Threats To Americans Ranked, Sans Hype

[Star]

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I edited out much of the article and left in the "How freaked out should you be:" about threats to Americans portion of the article - click the link for the whole article.


Threats to Americans, ranked (by actual threat instead of media hype)
Updated by Max Fisher on October 17, 2014

Americans are inundated with media coverage and politicians warning them of dire threats: Ebola, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the war on Christmas.

The truth, though, is that the most-hyped threats are often not actually that threatening to Americans, while larger dangers go mostly ignored. That should tell you something about how our political system and media can distort threats, leading Americans to overreact to minor dangers while ignoring the big, challenging, divisive problems — like climate change — that we should actually be worried about.

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An actual poll featured on Fox News (Nick Martin)

Obsessing about possible threats is something of a beloved national past-time here in America, which is objectively one of the safest places on Earth, so we want to help you do it right. Here, then, is a highly un-scientific and incomplete ranking of threats to the United States — sorted by the current danger to Americans, worst-case danger to Americans, and how freaked out you should be.

9) Ebola

How freaked out should you be: If you have loved ones in Liberia, Sierra Leone, or Guinea, it is not unreasonable to urge them to take all possible precautions. Otherwise, you would do better to worry about the other items on this list.

8) Your own furniture

How freaked out should you be: Council on Foreign Relations scholar Micah Zenko found that tip-over kills about as many Americans per year as terrorism does, and injures many more. In theory, then, you should be just as freaked out by tip-over as you are by terrorism. Based on the fatality rate, you should be much more freaked out about tip-over than you are about Ebola.

7) ISIS

How freaked out should you be: Not very. If ISIS decides to turn its attention to attacking the US, the prospect it might succeed is real, but remote. And even if it did pull off a successful attack, it would almost certainly kill only a small fraction of the number of Americans that guns and cars are virtually certain to kill every single year.

6) The flu

How freaked out should you be: If you're elderly, very young, or immunosuppressed, you should get a flu shot or nasal spray immediately. (Even if you're not, you should still get off your lazy butt and get a flu shot, unless you are some kind of monster who doesn't care about herd immunity.) But if you're young and otherwise healthy, you'll probably be fine even if you do catch the flu.

5) World War III breaking out in the Baltics

How freaked out should you be: To be very clear: the odds of this happening are extremely low. But the danger is real enough that everyone is taking it seriously (Russia is holding major nuclear exercises). If it did happen, it would be many, many times worse than every other item on this list combined.

4) Climate change

How freaked out should you be: If you care about the world your kids and grandkids will grow up in, pretty freaked out. Averting disaster requires immediate, massive, global cuts to carbon emissions. With the US and China particularly dragging their feet, it may simply be too late.

3) Guns

How freaked out should you be: It all depends on whether you see America's uniquely permissive gun laws as worth the trade-off. But you — and, yes, your children — are at risk, regardless of your views about gun regulations.

2) Traffic accidents

How freaked out should you be: The motor vehicle death rate is declining, but getting in your car is still dangerous. Stay alert and don't drink.

1) Heart disease and cancer (tie)

Danger to Americans: The number-one and number-two killers in the US, collectively responsible for just over 50 percent of all American deaths.

Worst-case scenario: These could become even deadlier as Americans get unhealthier. Heart disease correlates with rising obesity. Cancer rates also correlate with obesity, smoking, and other unhealthy practices.

How freaked out should you be: The odds are that one of these two things will kill you, so you should be thinking about this. The good news: it's pretty easy to reduce that risk by making healthy lifestyle choices and screening regularly for cancer. Much easier for any given American, at least, than combatting West African Ebola outbreaks or Middle Eastern terrorist groups.

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[Rikurzhen]

 

[S.J.]

Still walking behind Obama with a shovel, eh Star?

 

[The Rabbi]

I thought climate change was the biggest threat. That's what Obama said.
These idiots can't predict next week's temperature. And they think they can predict what it will be 30 years from now??

 

[Star]

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I'm not 'all in' with the author of the article in OP, the author identifies causes of death but not quality of life.

The oligarchy/military industrial complex money sucking black hole is...
Ike had it right in 1953 and-----and it's just as true today as was when Ike gave his "Cross of Iron" speech, way back when...

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms in not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, From a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953
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[The Rabbi]

Actually the oligarchy socialist black hole of welfare and other gov't dependence programs sucks in far more money than the military.
Oops.

 

[Star]

Actually the oligarchy socialist black hole of welfare and other gov't dependence programs sucks in far more money than the military.
Oops.

Defense Keynesianism works to a point, and I don't think Eisenhower would argue against having a strong military but-----but I think what Ike was saying in his "Iron Cross" speech is, that money could be better invested in this countries infrastructure and in doing so that same money would create...


Spending the same money on education, or clean energy, would bring many more jobs—among other benefits
Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier

<snip>

Better Ways to Create Jobs
The primary economic argument made by members of the military-industrial complex against cutting the Pentagon budget is that it would produce major job losses. One widely cited report by Stephen Fuller of George Mason University found that 1 million jobs would be lost through the annual cuts set by the sequestration agreement. The Pentagon claims that military cuts in the range of $1 trillion over the next decade would raise unemployment by one percentage point per year—from, say, 8 to 9 percent. It is hard to assess the accuracy of either of these claims, since neither Professor Fuller nor the Pentagon has provided details about how these estimates were reached.

