robinson@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jim Robinson) (03/31/85)
In article <890@ubc-vision.CDN> mack@ubc-vision.CDN (Alan Mackworth) writes: > > ......... Weapons research and development has been > compared, in its economic impact, with digging an enormous > hole in the ground and filling it in again. It has little > spinoff benefit to the industrial and consumer economy. The > economic multiplier effects are minimal compared with other > activities. Using lasers, particle beams and computers to > dig the hole does not change that fact! The United States' > economy is now overheated because of massive military expen- > ditures. It appears however that, fundamentally, that econ- > omy is in decline. In 1984 the United States' current > account balance of payments deficit was $101,600,000,000. > It is now a net debtor nation. Is this the economic perfor- > mance we want to emulate? If indeed the US economy is overheated then I suggest that this state of affairs is *not* due to massive military spending. I am not an economist but it would appear to me that in order for an economy to overheat there would have to be too much money circulating in that economy which could only happen if a substantial amount of money found itself in the hands of a substantial number of people. Since I agree that the multiplier effects of military spending are minimal, i.e. a great deal of money is going into the hands of a few, I am tempted to look elsewhere for the answer. The single action that Ronald Reagan did that would both cause this release of large amounts of money into the economy *and* ensure that this money was reasonably distributed was to deficit finance a 25% cut in federal income tax. By returning this money to the people he stimulated the consumer economy in a very (overly?) positive manner. No ridiculous job creation schemes in **selected** MPs' ridings which tend to do little more than guarantee the re-election of the concerned MP and cause a short term drop in the unemployment rate. No, he gave the money back to those who know best what to do with it. Unfortunately, a key phrase in the above is "deficit finance" and it is this deficit financing of the tax cut that has now come back to haunt the US. Canada's deficit has done nothing for the Canadian economy due to the fact that it is being used to finance non-productive ventures. ( Did I hear someone say Canadair ? ) Any criticism of an economy would be incomplete if one looked only at its trade deficit and ignored its unemployment rate and yearly deficit. Yes, the US does have a whopping trade deficit of $100 billion which compares poorly with Canada's trade *surplus* of 20 billion. However, the unemployment rate in the US is about 7.2% compared to Canada's 11%. Of the Big 7 only the US and Japan have single digit unemployment, and my own personal opinion is that much of the Japanese way of doing things is not transplantable to North America. Somehow I cannot picture happy UAW members cheerfully singing the company song before merrily starting another day of work for their respected employer. Canada has a yearly deficit of about $35 billion versus the US's $180 billion. I.e. on a per capita basis, our deficit is *twice* the size of the US's. This also ignores the fact that 49 of the 50 states are required by law to have balanced budgets, whereas I don't think there is a single province with such an animal. It is of interest to note that in the States both the Republicans and the Democrats agree that the deficit stands in the way of full economic recovery; their disagreement is on how to reduce it. In stark contrast to this Canada is in the situation where not one of the three federal parties will admit that something has to be done. They are all trying to pretend that the deficit will magically go away on its own if we ignore it long enough. To his credit, John Turner did at the beginning of his campaign talk about reducing the deficit, but he quickly realized that nobody wanted to hear about it and so shut up. Coming back to Canada's trade surplus we note that about 75% of Canada's exports are to the US. This means that Canada is in the precarious position of benefiting from the US's trade deficit. This suggests that whatever measures are taken by the US to reduce their trade deficit will invariably decrease our trade surplus. The Americans are already quite upset about Canada's steel and lumber exports and it is only because of Reagan's free trade attitude that Canada has not found heavy quotas and/or tariffs affecting those exports. If that had been a Democratic president Canada would have been up the proverbial creek without a paddle. We also note that trade deficits are not cumulative in the manner that revenue deficits are. I.e. every year that we add to the national debt by running a deficit we must devote a greater percentage of our expenditures, in the following year, to servicing that now larger debt thus leaving less money for productive purposes. So my answer to the question "is this the economic performance that we want to emulate?": it sure is a lot better than we're doing now. J.B. Robinson
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (03/31/85)
>unreasonable. As many people have observed, the Japanese fifth >generation project seeks to provide the tools for transition to an >information society. This includes lots of things like improving >quality of life, improving the the production and delivery of good and >services, and providing better access to knowledge of all kinds. >I would like to see those who have defended defense research on the basis >of our ``imperfect world'' try their hand at explaining why these goals >are not more important? > >Randy Goebel Of course these goals are more important than the *goal* of defence. But if defence is necessary at all, it is so that goals like these can be pursued. I remember a science-fiction story once about the late stages of a looong world war "to preserve the West for poetry" and so forth. It turned out that to win the war they needed a poet, but the last one had been drafted and killed long since. If we don't have a reasonable defence, we may not have much quality of life; if we don't remember why we want defence, we may not need any, because we will have lost anyway. I don't think there are many people doing defence research (in Canada) who think of defence as a *goal*. It is a perversion of language to equate defence with aggression. Unfortunately, this perversion seems to have a tendency to reflect nature in some countries. For some, it may well be a goal to have their country dominate much of the world. We don't have to support that attitude in order to support the increase of our *defensive* ability. [I have taken can.general out of the newgroups, and added can.politics]. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (03/31/85)
