates with defence spend per capita. It doesn't.

Second, I can see why you're veering off to how much a missile costs on the open market as it's the only way to support your argument that a nation's defence spending is measured in proportion to how many missiles it could buy at the current open, international market rate per head of population - an argument I've never heard anyone ever propose before, so full marks for originality.

You said you favoured a measure of defence spending that is proportional to national wealth, as it gauges the "importance" of defence to each country. I agree, it does. But I'm not terribly interested in viewing things this way. I'm more interested in seeing how much it costs to defend one person's life and liberty, and how this changes depending on where they live. The best way I can think of to do this is by calculating defence spending per capita.

This is not a radical or outlandish idea. Many people have done the same. It's not the only way to cut the figures, but it's an interesting way.

Comparing this data with per capita wealth shows that rich countries' armies don't necessarily cost more. It also suggests that we have a very expensive army compared with our national output (and, some would argue, national importance), which returns the argument to its starting point.

On your final point, I don't disagree that manpower costs change across borders. I don't disagree so much that I already said it a few dozen messages back.
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Setenza
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Knitting with only one needle
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There are bound to be some countries that need* to spend a lot more. Isreal for example I'm sure has to spend a lot more than others on defence. Or some mad dictatorship in africa I'm sure spends a lot in order to keep power or whatever.

Spain or somewhere may well outspend them in $, but in terms of priority, doesn't seem as much of cost to them as a whole.





*Ok, I'm sure it maybe doesn't need to quite as much, but they want to, and a lot of their residents want them to.
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Clarkie
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I bet the Swiss don't spend much on their Navy.

The Greeks one of your examples above spend a lot to try and have a deterrent against any aggression from their great enemies the Turks ( Cyprus is a big trigger point but they also nearly went to war over an uninhabited Island in the Aegean a few years back)

As there are a lot more Turks than Greeks it means a Greeks worth in terms of dollars spent to protect him is going to be a lot higher.

Don't be fooled by the fact a country like Pakistan has F-16's the same as a country like the Netherlands as the Pakistani F-16's although the same airframe will have a lot less capability (and will be cheaper) than the ones the dutch have. The reason is that the Americans will not sell the top of the range Avionics and weapons systems to a country that they might one day have to go to war against.
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Clarkie
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One of the victims of the cuts proves it's worth

Quote:
 
One of four emergency tugs to be withdrawn under UK government plans has been sent to the scene of the grounded submarine HMS Astute. 


The tugs are to be taken out of service in 2011 to save £32m over four-and-a-half years.  Two Highlands Lib Dem politicians have attacked the withdrawal decision.

Charles Kennedy, a former leader of the party, said on Thursday the vessels could prove critical in an emergency.  Highland MSP John Farquhar Munro said he was furious at plans to scrap them in the government's Spending Review.  John Laing, transport chairman at Highland Council, said it was "unthinkable" to be withdrawing the tugs.  He said: "How ironic it is that only two days after the government announced the end of funding for emergency tugs in the Highlands and Islands that the Stornoway tug is required to rescue the Royal Navy's newest and largest attack submarine.  "We have fought long and hard to have a tug service protect our shores and this incident brings into sharp focus the need for the tug at Stornoway.  "This is exactly the kind of incident that the tug is required for."
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Conan the Destroyer
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I prefer it when we're pish
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Save the tugs, scrap the sub.
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