In any event, it is indisputable that the Pentagon is a major employer in the US economy. How could it be otherwise, given that the Pentagon’s $700 billion budget is equal to nearly 5 percent of the GDP? In fact, Pentagon spending as of 2011 was responsible for creating nearly 6 million jobs, within the military itself and in all civilian industries connected to it. In addition, because of the high demand for technologically advanced equipment by the military, a good share of the jobs created are well paid and professionally challenging.

However, the crucial question is not how many jobs are created by spending, for example, $1 billion on the military. Rather, it is whether spending that $1 billion creates more or fewer jobs when compared with spending $1 billion on alternative public purposes, such as education, healthcare and the green economy—or having consumers spend that same amount of money in any way they choose.

In fact, compared with these alternative uses, spending on the military is a poor source of job creation. As we see in the graph below, $1 billion in spending on the military will generate about 11,200 jobs within the US economy. That same $1 billion would create 16,800 jobs through clean energy investments, 17,200 jobs within the healthcare sector or 26,700 jobs through support of education. That is, investments in clean energy, healthcare and education will produce between 50 and 140 percent more jobs than if the same money were spent by the Pentagon. Just giving the money to households to consume as they choose would generate 15,100 jobs, 35 percent more than military spending.

To make these estimates, we considered three distinct channels through which spending on any project creates jobs. First are the jobs directly involved with the project in question—for example, building an F-35 fighter jet, or undertaking an energy-efficiency retrofit of the government’s existing building stock. In addition, new jobs result when the F-35 or building retrofit project buys supplies. The supplying industries would include steel, glass, tire and electronic producers for building an airplane; and, for the retrofit project, firms that produce windows, insulation, and heating and cooling equipment. Finally, job opportunities will expand when the people newly hired for the F-35 or retrofit project start spending more money, since they now have more in their pockets. This could include a newly hired computer programmer on the F-35 project finally feeling financially able to replace a clunker car, or a window installer on the retrofitting project taking a previously unplanned vacation.

But why do we get so many more jobs per dollar of spending through investments in healthcare, clean energy and education than through the military? The reasons are straightforward:
§â€ˆSpending on people versus everything else. Retrofitting buildings entails hiring lots of electricians, carpenters and roofers, with a relatively modest level of spending on machinery, energy, land and heavy-equipment hauling. Building the F-35, by contrast, entails heavy investments in electronic equipment and carefully treated steel, glass and other materials, with less need to hire people.

§â€ˆSpending within the US economy versus other countries. Even with the ending of direct involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the overall amount of overseas spending by the US military and its personnel will remain far higher than when funds are spent on domestic investments in healthcare, clean energy and education. When a higher proportion of a given pot of money is spent within the country, more jobs are provided for US workers.

§â€ˆDifferences in pay scales. Average pay for all the jobs connected with military spending—including directly employed personnel and those working for military suppliers—is about $60,000 per year. By contrast, with healthcare, clean energy and education, the average annual pay is closer to $50,000, or 20 percent less. If there is a given pot of money available for hiring workers, when you pay each person a higher wage, that will create fewer—if better compensated—jobs.

Does this mean military spending creates more good jobs? Actually, no. Because spending on clean energy, healthcare and education creates so many more jobs overall—as much as 50 to 140 percent more—these investments also create larger numbers (if lower proportions) of decent- to good-quality jobs than the military, as well as many more low-paying jobs.

Considering only jobs paying at least $32,000 per year, clean energy and healthcare both generate well more than the military, while the figure for education spending is more than twice as high. Considering a still narrower category of jobs—only those paying $64,000 or more per year—the totals for clean energy and healthcare are roughly comparable to the military’s, while the figure for education is double that for military spending.

We should also not dismiss the jobs paying below $32,000, in which the totals for clean energy, healthcare and education are all at least twice that for the military. It is certainly better to have more low-paying jobs available than no jobs at all. Low-paying jobs can be improved through union organizing, job training and a reasonable minimum wage, which should be $12 per hour today. Also, prospects for organizing to improve these jobs will rise when there are more low-paying jobs available. It is much harder to fight for improving job quality when the jobs are not there in the first place.

<snip>

What are the lessons here? The United States certainly needs to continue advancing large-scale industrial policies to promote the development of cutting-edge technologies. But the most pressing areas for technological development are not in ever more dazzling weapon systems but in clean energy, mass transportation and high-end manufacturing. Given these priorities, there is no reason that such industrial policies should continue to be controlled by the Defense Department. Indeed, as Ruttan concluded—and as Seymour Melman has also demonstrated in Pentagon Capitalism, The Permanent War Economy and other works—having industrial and technology policy dominated by the Pentagon has imposed heavy costs on the economy. As one example, research that would lead to the production of cheap solar energy has languished for a generation, with no significant public support and certainly nothing like the guaranteed markets the Pentagon provides for weapons producers.

The broader lesson is also clear. If we are going to advance beyond the past decade of war and the wreckage caused by the Great Recession to build a stable, secure and environmentally sustainable society, we need to break the grip of the military-industrial complex on the $700 billion military budget. That is, we need to take seriously President Eisenhower’s warnings about the “disastrous rise of misplaced power” wielded by this nexus of forces. To advance its aims, the military-industrial complex is creating a seriously distorted picture of the effect of military spending cuts on national security and the economy. The way to fight back begins with the simple task of presenting the facts—and advancing policies for a widely shared economic revival grounded in these facts.

I think Ike would agree.
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