this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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Of course, that is how satire works. If satire wouldn't use hyperbole, it would be called News (though some news also use a lot of hyperbole).
One important difference between defence spending and all the other categories (social services, health, education and even GDP itself) is that defence spending is not a per-capita thing while the others are.
A 2x increase of the population doesn't mean you need twice as many aircraft carriers.
But a 2x increase of the population means you have twice as many workers who are increasing the GDP accordingly. You will also need twice as many doctors, hospitals and medicine. You will need social services and education for twice as many people too.
Add to that the demographic shift which means you have much more old people who aproportionally more medical treatment and social services, which mean if you have the same spending you will have a far downgraded result.
And the US private-first health system is famously inefficient, with costs of medication and treatments easily being 10x as expensive as in similarly developed countries. This ratio, btw, has been increasing over the last 100 years too.
So what people see is sinking quality in all these sectors while the military is getting more and more money.