The absurd American defense budget

You've probably heard that the USA spends more in defense than the total of the 14 other nations that follow us on that dubious ranking! I'm not making these numbers up; they come from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

That's right, while the USA alone spent $711 billion yearly, these other 14 countries spend about the same altogether. Of course, our “enemies,” China and Russia only account for $215 billion for both. This means that us and our “allies” account for about $1.4 trillion out of the 1.7 trillion spent worldwide.

That sounds so unbelievable that we often dismiss it or ignore it, but I would like you to focus on it for the day and put this reality into perspective with this little graph that illustrates our paranoia and the fact that we, as a country, are technically broke and must be bankrolled by China to keep that war spending going.

So, next time you hear a politician advocate for more defense spending, you ought to question the individual's sanity...