We're All Parasites Now

[magus341]

In Ayn Rand's book, Atlas Shrugged, the world is filled with parasitic people who leach off other's productivity. In the book, they are the government and the unskilled who demand redistribution. Our world today is perhaps not so far off. Not just government, but most of the U.S. economy could be described as either tremendously wasteful,

Comments

[psyllogism]

If you're channeling Ayn Rand, you're not going to get many people to take you seriously :-P

I also haven't been convinced that the world can get by with the United States having a defense budget comparable to New Zealand or Japan. A *HUGE* reason why those countries are safe is because of the US. Now, that doesn't mean that the defense budget couldn't be cut, or that the US shouldn't stop bombing third world countries. But I don't think that the defense budget should be reduced to the levels of other countries, either.

Just my $0.02 (adjust for inflation as needed ;-) )

[magus341]

Yeah I was feeling a little out of it when I wrote this. A ton of money gets spent in the world, and probably very little of it actually improves people's lives. But, so what? I mean, people get by, and life goes on.

As for the defense thing, the U.S. does spend a lot. Could we get by only spending as much as NZ? No. We in all honesty need enough money to protect South Korea from North Korea, scare the crap out of the Iranians and basically make everyone else know that if they mess with us, bad things will happen. I would like Europe to shoulder a larger share of democracy's military spending.