I think a case could probably be be made that such data tends to indicate that people with the least experience with Marxist systems are the most likely to find them a viable alternative.
Fuck. Yeah! Iâm not an idiot, I just play one on TV! 
(the earth is also slightly pear shaped, which makes me happy, cause I am too)
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and the US would still have the largest defence budget - by a huge margin
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Or is it yuuge?
And weâd still be exceeding our NATO expenditures commitment. Daddy Warbuck would lose a couple drone design contracts. We can all play tiny violins for his ilk.
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Our priorities are quite clear here. In reverse order, showing how little we support these concepts, are what make up the âotherâ category of spending:
- Science;
- Energy and the Environment;
- International Affairs;
- Housing and Community;
- Education.
All of those together add up to 288.6B, or 8% of the total budget. Whoop-dee-do.
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Greece and Estonia? Thatâs surprising!
Yeah, nothing bad happens when we allow banks to make more loans to low income people with no failsafe guarantee from the government.
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2.3% of Greeceâs budget probably isnât much. 
I thought the UK was going to drop below 2% as well soon, to be honest. And frankly, good. Itâs a waste of money (speaking as someone whoâs worked for UK and US defence companies).
Now Iâm interested in what Luxembourgâs military is likeâŚ
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When the U.S. is so hilariously overequipped that theyâre literally building [vehicles that the Army doesnât want] (http://csbaonline.org/2014/12/18/congress-again-buys-abrams-tanks-the-army-doesnt-want/), why should we throw more money at a problem that clearly already has too much money being thrown at it?
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Red wins!
Also known as âthe baby-boomer fall-back positionâ.
They got their breaks due to the post-war settlement, then pulled the ladder up after themselves.
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The same could be said of Socialism as it rapidly improved education, health and life expectancy, while dragging countries like Russia from peasant-agrarian to industrial societies. Britain and America are desperate to invest in Cuba because (and I quote) of their âskilled and productive workforceâ. This is a country that was 30-40% illiterate before the revolution, and largely subsistence farming under the semi-feudal colonial land tenure system.
Anti-socialist activists on the far side of the iron curtain benefited from goods and services provided by the socialist state as part of a planned economy, just as we benefit from those produced under a system of surplus-value-appropriation. Should they have suspended their criticism until such a time as they no longer depended upon any product or provision of the socialist system?
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I will say, that SOME of the Military budget affects other things like science and medical research.
I suffer from a weird genetic condition called Neurofibro Mitosis, and the Army hospital system actually is one of the government agencies doing research. Also a lot of cool tech has its roots in the military. IIRC most of the GPS systems we use are still government military (?) satellites. I am not 100% sure, but at least some of the military budget was spend on infrastructure in other countries, as well as like rebuilding Iraqâs army.
But yes. I would be one to promote more science - and art. Though both of those have a lot of private industry support, so it isnât like we are sliding back into the dark ages because of lack of government spending. Space X might end up out shining NASA one day.
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Right again! One of the funnier incidents of that happened downstate from me - a developer bought a large farm, built McMansions all over it, sold them at a very hefty price⌠and then eventually the neighboring farmers manured their fields. 
The lawsuits started a-flyinâ, so the farmers got together and told the new neighbors âLook, if you keep harassing us in court, weâll get out of crop farming and raise pigs.â
Edit: just realised itâs not obvious from the above: the people buying the McMansions were loudmouthed right wing laissez-faire types employed by the local banking industry. Until their fancy houses were suddenly surrounded by manure!
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Itâs not disingenuous in the least. Lumping discretionary and mandatory spending together is like looking at your personal budget and saying âHey, I donât spend much on blackjack and hookers and blow at all, compared to rent and groceries.â
ETA: Plus itâs a favorite tactic of anyone trying to minimize bloated defense spending. In high school we went to see Cap Weinberger speak (while he was Defense Secretary) and in response to questions about Reaganâs massive DoD spending he kept downplaying it by putting it in terms of percentage of GNP. Now thatâs disingenuous! Before I got a chance to call him on it Lesley Stahl hustled him off the stage over his protests so some lame Congressman could have equal time. We werenât there to see a Congressman, we were there to see Weinberger! Anyway.
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Intellectually curiosity and thoughtful guessing beat some learned blabb.
You are real close.
Yes, even though Earthâs distance from the Sun is lesser during the winter months, the axial tilt (obliquity) of 23.4° then causes shorter sunlight hours on the northern Hemisphere.
Also, because of the low angle more radiation gets deflected and it has to travel a greater distance through the filtering atmosphere. Less light, including infrared (heat), reaches the Hemisphereâs surface.
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Canada is STILL slacking off. Come on, you canât just be Americaâs hat, you need to contribute.
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Well I guess it depend what point you are trying to make. I honestly donât see what it matters whether the spending is mandatory or discretionary. They made the SS and Healthcare stuff mandatory so that they wonât under fund it through a discretionary funding bill. Itâs like a home budget, where rent and utilities is a required, but how much you spend on food and entertainment is discretionary.
There are shades of grey here, of course. Capitalism can have a socialist flavor, and socialism can incorporate capitalist principles too. No real-world economic system is âtrue capitalismâ or âtrue socialismâ.
Really the terms represent two philosophies which have different answers to the same question: Who should be in charge of the wealth of a society: a special class of successful business people, or the whole society?
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