this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
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GenZedong

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There's no way an elected president could actually cut the military budget that much. Although I would certainly like to see them try.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This. The US defense industry is its own beast. I think if a president tried to cut 9/10 of the DoD budget they'd get coup'd.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

that's only the earmarked budget too.. it typically takes in 1.2x to even 2x that amount.. so really it would be cutting their budget almost in half at most

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

You could also build a tall casino in las vegas and have it equipped with security robots and air defenses

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

170 million for 3,700 units of housing is next to impossible, even if you’re building massive Khrushchovki. That would total a little under 46 thousand dollars per unit. A unit you could build with that amount of money would barely be a tiny studio apartment that could poorly sustain at most two people.

Also that would be 46 thousand per unit, that’s not even taking into account the foundation, pavement outside, sidewalks, light fixtures, sewer access and major plumbing, garages, hallways (if an apartment), storage space, pump rooms, or any appliances.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

That would total a little under 46 thousand dollars per unit.

It does seem low, but not out of the realm of possibility:

Another way to factor the cost of an apartment building is by unit. The average cost runs from $65,000 to $86,000 per unit. Keep in mind that the numbers in this scenario don’t include labor costs or site improvements.

Labor adds a ton, obviously, but that figure also seems to include some items a government construction project could minimize (permitting costs), and it's an estimate of an individual project, not a statewide effort to build thousands of units. There would likely be some economies of scale.

It would be interesting to see how they came up with that figure.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Who's gonna maintain them too? Sure, people can do fixes. What if a sewer main cracks?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I assume maintenance would be preformed by an agency overseen by the state. Similar to how it was done in the Soviet Union. I didn’t even bother taking maintenance into account since you could plausibly separate that as a post hoc expense, which isn’t that concerning if you can’t even build those 3,700 units lol.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Oh I can see that; more so just wondering how that factors into the price. Exponentially it'd grow with each few units; that original price becomes even more a fairy-tale.

Also, what are they gonna do? Throw it at private contractors who'll just waste it all on building half a foundation?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)
  1. form a functioning vanguard and subsequent democratic centralism
  2. the associated media network to promote propaganda
  3. the manufacture of a new currency the vanguard can produce and control; without this the existing private sector would eat up that $35 billion very quickly.
  4. the creation of pro-social sectors using above point 3 including housing, healthcare, agriculture, education and arms & security apparatus to defend it all
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Hopefully it takes care of their crippling meth problem

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

A lot of drug-use can be directly stopped by eliminating poverty and societal pressures that encourage addiction.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

We'd probably need communist revolution for that one

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

This poster makes no sense in a few ways. Implying 900b for Nevada but below it has only 35b? Lines pointing at a small slice of the big military pie implying this would just take a small part of the budget but actually proposing to cut 90% leaving that small slice for the military budget and the big gray section for spending on other stuff.

Why are you only repairing one city's roads, funding one county's schools, and one transit system? Why only building a few thousand housing units?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

35 is clearly the population(?)-adjusted proportion Nevada would get of the 900b.

but it is a bad graphic in that the largest investment by far in renewable energy is exactly the same size as the others

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

900 divided by 50 is 18 billion. Nevada has one of the lowest populations in the United States. So 36 billion makes no sense even it was proportional to population.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Nevada is 24th of the states, hardly 'lowest'. but without recreating their whole budget on the back of an envelope i would assume the very lowest states would get less than a 50th, freeing up larger shares for other states. Nevada particularly might be pegged for a greater energy investment than it locally needs, because they're well positioned to host solar that can be sent to surrounding states.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

You looked up the wrong statistic. Nevada is 24th in income rank, which is pushed mainly by Las Vegas. Nevada is 32nd in population. Making 35 billion wildly disproportionate.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

24th in income rank

remarkable confluence because i did not look up income by accident. my mistake was thinking the territories in the wikipedia table were not included in the number rank because their entries in the table don't have a number displayed. but it is actually counted which offsets the states' relative positions. just put them into a different table, damn.

anyway i couldn't find an actual budget document, just the 90% cut to the military on their website so who knows what arithmetic is behind this promise to Nevada.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

They mention it in the opening of the Wikipedia article since you mentioned it.

Also further down in the same table you referenced it is mentioned.

I’m still confused as to where you got the 24th number, if it wasn’t from confusing the income rank for population rank.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

the US states and territories sorted by population, not Nevada's page. but apparently the territories' numbers not appearing on that table is only on the new dark mode, not the normal white layout of the page