{"id":1474,"date":"2007-11-14T00:49:24","date_gmt":"2007-11-14T05:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2007\/11\/14\/1482\/"},"modified":"2007-11-14T00:49:24","modified_gmt":"2007-11-14T05:49:24","slug":"1482","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/14\/1482\/","title":{"rendered":"Spending Priorities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Money spent on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.solarpowerrocks.com\/solar-trends\/a-sick-graph-2\/\">energy research vs. the Iraq war<\/a>.  (Via <a href=\"http:\/\/matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com\/archives\/2007\/11\/priorities_1.php\">Matthew Yglesias<\/a>.)  Amusingly illustrative graph below the fold.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.solarpowerrocks.com\/solar-trends\/a-sick-graph-2\/\"><img class='center' src='http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/uploads\/iraq-vs-power.gif' alt='Iraq vs. Power Research' \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not usually impressed by these kinds of comparisons; if the Iraq war really had inspired populaces throughout the entire Middle East to spontaneously overthrow their despotic governments and inaugurate a new era of democracy, tolerance, and prosperity, it would have been a good idea.  The war is expensive, but that&#8217;s not the best argument against it.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the occasional pictorial representation of our spending priorities does help to bring home how messed up they are.  Via <a href=\"http:\/\/ezraklein.typepad.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/how-subsidies-c.html\">Ezra Klein<\/a>, here&#8217;s the famous food pyramid, along with a corresponding pyramid showing how we subsidize different types of production.<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/uploads\/food-subs-pyramid-tm.jpg' alt='Food Subsidy Pyramid' \/><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes this democracy stuff is just depressing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Money spent on energy research vs. the Iraq war. (Via Matthew Yglesias.) Amusingly illustrative graph below the fold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}