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This is a wee bit overdramatic. Trump is pulling out of a treaty that is specific to a very narrow class of weapons, intermediate range nuclear weapons. It was meant to diffuse tensions in Europe where the superpowers could strike each other with little warning, and Russia was already violating it so it's hardly going to lead to a new arms race.
Putin's boundary on missile production is economics, their economy is smaller than several US States and many Western European powers but they are trying to punch above their weight geopolitically. Their military, which was gutted after collapse of Soviet Union, has again stalled due to economic challenges and they've had to cancel many high profile projects that were meant to advance them to a more modern era of military technology.
Do you not think this is an advantage for Putin?
Because I do
I think it is an intimidation factor to NATO--which Trump is also seeking to intimidate
And yes Russia does not have the economic power of the US
But the US has overinflated its military budget since Vietnam
Eisenhower's farewell address was about the danger and damage of the military-industrial complex
He knew better than anyone what was getting ramped up and it has't slowed down...
It has created a dog chasing its tail propping up a large portion of the US economy with tax money that could be spent on improving our infrastructure, our educational system, our health care...
The DOD's own analysis indicates that it is a boondoggle of excess...
I'm not doubting it's accurate, I'm wondering whether it's purposely used as a cherry picked time frame to get a result. Saying real wages haven't gone anywhere in 40 might be true, but I'd be curious if they have gone anywhere in 50, 30, 25, 20, 10, etc. if so then 40 might have been chosen to mislead.
It's like when people were fond of saying stocks have gone nowhere in x years that was usually from the peak right before the dotcom crash. In a hypothetical scenario of someone dumping all their money in the stock market in 2001 yes they had no gains whatever decade+ years later. However it ignored the reality that results were quite different if comparing to a few years before or after that date. People tend to pick peaks and valleys to emphasize what they want to prove.
These claim back the claim that wages "are the same" as 40 years. I suppose there will be disagreement on applying the stats, and nominal vs. real dollars. Taxes are higher today, the cost per square foot of housing is higher, as well as other mandatory fixed expenses.
Fact Tank - Our Lives in Numbers
AUGUST 7, 2018 For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades
BY DREW DESILVER
On the face of it, these should be heady times for American workers. U.S. unemployment is as low as it’s been in nearly two decades (3.9% as of July) and the nation’s private-sector employers have been adding jobs for 101 straight months – 19.5 million since the Great Recession-related cuts finally abated in early 2010, and 1.5 million just since the beginning of the year.
But despite the strong labor market, wage growth has lagged economists’ expectations. In fact, despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers.
Americans' paychecks are bigger than 40 years ago, but their purchasing power has hardly budgedThe disconnect between the job market and workers’ paychecks has fueled much of the recent activism in states and cities around raising minimum wages, and it also has become a factor in at least some of this year’s congressional campaigns.
I think real earning power has not changed in decades, except cyclically. Wages increase, prices increase, inflation inflates, we get paid in more dollars but each dollar is worth less.
The biggest change is IMO the decrease in middle class as some become more wealthy and join the upper class, and some become more poorer and join the lower class.
We do face the issue of controlling healthcare costs, and also a huge national debt looms.
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