Wouldn’t it be a strange world to live in if 50% of military spending was paid for by just 5% of the population?
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
Every year, the United States government spends the equivalent of $3,300 for each working citizen on its military budget. In aggregate, this grand total of $610 billion in defense spending amounts to about half of the dollars globally spent on the military.
With $216 billion spent per year, China has the next largest budget by far. But, to get to a number even close to U.S. spending, the military budgets of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, United Kingdom, and France would have to be added together.
From another perspective, the amount of annual defense spending per working person in the U.S. is higher than the income per capita of 70 countries, including places such as Morocco, Nigeria, Nicaragua, India, and Ukraine.
This means that if somehow the people of Nicaragua were taxed 100% with all money going to defense, it would only amount to a budget 1.8% of the size of America’s.
On a purchasing power parity basis, we’re probably lower than China.
The DoD has been very good over the years, to this software developer 🙂
I love this article. So often the left touts the success of socialist practices in Europe, but seem to forget we are their shield and sword. OF COURSE THEY CAN AFFORD ALL THE NICE SHIT FOR THEIR PEOPLE.
TPC
Actually, they can’t.
As they are now in the process of finding out.
Hmmm
Actually I think the graphic is overstating Chinese defense spending while understating US spending.
We should not be policing the globe. We bankrupt ourselves for peoples who, for the most part, despise us. Let them defend their own sea lanes and air ways.
Patrol our hemisphere in co-operation with Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Canada.
SpecOps,
Mexico has never contributed anything towards our hemispheric security, they are not even military allies and didn’t support us in WWII other than severing ties with the Axis powers (which resulted in the reward of large amounts of American dollars going into Mexico).
The United States spends more on “Defense” than the next 25 countries combined, 24 of whom are US allies! Defense? More like propagating and enlarging the “Empire”! With 700+ foreign bases scattered around the globe and who knows how many “black op” spots mixed in. To say nothing of six or more navy aircraft carrier groups, operating in every ocean of the world. Defense? Laughable.
Hmmm. I wonder if importing tens of thousands of Muslims and housing them on our military bases shows up as a defense expenditure in the gov’ts ledgers??
Are you kidding? $610B isn’t anywhere close to what the U.S. spends on all of it’s Black Ops/Segmented “need to know” projects.
Am I the only one who recalls Rumsfeld’s news conference on 9/10/01 when he announced $2.3 Trillion in Pentagon expenditures that couldn’t be accounted for? And other sources now say the amount may be as much as $8.5 Trillion:
http://personalliberty.com/pentagon-cant-account-for-8-5-trillion-taxpayer-dollars/