A modest proposal.Follow

If that goes through, I'll forgo my plans of marrying foreigners to see the world in order to marry soldiers (slow moving ones preferably).

Nexa

Being from Maine, Canadia isn't considered an exotic destination so much.

Nexa

Free life insurance?

Sure, dock their pay a bit, then we can take the premiums, invest them and then make money off of them!

Capitalism rulez!

When that was raised in the UK, the response was "ZOMG! How can you put a tawdry price on the life of our heroic warriors?!?!!"

I suspect your bleedin' heart pubbies would take the same line.

Ah but you forgot the wonder of republican trickle down economics!!!

If you give people the money, it will get spent, and respent, and spent some more, and somehow that makes more money for everyone.

Or something.

The financial impact could be enormous if we were to ever engage in an actual war with someone who can fight back and lose say, 100,000 troops. 100 billion a year for decades is quite a chunk out of the budget for zero return.


Are you calling the ultimate sacrifices of heroes no return? Or just arguing that their deaths aren't worth quite that much?


I take it you have some kind of political point here, but the idea is bad from any perspective imo.

No political point at all. I'd just like to see people who constantly flog the idea of supporting the heroic noble troops doing so with money instead of doing so to make money.

Seriously...

Call us when you hit high school econ.

I was having trouble telling if you were joking or not, but in case you were serious... They wouldn't print out new money for the widows, the money would be paid to them out of government budgets (military? I dunno). Also $1million isn't all that much anymore, after taxes/funeral/paying the deceased bills there probably won't be more then a couple hundred thousand left.

Right now the survivors benefits are $500,000 right? My sister(army) brought it up once but I stuck my fingers in my ears and started humming.

Well I'm asking what it is. Like I said, I made a point of ignoring the possibility of my sis dying but I swear she said 5 something. Maybe it was $50,000?

Er? Um... Leaving money in the hands of those who make it so that they can produce more "growth" which in turn benefits everyone in the form of jobs and newer/better products is "supply side" economics (trickle down). Taxing money from those who make the most and giving it to people on the assumption that they'll spend it via consumption is "demand side" economics (which is what this idea essentially entails).


You've got them completely backwards, but other then that you're right on track! ;)



As to the idea itself? It's a great idea only if you think that artificially raising the "cost" of ever using your military is a great idea. If you're some kind of peacenik who thinks that nothing is every worth fighting for, you probably think it's peachy.


Overall, it's a totally moronic idea though...

It's a great idea only if you think that artificially raising the "cost" of ever using your military is a great idea.

Just the "cost" of troops dying, but we'd never put a price on that sort of sacrifice, would we? If this policy had gone into effect for the current conflict it would increase the federal budget by about 3 billion per year. I can list other things that cost 3 billion per year and we can compare their value to the lives of our troops.

Seems like that would help your argument a great deal.

Hmm, guess I'm mainly arguing that dead heroes won't add to our security just because their families get more money. They're dead!

If the idea is that soldiers who know their families will get the windfall will fight better...well that's kind of a suicidal pact, like $100,000 given to suicide bomber's families in Israel.

What are their deaths worth? I can't see why they'd be worth any more than any other pension or whatever for any family of anyone that dies in any occupation that has such a plan (assuming relatively equal death rates, like alaskan crab fishing or something).



Okay, well for those people I agree with your idea. (as an exercise in consistency only)

Edited, Jul 18th 2007 10:23pm by Palpitus

What are their deaths worth?

Virtually nothing, obviously.