Global military spending soars 45 pct in 10 years (and take a guess who spends the most)

[babylonsister]

Global military spending soars 45 pct in 10 years
09/06/2008 10h25
Military spending accounts for 2.5 percent of global GDP
©AFP/File - Nicholas Kamm


STOCKHOLM (AFP) - World military spending grew 45 percent in the past decade, with the United States accounting for nearly half of all expenditures, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said Monday.

Military spending grew six percent last year alone, according to SIPRI's annual report.

In 2007, 1,339 billion dollars (851 billion euros) was spent on arms and other military expenditures, corresponding to 2.5 percent of global gross domestic product, or GDP, and 202 dollars for each of the world's 6.6 billion people.

The United States spends by far the most towards military aims, dishing out 547 billion dollars last year, or 45 percent of global expenditure.

Britain, China, France and Japan -- the next in line of big spenders -- lag far behind, accounting for just four to five percent of world military costs each.

more...

http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/newsmlmmd.0c51152e250268ff4fcc9816b1b5b872.181.html

[opihimoimoi]

1. We should do very well spending 5% of our GDP but no...we spending over 12% plus

America is imbalanced....

[izquierdista]

2. Price tags

When I see some academic's calculation that it would take x trillion dollars to solve Global Warming or World Hunger or some other problem, the size of the number is incomprehensible. To make sense of it, I have to convert it to Pentagons and see how many months or years of Pentagons it takes. Two or three months of Pentagon (1 month of Pentagon = $50 billion) is cheap enough to be a no-brainer, while the two or three years of Pentagon ($1 trillion+ ), that requires some thought.