Just a few things here; First of all, as the lin kyou showed stated, only about 2000 F-16s have been sold. More than half of the F-16s are used by the USAF. As i said, the vast majority of those planes go to certain middle eastern countries. If you compared all the MiGs with all of the Falcon aircraft, i am pretty sure the MiGs would come out as the most popular. Just ecause the F16 is the most popular *single* aircraft, doesn't say a whole lot

Oh and i notice you STILL haven't provided any figures as to how much money military equipment sales makes the US each year. I'll be kind and say you can miss out the long term costs of supplying your current enemies with the means to kill your soldiers

Secondly, I base my economic analysis on the strength of the Forex Market. This is something most people completely fail to take into account, even though it changes economies to the tune of tens of billions of dollars every single day.

Thirdly, If we were to remove americas trade deficit from its position as market leader, it would actually fall *behind* other countries. The only reason it hasn't is because this trade deficit is keeping it there. The best example i can give in laymans terms is this: Person A has $1000 in his bank account. Person B has $700 in his bank account, but also has a credit limit of $500. This means that is Person A spends all of his money, he only gets $1000 worth of goods, wheras person B gets $1200 worth of goods, but now has a substantial debt to pay. This means that, realistically, Person A is in a better financial position, even if Person B can say "ah, but i have $200 more stock then A". That stock is only useful if it is used properly.

By no means am i saying the economy is doomed forever, nor am i saying americas ridiculous military spending is the cause of this recession. (For the record, unless a country is completely self-sustainable, just giving people jobs which don't contribute (by bringing new money into the country) Is not a sustainable strategy for economic growth.

Lastly, the best way to get yourself out of a recession is to teach your people new and useful skills, ideally before the rest of the world. By abandoning education in favour of Military spending, the US is failing in its obligation to do this to the extent that it should. You could give every person in america a government (Military) Job, and in one generation you would have no money at all. Anyone who thinks that giving people government money to do a job which brings no money back in, is the way to boost an economy, is foolish. At best it results in a small upturn in consumer spending, but this just leads to higher prices, which leads to higher credit limits, which leads to the inevitable credit bubble bursting.

There is a very good reason that economic indicators such as NFP (non-farm employment) do not include government jobs - those jobs are not a good indicator of a countries economic health.

For those interested, americas NFP has been falling. (I.E America is NOT attracting industries which will create jobs as fast as it has to.)

To tie all of this back into education...

The american budget does not do nearly enough to encourage the education of its citizens in an affordable manner. Over a long period of time this will have a negative effect on its economy, as other countries maintain sustained growth into important new industries (i.e China) Americas poor education system will come back to bite it in the ass.

Since I'm only concerned with talking about the education issue, I'm only going to respond to this. I would have to disagree with this statement. There is absolutely no cost, for children in the United States to attend public schooling. For those who might mention: "well what about food, uniforms, class payments, etc?" Schools offer forms for children, so that they can have free lunches, and so they can be exempt from making any payments, if their parents can not afford it.

As I've mentioned earlier, there are many programs run by the -STATE- governments, not by Federal, that take care of education. In Florida [I'm not sure if other states have followed suit], they have enacted a law prohibiting large class sizes. In elementary school, the class sizes are limited to 18, 22 in middle school, and 25 in high school. This will increase the quality of education for students, since they will be given more attention and focus from their teachers. For my grade-school career, I've been in classes with 30-40 students, and in Math classes, my struggling subject, I completely gave up on trying to have my teacher explain things further. Unfortunately, this law has caused some problems, such as forcing schools to cut certain extra-curricular programs. But, more schools are being built in order to accommodate the need for more classrooms. Though it may not have been a perfect idea, Florida state government is making attempts to better their education in the state.

As for other ways the US has still been supporting education, you can read my earlier post.

As for future posters: If your post does not relate to the original topic, being education, please refrain from posting.

I think part of the problem is that the public schooling system is generally poor (There is little incentive for someone who is successful in their field to go into public school teaching. If they wish to teach, private schools offer a significantly larger wage, and in general, pupils who are more willing to learn (though that is by *no* means exact, or even completely accurate. Just a broad statement that if you took every private school and every public school and compared the disciplinary records... well you know)

Another part of the issue is that further education is *very* expensive in the US, other countries (i.e UK) Offer grants and even complete tuition paying for most college and even some university students. In addition the cost of tuition is still significantly lower than the US without these.

Lastly, thanks to the "credit crunch" and a lack of policy changing in the US government, the number of families which wualify for aid, and the number who now need it, are significantly different.

I agree Contra, but just want to add a few things.

Public School isn't free, it costs nothing to go to Public School, it is however paid for by tax-payers, because after-all nothing is free .

Now the issue here is, why don't kids who go to Public School do as well? Well for one, the quality of the education isn't very good, this isn't a money issue, its a teacher issue. I'm not saying teachers in Public School suck, but some of the best teachers work in Private School because of the Environment, and the pays better. These kids also need an incentive to do good, I have a friend named Percy whos currently in College. He once told me his Basketball Coach, and the school didn't care about his academics(where he was failing math & english), they only cared about him making it to practice & playing. My freshman year of high school I was kicked off my school team for having a failing grade in math, ahhhh I HATE MATH!

I think this might help Decado.

Which is why I propose we bring back school-vouchers. School Vouchers proved that a kid who did poorly in Public School did much better when he went to Private School. But some corrupt politicians made up some fake crap about them, and as such I believe none have been issued since. I feel some kids are forced to go to Public School because of money, and with that said Public Schools need to have a real big incentive to do good. The question which I think somebody will bring up is "what about those kids who also do good but not as good as Mr. X", and you could arguably claim this doesn't solve the "you shouldn't be forced to go to a certain school" argument. But I do think it would help even a little.

In Florida a few years ago, Jeb Bush I think took away the school boundary thing, which previously I think only allowed kids who lived in a certain area to only be allowed to go to schools in their area. This has helped for the better and worse.

In the end something must be done to ensure everyone gets a good education, the question is what do we do? Currently Public Schools aren't the best place to go for an education, and I dont think increasing their fund will help much. Education is an important national issue, but isn't a big problem.

- Kuja