Guns v. butter. No, make that shoes v. butter!

Remember this chart from a few days ago?

I am sure you forgot all about it and went your ways. Because you have way too many other things to worry about.  But, you--whether living in the US or in Chennai--cannot "afford" to forget it!

The Economist offers an interesting example for why the military budget is tough to tame.  Before getting into the example itself, these comments from the magazine newspaper:

[Harnessing] austerity to reform the defence budget will be dauntingly hard. Congress will have final say over Mr Hagel’s plans and something about camouflage gear has a strange effect on politicians. Even in this era of cuts, the Pentagon’s budget is vast: America accounts for about four of every ten dollars spent on defence worldwide. The temptation is always there to play at industrial policy or simple favouritism.
The scale and the complexity of Pentagon spending make it hard to assess the real prospects for reform.

You ready for the example?  Consider military boots:

 The plant in Big Rapids is still more unusual: every component used there is American, from leather (a Minnesota tannery provides most hides) to shoelaces, eyelets and the yarn used for linings.

 When we live in a world where the shoes we buy might have been manufactured in Cambodia, and shirts from Bangladesh, interesting to note that even the shoelaces for the military issued boots are red-blooded American. Why so?

 This patriotism is explained not by sentiment, but the law. Military footwear is governed by the Berry amendment, passed by Congress on the eve of war in 1941 to ensure that troops would be given home-grown wool and food. Today the amendment applies to most uniforms, tents, flags and processed food bought with Pentagon funds. These must be entirely American-made or -grown, unless domestic firms simply do not make the product.

Make up your mind: do you want to laugh or cry about that?

So, that was about those tough military footwear. If only the politics stopped with that!

 a bipartisan clutch of senators and members of Congress—notably from states with some domestic shoe production—has spent years prodding the Pentagon to start buying a product that does not exist: all-American military running shoes. Under orders from Congress, defence officials formally asked domestic shoemakers in January to report if they could make “Berry-compliant” athletic shoes. The inquiry was made through gritted teeth. Market forces do a fine job of supplying comfortable, cheap running shoes to recruits. Defence officials argue that costs may rise if trainer choices are limited, and that injuries may even follow. The signals are clear enough: the Pentagon has no desire to get into the sneaker-design business.
Yes, even the Pentagon is opposed to the very proposal from the lawmakers

Again, make up your mind: do you want to cry or laugh?

All that was over shoes. And then there are tanks. Aircraft carriers.  Submarines. Fighter planes. Bombs. Missles. ...

Meanwhile, we fight over scraps to maintain soup kitchens.  USA, USA, USA!!!  As Paul Krugman recently put it:

The total failure to accept that the poor face real physical hardship, that affluent politicians have no business lecturing people having trouble buying food or having trouble paying for health care about dignity, is just stunning.

Awful!

For the final time: do you want to cry or laugh?

I can't afford to eat out. Nor go to movies. Yet, I travel?

My neighbors enjoyed the Pink Martini concert and were relating their experiences when they asked me whether I had been to a live performance by that group.

I told them I have not.

"You know their music, right?"

Yes, I know about the group and the music they make. I love it. A few years ago, when a cousin got married and relocated to New England, my gift to her included a Pink Martini CD.

"Oh, I love their music" I told them.  "My favorites are when they do their covers of older songs.  And I love their Hang on little tomato."

Seeing my neighbors' expressions, I clarified: "I just cannot afford the tickets for a live performance."

"Yes, you can" replied my neighbor.

Honestly, I cannot afford.

It is the same reason I cannot afford to eat out either.  I feel terribly guilty if ever I spend money eating out.  And, as much as I love good movies, it has been a long, long time since I watched a newly released one--heck, even the two-dollar movies are not affordable anymore.

Yet, it is the same me who spends his fortunes on travel.  Like the recent budget-busting Costa Rica trip, for instance. Or the visit to India that is only a hundred days away.

It is all about priorities.

Travel to, and in, a strange place is worth immensely more than the money I spend on it.  The visit to spend a few days with parents has returns that far exceed the cost of the air ticket.

We differ in our interests and priorities.

"I save the pennies and when they add up to get myself somewhere far away, I take off" I told another neighbor who is still sitting on a travel prize she and her husband won more than a year ago.  That couple don't have any burning desire to explore another part of the world.  "Can I buy that prize from you for something like 50 cents on the dollar?" I joked with them.

George Orwell wrote about priorities and expenses in the context of cigarettes and books.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine, a newspaper editor, was firewatching with some factory workers. They fell to talking about his newspaper, which most of them read and approved of, but when he asked them what they thought of the literary section, the answer he got was: “You don't suppose we read that stuff, do you? Why, half the time you're talking about books that cost twelve and sixpence! Chaps like us couldn't spend twelve and sixpence on a book.” These, he said, were men who thought nothing of spending several pounds on a day trip to Blackpool.

With that introduction, Orwell goes on to compare his personal costs of reading against the spending on cigarettes.

Orwell concludes that wonderful essay with:

if my estimate is anywhere near right, it is not a proud record for a country which is nearly 100 per cent literate and where the ordinary man spends more on cigarettes than an Indian peasant has for his whole livelihood. And if our book consumption remains as low as it has been, at least let us admit that it is because reading is a less exciting pastime than going to the dogs, the pictures or the pub, and not because books, whether bought or borrowed, are too expensive.

It is all about priorities, and not necessarily because something is too expensive.

It is the same thought I have when I see see students, who complain about the cost of college, holding in their hands five-dollar Starbucks concoctions that I simply cannot afford.

It is priorities that I think about when society prefers to spend gazillions on entertainment while criticizing education as prohibitively expensive.

It is my own set of priorities when I admit that I cannot afford to watch Pink Martini at a concert--despite the fact that I love their music :(