The effect of the large US military, in the context of comparing unemployment rates, is to provide government subsided work to predominantly poorer people. Would you disagree that the training and the experience provided by the military have given many, many black and hispanic and poor white people a leg up that they would not have otherwise received? How many stories have you read about the military being the only way out of poor, deprived circumstances? I'm not questioning the right of the US to have a large military, or its right to spend half its tax income (or whatever it is) on over-priced military projects. I am however saying that if you want to start complaining about European choices you have to include the choices the US makes. There is a large sector of the US economy that depends on taking money from citizens and redistributing it to the military and to the various companies that supply them and carry out research for them.
I am of course, being nasty when I call it a welfare programme, but do you claim that there is no proportion of military spending that is essentially political in nature? Bases being kept open in sensitive constituencies and so on?
The US military is three times the size, proportionally, of European countries. It consists largely of the poorer sectors of society that would otherwise be at a high risk of unemployment. Do you really think that if the US had a normal sized military the unemployment figures would be unaffected?
But the original analysis did exactly the same thing
I am of course, being nasty when I call it a welfare programme,,,,,
Continuing on with the last half of that quote
but do you claim that there is no proportion of military spending that is essentially political in nature? Bases being kept open in sensitive constituencies and so on?
The effect of the large US military, in the context of comparing unemployment rates, is to provide government subsided work to predominantly poorer people. Would you disagree that the training and the experience provided by the military have given many, many black and hispanic and poor white people a leg up that they would not have otherwise received?
But second, some of our best and brightest go into the military. The competition for West Point, Annapolis, the Air Force Academy is very high. Also many college graduates go through ROTC, serve time in the military, and choose to stay in. And, while I would not be shocked if your comment on economic level were true, I'd like to see the data. A black congressman a few years ago said that young blackman were being sent to fight 'whities'"war in Iraq. That data was available and blacks were represented in the military at a percentage equivalent to their portion in the population. Just as with fireman, where a family over generations chooses that career, the same is true of military families.
And why ask this question of the military only? If we got rid of the post office, would that put more people in the work force that are at high risk of unemployment? Or how about some of those highly clerical areas of the government--maybe the Internal Revenue Service?
If a democracy chooses to do activities, through the government, at certain levels spending levels to accomplish goals that they perceive as important, that should not be viewed as underemployment. It should be considered that IMHO if it is a welfare program, and likely if it is a "provide jobs" program, such as were created in the Great Depression. But that is not the US goals for the military, the Internal Revenue Service, the postal service, etc.
The other says that if you look at my remarks above (and possibly listen to the voices in my head that only I can hear, since I'm not sure how much of this I've said in detail or were I've said it) my view is that comparing unemployment figures in the way the laissez-faire propagandists do is nonsensical. Is my version half-assed? Yes, of course it is: I'm a blogger responding in his coffee breaks. It's no more half-assed than the crap from the FT. What do you want for a first try? I have lots of responses to take into account and perhaps I can come to a better way of making my point so as not to confuse USians who have an instant defence mechanism if you criticise their mighty warriors in any way or possibly suggest that spending more money on the military than the rest of the world is not a good idea.
I do agree that what we would really need to do (and I said this above I hope) to break out the population of working age into:
You also need to know the labour force participation, the demographic structure of the country and an idea of how these things are changing over time.
Once you know all that and take it into account you can start doing comparisons.
However, if people want to start publishing headlines like "15% jobless in Sweden" without that, then I don't feel all that guilty for putting together an analysis that could have been better. I'll even work up a better version next week. Want to bet the FT will do the same?
Huh? Of course the US has one. In fact US public sector spending on health care in dollars per capita is comparable to that of European countries. It's just that our health care system is utterly FUBAR, so private spending is also immense, and all that combined gives works out to give us worse results than that of the wealthy European countries.
Take a look at this graph It's part of a Paul Krugman NYRB article on the US health care system.
There are workers employed by the government - federal, state, and local (a quick google tells me that NYC owns 11 hospitals 6 diagnostic centers and 80 clinics, for example, there seems to also be a state owned hospital here and I believe there is a federally owned VA one as well). There are workers employed by the for profit private sector . There are workers employed by the non profit private sector. In most cases hospitals in all three of those categories treat both people covered by public provided insurance and those with private insurance, as well as those with no insurance at all (emergency rooms are required to provide urgent care regardless of the patient's ability to pay for it).
So there isn't a yes or no answer to your question - is a doctor in private practice whose patients mostly rely on Medicare 'employed' by the government? What about a doctor working in a public sector hospital whose patients are primarily those with private insurance?
As for sympathy with Sweden. While there is many aspect of the swedish model I disagree with. A equal free public health service is not one of them.
