• UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        But they’re not motorized chainsaw blades so according to one visiting galaxy-brain we need to pack it up because we’ve been checkmated. no-choice very-intelligent

        • krolden@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          So I’m just reading through the comments here and I’m like wow lemmy has gotten much more based somehow where are all the libs. Then I realize y’all are from hexbear I had no idea it got federated. Hell yeah!

    • FnordPrefect [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      the-democrat “The latest request from the Biden administration shows America’s continued commitment to helping Americans here at home and our friends abroad”

      frothingfash “…but God help them if those friends try to come here!”

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    How about 40 billion to support getting some bitches… on a Single Payer Healthcare program.

  • Parsani [love/loves, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    An expansion of the Child Tax Credit that focuses on the 19 million children who are shut out of the full credit because their families’ incomes are too low would come at a modest cost. For example, making the current law $2,000 credit fully available to these children would cost roughly $12 billion per year in 2022, according to the Joint Tax Committee estimates.

  • Silverseren@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Is this actual money in this case or is this more designated monetary amounts of goods, ie the worth of the guns and tanks and other things we’ve been giving them that were just collecting dust over here?

    Because that’s what most of the past monetary support was. No actual money was involved and so didn’t really cost us anything.

    • 133arc585@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      the worth of the guns and tanks and other things we’ve been giving them that were just collecting dust over here?

      Use of reserves motivates replacement. Just because you’re giving them weapons that were produced in the past, and therefore whose (production) cost has already been incurred, doesn’t mean that occurs in a vacuum. With stock running low, contemporary money goes in to replenishing that stock. In effect, there’s no difference whether you send old or new equipment, because both incur costs in the present.

      No actual money was involved and so didn’t really cost us anything.

      It cost you exactly the amount it cost to produce them. Just because it was produced in the past, doesn’t mean it was free. You paid for it X years ago, and are only now seeing it used. You paid for it. Moreover, you’re now going to pay to replace it.

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Except a bunch is old stock or overstock. The US was sitting on stockpiles of 203mm artillery rounds from the m110 that they would’ve had to pay someone to decommission, but it turns out that there’s a soviet arty piece that can use them, and guess what? Ukraine has em. Not to mention they chronically overproduced M1A1 Abrams to the point that generals were begging for it to stop, simply because it would be more expensive to shut down and restart production than simply keep making tanks nobody wanted or needed. Plus, a significant portion of the old inventory was DESIGNED to blow up russian equipment. So the US is clearing out old shit, crippling the Russian military, and aiding a new democracy. The only downside is the fresh money that is probably going to be dumped into the MIC to fill those clean shelves, but (and this is basically NCDposting but here we go) the fact that the US can almost singlehandedly provide Ukraine the resources to hold out against fucking Russia for over a year and that equioment still being only a tiny fraction of their total might? Holy shit. Grab the money shovels boys.

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Plus it helps clear out shelf space for new shiny shit, why have massive stocks of old obsolute junk sitting in the Sierra army Depot when you can empty it out and fill it with shiny new junk!

          Also its interesting how the Ukrainians have used some of the equipment which gives new data for R&D.

          • zackwithak@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Idk I guess if the military budget increases significantly more in budget to back fill I’ll believe this. But im pretty sure we’re just giving away old shit that is already being replaced with newer models

    • Echo71Niner@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      your answer to your question

      the worth of the guns and tanks and other things we’ve been giving them that were just collecting dust over here

    • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Yea we just have billions of dollars of military equipment that popped out of thin air and of course will not be replenished in the next trillion dollar military budget.

      • Harrison [He/Him]@ttrpg.network
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        1 year ago

        You have trillions of dollars worth of military equipment from the cold war mothballed or in storage.
        Most of it will never see use because it’s outdated technology. There are thousands of planes, tanks and miscellaneous vehicles just sitting out in the desert waiting to be scrapped or reactivated.

      • Silverseren@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        We have billions of dollars of military equipment that was made 10+ years ago and has been sitting around since then because we have no reason to use any of it.

        To the point where military commanders are begging Congress to not make the military budget so big because it’s being wasted on building more assets that aren’t seeing any use.

    • Zippy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Also what amounts are going where? Could be 39 billion to the border and 1 billion to Ukraine.

      They intentionally lump these sums together so that they can distribute it as they desire. There is no reason to do this other then to hide funding.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I mean you could have just read the article.

        13B for defense support and 8B in Humanitarian aid for Ukraine. 12B for federal disaster funding. ~7B for border funding, Fentanyl seizure Ops, and other stuff. So the 7B is vague, but it’s a budget. You could probably just go to the house or senate page once it’s released to get the details.

  • duderium [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Can a single liberal offer a single example of how anything in the USA has improved since Biden became president?

