On 10-21-22 18:13, Jeff Thiele <=-
spoke to Aaron Thomas about Re: Breaking News from Ma <=-

Trillions of dollars later, where did it all go? I don't see jack!

By "trillions of dollars," are you talking about the US budget? Well
over half of it goes to defense, much of what's left goes to paying the salaries of federal workers, a few slivers go to maintaining the social safety net, such as it is, another sliver goes to NASA (who just
knocked an asteroid off course in a test of planetary defense), some of
it goes to maintaining and improving the infrastructure, etc.

A lot of it you don't see because you take it for granted.

The numbers / order that you quote are sort of right for the
discretionary spending. From a chart for FY2021, reference:

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/

spending for military spending is almost 50%. Next come sizable chunks
for Education, Health, VA benefits, then Government. Decreasing smaller
chunks are for housing & community, transportation, international
affairs, energy & environment, labor, science an a small sliver for food
and agriculture. But all of that is only 1.6 Trillion of the total 7
Trillion spending. The rest of the spending is called mandatory
spending, and social security, unemplyment & labor is more than half of
that. Medicare & Health take up what looks like just over another
quarter of the total mandatory spending.

But if you are talking about the total US budget, you are quite wrong.

Dale Shipp
fido_261_1466 (at) verizon (dot) net
(1:261/1466)


... Shipwrecked in Silver Spring, Maryland. 01:33:36, 22 Oct 2022
___ Blue Wave/DOS v2.30

--- Maximus/NT 3.01
* Origin: Owl's Anchor (1:261/1466)

On 22 Oct 2022, Dale Shipp said the following...

The numbers / order that you quote are sort of right for the
discretionary spending. From a chart for FY2021, reference:

[...]

But if you are talking about the total US budget, you are quite wrong.

Thanks for the correction, Dale! My bad.

However, the effects of most of the spending that you listed are quite visible if one takes the time to look, which was my point to Aaron.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (1:387/26)

On 24 Oct 2022, Mike Powell said the following...

In this case, it is not possible to know because China won't even a the WHO to investigate it. I am not aware of Biden saying we'd nev investigate it. Aaron seems to think so and I may have missed something.
If China won't let the WHO finish an investigation, I don't see the allowing the USA to start one, so it would likely be a waste.

Plus, think of the precedent it would set. If a pandemic were to start i US and rumors began in other countries that it was a biological weapon g awry, how would we feel about WHO or Chinese inspectors demanding access American research facilities?

My interest would be more along the lines of "if we can figure out how it started, maybe we can stop it from happening again" but, yes, that could open a Pandora's box.

Unfortunately, I don't believe that to be Aaron's interest; I think he's more interested in placing blame. And if we were to start an investigation with
the preconceived notion that China might be to blame, I sould definitely see how that might make them more defensive. Our president referring to it as the "China virus" or the "kung flu" certainly doesn't help the situation, either.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (1:387/26)