Huge sums are spent by governments on weapons and troops, particularly in certain countries. There are two remedies for this drain on government expenditure, one long-term and one short-term.

The long-term answer lies in the evolution of the world community towards political and economic unity – that is unity in the cooperative rather than in the monolithic sense.  … Read more

Measures to reduce expenditure and increase revenue raising by governments will often be seen in current economic terms as “costs” to the nation. But if seen in the light of the ideas put forward in the post about “Costs – What Really Costs Us and What Doesn’t?” they are economic gains.  … Read more

A major problem for economies around the world is government debt. This matter has been mentioned in other posts. Many governments have been running a deficit on their annual budget for years. It is not universally realised that these deficits are cumulative.  … Read more

This digression makes two further comments on the statement on weapons versus other expenditure in the UN report mentioned above. One may return to this post later and go straight on to the post “Discussion of Costs Resumed”, if desired.  … Read more

A new definition of costs is also required. The term at present is muddled and confused in general usage.

Wealth loss versus Throughput Reduction

Any outlay of money in a national economy is regarded as a “cost” to the nation in the sense of some loss of wealth.  … Read more