Gonna write this up in longer form, but folks complaining that the $45bn Ukraine costs are high miss two key points:
1. The direct costs in (US) military aid are surprisingly small; in the order of $19bn this year, and $10.8bn committed (so far) for next year
2. The indirect economic costs of the Russian war to the US economy (i.e. to the private sector not via the government) are in the order of $600-700bn per year. To pick a random company, it's nearly $6-10bn in costs to Apple *alone*.
In other words, if the US upped it's spend by, say, 25% and that reduced the length of the war by *just a whole week*, it would *make money*.
It's a good example of how the size of war economics harms get truly insane really quickly, and get you to unintuitive places about just how much of the war costs end up as indirect, rather than direct costs.
Or if you want it put another way, every American is spending in the order of $50 a year in direct lethal assistance to Ukraine, but losing about $1700 a year in indirect economic costs caused by that war.
If you had a company that sold a widget that upped a business cost from $50 to, let's say, $100, but doing so saved the customer $1700 a year, how quickly do you think VCs in Silicon Valley would jump in to invest in that widget?
Having seen what many VC's want to do to the world...
They'd find a way to reclaim most of the $1700.
Yes because the crazy people building doomsday bunkers across the globe to hide in while the world burns, from actions they set into motion, are the best people.
Having to explain the economic value of helping people STAY ALIVE to get people to decide its the right thing to do pretty much sums up the things that are wrong in the world.
Pwnallthethings
That Anonymous Coward
Joseph P.