Canadian actually. My country is doing its best to sabotage our own economy by copying you guys. Spending zillions on an already obsolete Joint Strike fightergasm thingy that doesn’t even really work for Canadian needs. Etc. Etc.
I see you guys as a cautionary example. Sadly our leaders see you as the cool kids on the block and want to be just like you when we grow up.
You some kind of commie bro? Just kidding. Although there are those who will accuse you of such for stating such.
Is this graph adjust too inflation. A trillion dollars in 1940 would be worth millions today. Or more.
Let’s hope Canada doesn’t follow us all the way past being grown up and into national senility.
Here’s what I see, being at the front lines of the farthest-back part of the rear echelon in the US defense world. (My perspective only.) I see lots of hard-working civilian employees, actual on-payroll government employees. I see lots of hard-working government contractors. I see lots of penny-wise, pound-foolish spending, but I personally don’t see a lot of hand-in-the-back-pocket spending - where I work it seems that keeping costs down is a constant task. In all honesty, I would bet that 20% of my time is spent working around the technical problems presented by the use of Microsoft products and our ungodly-terrible intranet system and intranet websites. About five percent of my time is spent justifying my time. (There’s a term that I just love - self-licking ice cream cone.)
Many contractors make LOTS of money, sometimes into the six figure range, but they see less of their other benefits paid for by their employers. That being said, our health insurance program sucks - it’s cheaper for me to be on my wife’s policy than to get it through the government as an employee. Our pay can be good, but not ever nearly as good as what could be achieved in the private sector.
There are only a few true benefits I see to work as a government employee. One is a sense of mission, unless, like me, you’re so far removed from anything practical that it becomes a joke and, unless, like me, you’re also jaded about the whole military-industrial complex. There’s also the job stability - the further into your career you go, the harder it is to get rid of you, especially after the first three years of government work. On the flip-side, there’s also the honor of being one of the tiny little metal pins in a political Pachinko game - getting battered by metal marbles as the politicians fight each other over whether to spend money on healthcare or not. We end up being some of the unseen victims of the game, getting furloughed and not knowing when we’ll be back to work. (Although we got paid for our last time away from work, it still sucked not knowing for sure if that would happen or when we’d be back to work. And yes, I’ve been a worker in private industry and have faced several layoffs. The difference is that in that world, you’re in or you’re out, there’s no in-between.)
Okay, rant over. Is anyone reading this hiring? ; )
EDIT: I know I sound like I’m feeling sorry for myself, and I guess I am to some degree. However, I put my money where my mouth is. I was willing to face furloughs as long as some sort of healthcare reform was enacted. I even tip well.
According to www.usgovernmentspending.com we spent $7.33 billion on education alone during the period of the Iraq war (2003-2011).
Also, 173 isn’t even that many, really. There are 3 million people in the US military, so has 1 course per 17,300, er, citizens(?), which is about on a par with the rest of the US.
IMO, the golf course thing is an odd stat to include (and I don’t even like golf). The worrying stat is that the US has 3 million people in the military! Jesus h. tapdancing christ, what the hell are you people so scared of?
[quote=“Lightningwaltz, post:46, topic:16615”]
Is this graph adjust too inflation. A trillion dollars in 1940 would be worth millions today. Or more.[/quote]
I had the same question, but it’s stated on the graph:
“in billions of 2013 dollars”
Yeah,
In the words of Mike Birbiglia: What I should have said, was nothing.
Thanks for setting me straight, sorry about the mess I left on the board.
Erm… was this addressed to me?
EDIT: Well that was confusing, but I’ll take a crack at answering anyway. The line is the cock entering the mouth.
Yeah, but…the golf courses really are nice.
I have a feeling I replied to the wrong post. If so, my apologies. ; ) And also to whoever I meant to reply to, I hope you didn’t take offense - that wasn’t the intention.
I bet Walmart employees are also pretty stoked about not needing any meaningful technical skills, not getting yelled at by deranged bodybuilders, and not getting blown up at work. Comparing an “associate” to a soldier is apples & oranges. Of course their pay scales aren’t equivalent.
I wouldn’t know, being from the other side of the pond, so my guess is EVERYTHING!
However, this reminds me of one of Stephen Fry’s columns in The Telegraph. I think he said something like it’s the fate of a superpower to be paranoid, afraid of being tied to the ground like Gulliver by teensy-weensy annoying Lilputs and comares the USA with the ols British Empire. Sorry, no link at hand, you’ll have to search for it yourself.
Anyway, he also compares the roulette in Monaco (where they have one zero on the wheels) to the roulette in Las Vegas where they have a zero and a double-zero on the wheel - because it’s good to always have something up your sleeve to trump the other guy. In military terms that would be stuff like just another carrier fleet or enough nukes to blow up the planet ten times, and so on.
I’ve never played roulette, but from what I understand, the house wins on the zeros. A double zero gives the casino extra money, and its customers less money. In the end, the house always wins, but in Las Vegas, it wins faster.
Yeah. It’s apparent you meant to address that to me. I deleted my post out of embarrassment and the fact that what I said was both counterproductive and said with very little thought.
Exactly. The double zero shifts the odds in favour of the house:
House edge
The house average or house edge (also called the expected value) is the amount the player loses relative for any bet made, on average. If a player bets on a single number in the American game there is a probability of 1/38 that the player wins 35 times the bet, and a 37/38 chance that the player loses his bet. The expected value is:
−1×37⁄38 + 35×1⁄38 = −0.0526 (5.26% house edge)
For European roulette, a single number wins 1⁄37 and loses 36⁄37:
−1×36⁄37 + 35×1/37 = −0.0270 (2.70% house edge)
The presence of the green squares on the roulette wheel and on the table is technically the only house edge. Outside bets will always lose when a single or double zero comes up. However, the house also has an edge on inside bets because the pay outs are always set at 35 to 1 when you mathematically have a 1 out of 38 (1 out of 37 for French/European roulette) chance at winning a straight bet on a single number. [To demonstrate the house edge on inside bets, imagine placing straight $1 wagers on all inside numbers (including 0 and 00) to assure a win: you would only get back $36, having spent $38.] The only exceptions are the five numbers bet where the house edge is considerably higher (7.89% on an American wheel), and the ‘even money’ bets in some European games where the house edge is halved because only half the stake is lost when a zero comes up.
The house edge should not be confused with the ‘hold’. The hold is the average percentage of the money originally brought to the table that the player loses before he leaves - the actual “win” amount for the casino. The Casino Control Commission in Atlantic City releases a monthly report showing the win/hold amounts for each casino. The average win/hold for double zero wheels is between 21-30%, significantly more than the 5.26% house edge. This reflects the fact that the player is churning the same money over and over again. A 23.6% hold, for example, would imply that on average, the player bets the total he brought to the table five times, as 23.6% is approximately equal to 100% - (100% - 5.26%)^5. For example, a player with $100 making $10 bets on red (which has a near 50/50 chance of winning) is highly unlikely to lose all his money after only 10 bets, and will most likely continue to bet until he has lost all of his money or decides to leave. A player making $10 bets on a single number (with only 1/38 chance of success) with a $100 bankroll is far more likely to lose all of his money after only 10 bets.
In the early frontier gambling saloons, the house would set the odds on roulette tables at 27 for 1. This meant that on a $1 bet you would get $27 and the house would keep your initial dollar. Today most casino odds are set by law, and they have to be either 34 to 1 or 35 to 1. This means that the house pays you $34 or $35 and you get to keep your original $1 bet.
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