So while it doesn’t qualify as ‘lost’ in the Iraq misadventure, some of the money we spend on DOE, NASA, and NSF does seed some of the products we use to conduct our military misadventures.

Military spending is about 60% of discretionary spending – now that’s something.

It is often pointed out that the U.S. spends about as much as the rest of the world combined for war department budgets.

As a young graduate student in the late 1960′s my thesis covered the impending collapse of the USSR due to excessive military spending, pollution and spiraling costs of surveillance.

Remember when the USSR disappeared from the news? It was quick.

The word you are searching for is ‘liberated’. Use of other words implies that you would be happier if Saddam Hussein was still in power and swan-diving into the $14.9 billion like Scrooge McDuck.

About 60% of the federal budget is mandatory spending – legal obligations of the government such as interest on the debt, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. Military spending is about 60% of discretionary spending – now that’s something.

No need for new technology, just MIRVs and infrared decoys on rockets. No new research. Just more weapons, uncertainty, and risk of terrorist theft and proliferation.

Not a mature or fruitful policy for the world’s leading superpower.

e.

Just ’cause it is good for a flavor of science that you don’t like doesn’t mean that it is bad for science.

After all, the arms race with the Russians is what got us to the moon and our robots all over the solar system.

From the net SciTech funding point of view, building bombs is far preferable to food stamps.

e.

Unfortunately, it often happens that the President can get away w/ a great deal and do a great deal of damage even when opposed by an (ostensibly) “hostile” Congress. This is a direct consequence of the development of the “professional politician” (something not foreseen by Madison et al in the 18th century).

Only is a curious choice of words here.

Heck, even you caught it, right?

Want to see how tall that column on the right grows as soon as you tally all the $500b? It’s over 33 TIMES TALLER STILL. Around 70 TIMES taller when “all is said and done”. Consider it spent as of NOW (which is usually how most struggling families have to figure it: a budget that’s already been spent in the future is money that doesn’t exist anymore in the present). It’s the price of inertia. Right NOW it’s over a trillion. One can use the past-tense for it: “It is spent”. It WAS “spent” 6 years ago when this theater was embarked upon and PURCHASED.

Consider what’s actually been purchased. Like, say, how much more secure we are against the nasties (or whatever) per dollar spent. Look at the price as a function vs our present and future security. (Oh, and how much EXTRA will it cost to calm down an over-agitated world to pre-2001 levels, etc.).

What was that about “misplacement”? Embezzled”? “Lost”? Or are we really that friggin’ crazy?

Unfortunately, the Iraq column is still bigger than all the other columns.

This is very serious, I guess. Human civilisation is spending so much for waging wars instead of funding science! How sad, how tragic. Why is it so? I can’t tell. Are we just one paranoid culture? Likely so.

p.s. Why is it that the 4.1 block fails to reach the 4 gradation on the Y axis?

perspective. Notice that the graduated back “wall” is not flush with the back side of the columns.

In an interesting coincidence, the total amount of pork-barrel earmarks is of about the same size (though somewhat larger) as the waste you mention – $18.3 billion in FY ’08. I’d love to see that redirected toward something useful.

Inflation…?

Or…

“There’s an old saying at the DoE — I know it’s at the DoD, probably at the DoE — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”