World News

39182 readers

1585 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]

Recommendations

How to spot Misinformation and Propaganda

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

894

Russia has lost 87% of troops it had prior to start of Ukraine war, according to US intelligence assessment (www.cnn.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

195 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Russia has lost a staggering 87 percent of the total number of active-duty ground troops it had prior to launching its invasion of Ukraine and two-thirds of its pre-invasion tanks, a source familiar with a declassified US intelligence assessment provided to Congress told CNN.

Still, despite heavy losses of men and equipment, Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to push forward as the war approaches its two-year anniversary early next year and US officials are warning that Ukraine remains deeply vulnerable. A highly anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive stagnated through the fall, and US officials believe that Kyiv is unlikely to make any major gains over the coming months.

The assessment, sent to Capitol Hill on Monday, comes as some Republicans have balked at the US providing additional funding for Ukraine and the Biden administration has launched a full-court press to try to get supplemental funding through Congress.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[+] [email protected] -8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

That argument is just a variant of the Broken Window Falacy.

The resources that are spent in stuff that's blown up could otherwise be spent in stuff that provided years of benefit to people, so it is wasted - sure the money itself circulates within the US economy, but what matters is were you spend human time and material resources, not the movement of trade tokens per-se.

In Economic terms, making weapons for Ukraine to use against Russia is a good investment, especially for Europa, because it stops Russia from advancing further, killing people and destroying stuff, not to mention gaining control over lot of resources, not because of some economically falacious argument that has been disproven decades ago.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

There's no fallacy, since I'm not pretending that isn't the case. Saying it doesn't go to the American people isn't strictly true. It's an investment into the defense industry. That is wages and jobs. Those equal consumption further down the line. Could the resources be spent somewhere else? Sure. But I didn't argue against that. I specifically took issue with saying that the money doesn't go to the American people.

The people on the right, not the politicians but the actual people, hear how America is pretty much shipping cash to Ukraine (because the news they watch leave out the facts) which is where they get the idea of "Zelenskiy buying cocaine on their tab". We have to make clear when we discuss these things that America is investing this money in local production. The products of those jobs are what is shipped to Ukraine. The money stays in America, and Zelenskiy isn't buying a new yacht with them (which is one of the talking points I've heard from the right).

I do not disagree that there's a discussion to be had, but I think it's important to be clear about what the discussion actually is. I'm also in strong doubts about whether it needs to be a choice between weapons and other things. The United States can do both. The fact that both isn't done speaks to the idea that not investing in arms for Ukraine wouldn't mean that other investments were made instead.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

For clarity:

If the two only options were to spend the money in the US making weapons or spend it outside the US making weapons, then it's better for the US to spend it in the US making weapons as what's created using the resources is weapons either way and if spent in the US other benifits of spending that money (as you pointed out: "wages and jobs") are captured in the US.
However if the options being considered are spend the money making weapons or spend it making something else, economically it's probably better to spend it something else because it would still generate "wages and jobs" and in addition to that there could be other benefits from that something else (imagine for examples if it went into bridges and roads: unless they're "bridges to nowhere" those thinks tend to keep on delivering economic benefits long after the money was spent) which weapons do not bring.

That said, the World is as it is, Russia acts as it acts, so in overall other nations have to spend that money in weapons and military because of them anyway, and even in a pure, cold "financial analysis" (i.e. moral aside) the single most efficient way of achieving the desired result (stop Russia from fucking things up for everybody else) is by helping Ukraine militarily.

In fact, I think Europe (were I am) is still not doing enough in that front.

My point was entirelly on, in abstract, that using a country's money to make weapons is generally not a good investment from an economic point of view.