Can Someone Justify This Claim Dr. Paul Made?

[mainstream economist]

I'm going to play devil's advocate

1. How do we know that our troop presence has a significant effect? Is there some hard evidence to show that American troops have a significant effect on Germany military spending, or aren't you then just guessing how the German government would react to our troop presence. After all, don't they feel protected plenty by NATO and the EU?

2. So I looked up the number, the US has 52k troops in Germany. How can one claim that their spending is a significant effect on the economy? Germany is a large country with a large economy, 52 thousand people seems insignificant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces

You are moving the goal posts now. You originally asked if Dr. Paul was correct in saying that our presence there subsidizes their welfare state. A subsidy is a subsidy regardless of its size.

As you might now already, his larger point is that our military presence abroad is wasteful whether it is in Germany or Afghanistan or Japan or Korea and that we simply cannot afford it. Doesn't his point suddenly become clearer once he points out that not only are we wasting money that we don't have, but also that some of this money subsidizes the welfare state of another country when our own entitlement systems are in deep trouble?

I think your question has been answered in full.

 

[JohnGalt23g]

I don't know, I'm kinda doubting, too.
The Bundeswehr has 247,100 active troops. By international agreement it can't go above 300k.
Germany covers 357,021 square kilometers.
That's a troop for every 1.44 square kilometers.
2010 population estimate is 81,799,600, meaning a troop every 331 people.

The US has 1,477,896 active duty, and 1,458,500 reserve.
That's a total of 2,936,356.
The US has a total land area of 9,826,675 square km,
making a troop for every 3.54 square km.
The US population estimate for 2011 is 312,481,000.
That's a troop every 106.4 people.

We have a much higher percentage of the population in uniform (remember this includes reserves, though, and doesn't count militarized police). But they slaughter us for covering their land mass.
Of course this also doesn't take the navy into consideration - navies represent a lot more projection of power than defense.

I don't disagree that they shouldn't be there. I think there are good philosophical arguments for pulling them - namely, that they have at least double the coverage of their land mass that we do, and would probably get away with breaking international agreement in dire need and get more.
But I'm not convinced we are subsidizing their socialism.

It's real simple. Take a look at percentage of GDP spent on military expenditures. Everywhere in Western Europe, it is at or below 2%. In the US it is over 4%, with some portion of that being spent to defend Europe. If we weren't there, they would need to spend more, if for no other reason than to counterbalance Russian spending.

And that extra money doesn't grow on money trees, even in Germany.

And that goes for all of Western Europe, not just Germany.

 

[TortoiseDream]

First, we are NATO. Without us, Germany (and the rest of Europe) would have to spend more on their own defense. How much more? Who knows? Depends on a variety of factors at any given time. But unless they want to encourage Russian expansionism (some the Germans have been worried about for a couple of centuries), they would have to beef up their defenses to something near current levels.

But isn't that presupposing that Germany feels threatened? There aren't any major threats to Germany at the moment, I don't see how they would feel so alarmed to raise troops levels in the absence of US bases. I doubt Germany is worried about Russian expansionism, where is the evidence for this?

Second, think about the GDP of a city with 52000 adults. That's essrntially what we do when we put that many troops in Germany. Except their only output is defense, and the entire bill is paid for by the US. Now, add on top of that all the labor required to make those military bases work, outside the actual soldiers. All the laundry, food production, entertainment, restaurants, etc. All those jobs are paid for by DoD dollars, or by the pay of the soldiers themselves.

All that benefit to their economy helps to subsidize all other publicly provided goods in Germany, including their welfare state.

But that's nothing. How significant can a town of 52 thousand people be when Germany has a population of 80 million? It's negligible.

 

[affa]

But isn't that presupposing that Germany feels threatened? There aren't any major threats to Germany at the moment, I don't see how they would feel so alarmed to raise troops levels in the absence of US bases. I doubt Germany is worried about Russian expansionism, where is the evidence for this?

We aren't actually threatened, yet we spend a mint. There aren't any major threats to us at the moment, but 'we' feel so alarmed.

But that's nothing. How significant can a town of 52 thousand people be when Germany has a population of 80 million? It's negligible.

The amount of money doesn't change the issue. If I give you $20 to spend on food, you can now take your food money and spend it on something else, whatever that might be. Same is true at $100, or $1000.

And you're ignoring the fact that we aren't just doing this with Germany, but with dozens upon dozens of countries. And we're broke.

 

[TortoiseDream]

We aren't actually threatened, yet we spend a mint. There aren't any major threats to us at the moment, but 'we' feel so alarmed.

But that's the US, I'm talking about Germany.

The amount of money doesn't change the issue. If I give you $20 to spend on food, you can now take your food money and spend it on something else, whatever that might be. Same is true at $100, or $1000.

And you're ignoring the fact that we aren't just doing this with Germany, but with dozens upon dozens of countries. And we're broke.

Would you still call this a subsidy on the German economy?

 

[1836]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V19-uLzz8k4

Around 7:20, he says, "Why do we subsidize Germany, and they subsidize their socialized system over there because we pay for it. We're broke."

What is he talking about? A friend is asking. I know he started talking about troops overseas, but how does this translate into America paying for Germany's socialized system? Or am I misunderstanding him?

Here you go, I just wrote a dissertation on it (well, not quite, but did the sufficient research):

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF US TROOPS IN GERMANY

 

[teacherone]

i took it to mean the troops are spending their salaries on foreign lands instead of back home.

we are propping up their economies with US tax dollars (the salaries of federal employees abroad).

 

[Carole]

You are moving the goal posts now. You originally asked if Dr. Paul was correct in saying that our presence there subsidizes their welfare state. A subsidy is a subsidy regardless of its size.

As you might now already, his larger point is that our military presence abroad is wasteful whether it is in Germany or Afghanistan or Japan or Korea and that we simply cannot afford it. Doesn't his point suddenly become clearer once he points out that not only are we wasting money that we don't have, but also that some of this money subsidizes the welfare state of another country when our own entitlement systems are in deep trouble?

I think your question has been answered in full.

Totally agree. And when one adds up all those subsidies around the world, both direct and indirect, imagine if those monies were being spent in the United States instead of around the world. Of course, we wouldn't have all those bases here instead, but a lot of money would still be spent here. We would have a more level playing field if those other countries were not receiving so much of our taxpayer funded largesse.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V19-uLzz8k4

Around 7:20, he says, "Why do we subsidize Germany, and they subsidize their socialized system over there because we pay for it. We're broke."

What is he talking about? A friend is asking. I know he started talking about troops overseas, but how does this translate into America paying for Germany's socialized system? Or am I misunderstanding him?

We subsidize Germany by having our airforce base there defending their skies...when THEY should defend their own skies.Besides that, the soldiers stationed there are putting money in the pockets of germany on our tax money when it can be spent here in usa if they were back home.