>Although this doesn't relate directly to star wars, I think the goal of the >Japanese in the fifth generation project is not entirely a "nice" one. >The major goal of Japanese Industry and (by extension and policy) the Japanese >Government for the last 20 years has been commercial domination of free- >market countries. It is clear from their domestic BUY JAPANESE policies that >they are not really interested in fair (foreign) competetion except where they >have no control over it. Read "Kempai-Tai: a history of the Japanese Secret Service" (approximate title, author forgotten) which was on the paperback shelves recently, and still may be. Throughout the history of Japanese interaction with other countries, their focus has been on economic domination, interrupted by a relatively short period in the 1930s-1940s in which they tried the military route. The secret service was always after commercial secrets, with military ones when necessary, rather than the reverse. The quoted opinion from Chris Shaw is entirely consistent with that history. But is it bad? I think that commercial competition of this kind is more likely to bring benefits to all who practice it than is military competition, in which we must participate just to stay alive. [I have deleted can.general and replaced it with can.politics] -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt
robinson@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jim Robinson) (04/01/85)
In article <409@water.UUCP> rggoebel@water.UUCP (Randy Goebel LPAIG) writes: >................ As many people have observed, the Japanese fifth >generation project seeks to provide the tools for transition to an >information society. This includes lots of things like improving >quality of life, improving the the production and delivery of good and >services, and providing better access to knowledge of all kinds. >I would like to see those who have defended defense research on the basis >of our ``imperfect world'' try their hand at explaining why these goals >are not more important? Ideally the end purpose of defence research is a more secure country. Star Wars may or may not fall into this category, depending on to whom one talks. However, the result of *no* defence research and *no* defence spending in general is a country without any security whatsoever. This is a country that is subject to military blackmail and invasion by unfriendly nations. So suppose that Canada decides that it wants absolutely nothing to do with defensive measures. The Evil Empire ( replace "Evil Empire" by your favourite pond-scum country ) notes Canada's lack of defences and successfully invades. The War Lord ( replace "War Lord" by the leader of your favourite pond-scum country ) then decides that from now on all Canadians shall be second class citizens, a la South African blacks. It is now *impossible* for Canadians to have any control over their destiny. They cannot work for and reap the benefits of a better society as described in Randy Goebel's article. It is for this reason that an adequate defence is essential to the well being and continuing prosperity of any country. I now challenge anyone to tell me why the progression from a defenceless country to a subjugated country is not only possible but probable given our "imperfect world". If anyone can prove to me that we can drop all of our defences and *not* suffer because of it then I will gladly agree to such measures. Usually it is possible for me to read someone else's article, totally disagree with it, and yet still understand what motivates the author's view. However, that is not the case when it comes to this notion that any money spent on defence is money wasted. I not only disagree, but also cannot understand how anyone can believe that some defence is not necessary. The fact of the matter is that nobody in their right mind picks a fight that they don't think they can win. J.B. Robinson P.S. Part of the reason that the Japanese can afford a mega-project like Fifth Generation is due to the fact that the US is wholly responsible for Japan's defence. Unless I am mistaken ( corrections happily accepted ) Japan is not allowed to have anything even remotely similar to a real military. Amazingly enough, the Japanese spend even less than we do on defence: about 1 percent of their GNP.
acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton) (04/01/85)
The following excerpt was taken from an article posted to can.general, and can.ai. I feel that my followup article is more appropriate to can.politics. In article <6@aquila.UUCP> chris@aquila.UUCP (chris) writes: > >The possibility of war started by belligerent nations with nuclear weapons >or the potential for creating them (examples: Israel, Iraq, Pakistan, India, >Brazil, South Korea, or South Africa) then escalating into general war would be >greatly lessened. > Have you checked your above opinions with the Canadian government before publishing them on the net? These might not coincide with the ones held by the government this week. To an ignorant western Canadian heathen this sounds like it could "cause or is likely to cause injury or mischief to a public interest". A public interest could be citizens of any one of the above mentioned countries or special interest groups who feel your remarks have slighted them. After all at least one person has already taken you to task for including Israel in your list. What if that same person and his friends (hypothetically of course) were convinced that by calling Israel belligerent you were encouraging the fringe elements of our society to physically attack Israeli citizens in Canada and hence should be hauled into court? Would you like to have to prove that your statement was true or that if it wasn't true you were ignorant of the current "official" government sanctioned version of truth. Freedom of speech is being undermined in Canada by a government and its mandarins who think that the average Canadian citizen is too stupid to think for themselves. If this insidious erosion of freedom of speech and the press isn't stopped now, we may soon find ourselves in a country where we won't be able to talk about anything controversial unless we spout the official government line. Maybe we should be more concerned about freedom of speech right now instead of SDI because without freedom of speech we will have no way of expressing our opinions on Canada's involvement in SDI. The inability to even talk about SDI in the future is much more dangerous than involvement in the research aspects of SDI now. Donald Acton