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[orange]

there's serious concerns that the sheer expense of maintaining [the US] military is one of the biggest drains on our economy as a whole.

Uh, this statement is ... I can't find a good word.

The expense of maintaining the US military is a major drain on the US Federal Budget/spending (a bit more than 50% of discretionary spending, 19% of the total).  It also comes in at 4.7% of the Nation's GDP.

Discretionary spending makes up 36% of Federal spending.  If you cut Discretionary spending in its entirety, the Federal government would still be deficit spending for the first year and you would have added anyone being paid by that Discretionary spending to the unemployment pool.

Now, the above having been said, a decade of deficit spending to include two nation-building projects (going beyond just military spending) puts strain on the economy government spending.  Taxes were decreased during the time period reducing overall government negative impact on the economy, in theory.  Less than 1% of the nation's workforce serves in the military thus no real impact on the available workforce.

Then I would look at a comparison of tax revenue as a percentage of GDP - where plenty of low-military spending as a % of GDP countries are taxing the sum of their GDP much higher than the US.

So, uh ya... I think that argument is flawed for a variety of reasons.

I'll also point out that the number of US active duty personnel includes things like logistics personnel, military police, and other non-frontline combat troops already. The US Department of Defense webpage says they have 450,000 employees, but I don't know how many of those are military and how many are civilian.

Personal in Service

Anyone employed full-time by the Caldari Navy, Army, or any of the eight corporate forces, are accounted for in this figure.

It does, explicitly, include people like factory workers, administrators, etc.

everyone in the military-industrial complex (which might get you close to that number, I suppose), it doesn't make much sense to call an assembly line worker at a Lockheed plant a "soldier".

The LockMart, Boeing, Northrup Grummann, Raytheon employees or at least their place of business (the plant) is a legal target under the Geneva Convention.

[Svetlana Scarlet]

I wasn't trying to say that the military is the reason the US economy has trouble, but it's the third largest single expense for the US government, and it is essentially a giant government jobs program when it comes to the economy. Other countries certainly tax their population more, but on the other hand, the range of government services provided in most of those countries is considerably more extensive than in the United States.

The LockMart, Boeing, Northrup Grummann, Raytheon employees or at least their place of business (the plant) is a legal target under the Geneva Convention.

Yes, but no one would call them "soldiers"; those factory workers aren't enlisted personnel. And Silver Night, it says it includes everyone employed by the Navy or corporate security forces -- I don't see how you get "factory workers" from that. Boeing employees don't work for the military. I never said it didn't include administrative personnel.

[Publius Valerius]

I wasn't trying to say that the military is the reason the US economy has trouble, but it's the third largest single expense for the US government, and it is essentially a giant government jobs program when it comes to the economy. Other countries certainly tax their population more, but on the other hand, the range of government services provided in most of those countries is considerably more extensive than in the United States.

The LockMart, Boeing, Northrup Grummann, Raytheon employees or at least their place of business (the plant) is a legal target under the Geneva Convention.

Yes, but no one would call them "soldiers"; those factory workers aren't enlisted personnel. And Silver Night, it says it includes everyone employed by the Navy or corporate security forces -- I don't see how you get "factory workers" from that. Boeing employees don't work for the military. I never said it didn't include administrative personnel.

To easy down this question. The US has a population of 315M, which means by caldari standards that around 47M would be in coastal, local, federal and military service etc.... I dont think we will find that number. So even counting everything, administration, workers etc... I dont think it will sum up to this large number. So to mild down the discussion between dex and Svetlanam, the question isnt how much the US has, if 1.5%,1.9% or 2.3% etc... The question is: Are 15% reasonable number*?


Edit: *For a nation which doesnt fight to survive; as already mention before.

[Svetlana Scarlet]

...and it appears someone (guessing CCP Eterne based on his tweet) changed the percentage to 5%, which is probably still too high, but not quite as ridiculous.

[Z.Sinraali]

No need to guess, it's right there in the page history. Hurrah for wikitech!

[Svetlana Scarlet]

And actually, 5% probably isn't that ridiculous if you assume it includes reserves (which the Caldari probably have tons of), merchant marine, things like the Caldari equivalents of the CIA, CDC, National Labs, Veterans Affairs which are probably just folded into the security corps and the Navy. I can justify it, at least, which was pretty hard with the 15% number.

[Gottii]

I rather assumed the high % of citizens under arms was similar to the Chinese model, where many (if not most) nominal "soldiers" are actually factory workers or such, as has been mentioned above.

Which would make sense in the hyper-competitive State.  I doubt the rest of the Megas would want the Caldari Navy dependent on, say, Suvee produced ammunition or what have you.  They would likely feel more comfortable supporting as politically, economically, and industrially independent State military as possible.  That means a lot of "soldiers" doing jobs that would conventionally done by civilians.

[Svetlana Scarlet]

Actually, I suspect the megas WANT the Navy dependent on the megacorps as much as possible. There's no way in hell they want to let them get the ability to operate independently.

[orange]

In addition, a Navy contract represents a lot of money from across the State flowing into your corporation.  Building a squadron battleships represents billions of isk from competitors.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

And actually, 5% probably isn't that ridiculous if you assume it includes reserves (which the Caldari probably have tons of), merchant marine, things like the Caldari equivalents of the CIA, CDC, National Labs, Veterans Affairs which are probably just folded into the security corps and the Navy. I can justify it, at least, which was pretty hard with the 15% number.

This. Add in all the uniformed services to that, too, as they are all paramilitary organisations.