  • HurlingDurling@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Can we go ahead and just declare a state of emergency on the climate crisis? Or do we need the rest of the states to burn down as well? Shit’s getting me frustrated

  • notceps [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    It’d take 37bn USD a year to end world hunger. I’m also sure that if you are a ghoul and don’t care about that 100bn in investments would have a far bigger return on investment if they I dunno fixed their failing infrasctructure, used it to offer free healthcare, free education or literally anything. I’ve since stopped counting the amount of ‘lethal aid’ the USA has given but by now the USA could’ve combatted world hunger for about 4 years. Priorities I guess gotta pump up those MIC stock prices.

  • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    Oh hey, it’s a Parenti quote moment.

    And when Kenneth Boulding gets up and he says—an economist, and you can see what—you can see what—you can see, when you get Britain people like Kenneth Boulding speaking so naïvely, you can see the troubles you get into, the swamps you go into, the baby talk—silliness you get into when you think without Marx, when you think without class analysis—and Kenneth Boulding says, one of America’s leading economists, he says, “Empire is irrational because it costs more than what we get out of it,” “the British—it costed them more in India than what they got out of it,” “the American investment in the Philippines is only about three-and-a-half billion dollars, but we had to give them about six billion dollars in aid,” “it costs us more than what we get out of it,” and that’s when you think without a class analysis, because as we know—as you’re going to know before the evening’s over— that it’s very profitable, because the people who have the three billion dollar investment aren’t the same ones as the people who pay the six billion.

  • jcit878@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    aid is good, but we need to stop dancing around and allow provided arms to be used cross border. or maybe itll take the deaths of another 250000 russian conscripts

    • SpicyPeaSoup@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Unironically the most logical comment here. Aid to Ukraine is good, but we need to commit and go balls deep. No silly half-measure, attack russia where it hurts, especially those annoying-ass bombers and missile/drone factories.

      • astral_avocado@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        What are you an Army general? I kinda would prefer the government not give any more reason for a nuclear strike by Russia. Which is absolutely where we’re trending if America starts dropping pretenses and begins directly arming incursions into Russian borders.

        • SpicyPeaSoup@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Russia only understands one language: violence.

          They need to be shown where their place is, and NATO’s combined might is more than capable of doing so. Hell, Ukraine with NATO’s leftovers is keeping russia at bay.

          If russia wants to go nuclear, so be it. They’ll be absolutely eradicated, so they won’t strike first.

          • mufasio@lemmygrad.ml
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            1 year ago

            If russia wants to go nuclear, so be it.

            Geez, NATO libs have really gone all in on nuclear armageddon won’t be all that bad actually. I’m sure you think you won’t be sent to the front lines if the US and NATO ends up in a multi front war with Russia, China, India, Brazil, multiple African nations, Cuba, Venezuela, and an ever growing list of other countries.

            Maybe we should just chill out and accept that we live in a multipolar world and work together for common goals instead of fighting pointless wars to enrich the shareholders and prop up capitalism for a few more years before it collapses under its inherent contradictions.

          • astral_avocado@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            Okay armchair army general, I guess we’re going to nuclear war against a country on another continent that we’ve not technically declared war with because of your expert geopolitical analyst.

                • Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Don’t know, and your question is whataboutism.

                  Russia invades its neighbors and acts surprised when other neighbors want to join NATO!

                  If Russia doesn’t want other countries to swing to the west, then all it has to do is stop behaving badly. Easy.

                  Just for interests sake, here’s a map of all the countries that Russia has invaded. It’s pretty telling really.

          • zer0@thelemmy.club
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            1 year ago

            Name on state or nation in the world that isn’t rooted in violence and that doesn’t have an army

        • SpicyPeaSoup@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          The US hasn’t threatened to nuke anyone, unlike russia. NATO doctrine states that we’d overwhelm russia with conventional means if they use a nuclear strike first, and russia knows that’s a fight it can’t win.

          Now go fuck yourself, you tankie cunt spunktard.

            • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              And that country had invaded China, Korea, Thailand, French Indochina, Indonesia (Dutch East Indies), Burma, Philippines, had plans to invade Australia, and committed genocide while murdering hundreds of thousands of people. This does not even consider with the war crimes that were committed against civilians, and the thousands of instances where they use chemical and biological weapons to murder untold numbers of people.

              Japan was a fascist country with an absolutely brutal military that had zero respect for any life. Their military leadership evem attempted to coup to dispose of their emperor after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked, as they did not want the war to end at any cost.

              It’s a little difficult to find empathy for a culture who considers absolute loyalty to the emperor and the military a prerequisite for existence. A culture where you are expected to follow any order, including suicide on a moment’s notice.