Navy Tests Mach 8 Electromagnetic Railgun 440
hargrand writes "Wired magazine has a story and publicly released video of the Navy test firing of a 32 megajoule electromagnetic railgun: 'Reporters were invited to watch the test at the Dalghren Naval Surface Warfare Center. A tangle of two-inch thick coaxial cables hooked up to stacks of refrigerator-sized capacitors took five minutes to power juice into a gun the size of a schoolbus built in a warehouse. With a 1.5-million-ampere spark of light and a boom audible in a room 50 feet away, the bullet left the gun at a speed of Mach 8.'"
I've heard that before (Score:4, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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As long as the development of said supergun is in the US, you are doing it right.
Problem starts when mass production starts ordering equipment overseas - development and production of military equipment = jobs which help the economy, where ever it takes place, trick is to make sure you build it in your own garden.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, is that the depth of your economic thinking, whoever has the biggest guns rules? I'm pretty sure the Soviet Union never outsourced the production of its weapons either.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:5, Insightful)
Y'know, if we hired a little kid to start throwing rocks through windows all over the city, so many that we'd have to open another glass production plant to meet up with the demand for new windows, we'd also help the economy. Especially if we built it here in America.
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This kind of spending is nothing more that a giant stimulus package, but without any hope of secondary beneficial effects. You could simply take all that money and give it to the workers directly. That would be much cheaper,because you don't need to pay fo the materials (not to mention the revenue of the company owners).
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If you start handing out money you destroy its perceived value. The current understanding is that money is "hard to obtain" and requires effort.
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No, doing that stuff is a short term stimulus at most long term its a hidden tax on all of us. Using fiat debt money to build a super gun is much different than say building a road. If you build the road the economy continues to extract value from its use.
The gun on the other hand gets taken off to war and sooner or later destroyed but all the money that went into it is still here at home doing its evil inflationary work. The same thing is basically true in a sound money system but there you'd have defla
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Though this gun probably isn't an example, many fancy new weapons do go on to make money for the US through sales to allies (and even not-so-allies).American fighter jets and rifles have been bought up worldwide.
And those fighter jets and rifles have been used to kill American citizens in wars. Good move... keep that economy going. Good move, that is, if you are a 'fortunate son'.
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Food and firepower and fuel are a war machine's most important components.
And what about population? How much food and firepower did the Russians have in WW2? The strategy there was to make the Germans run out of ammunition, and it worked.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:5, Insightful)
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I thought you had a solid grounding in reality until I read this. You don't want to ingest lead but really in this application how much of a risk is that going to be? The stuff inside the capacitors is most likely a hell of lot more toxic than lead! There are a lot of heavy metals a lot more dangerous than lead.
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I would say that the real flaw there is that we don't exactly use lead projectiles in ship to ship warfare either.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:4, Insightful)
"Launching stuff into orbit is a bit weird - You're still going to use a comparable amount of energy in order to do so."
As the motor, the tank, the fuel, the cooling etc doesn't have to be lifted with the orbiter, actually the energy is not at all comparable.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:5, Informative)
The energy is not the same, however, it might not be less.
When you launch with a rocket, the rocket accelerates throughout the journey, making the maximum in atmosphere speed lower.
If you launch with a railgun, it starts _really_ fast and then slows down until it hits orbit. The fastest part of this trip is done at the highest air pressure. Which is really bad due to the exponential increase in drag as you increase speed. You would also need to take into account the added weight of heat shielding.
The comparable amount of energy would be launching a rocket with one large explosion on the ground. I would imagine that many of the same problems would exist whether this was done with a railgun or a bomb. I would not assume that the energy used was less.
Now if you launched from the moon (or anywhere else without an atm) then the railgun would have energy advantages.
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It doesn't matter. The amount of energy dissipated to air friction depends on the square of the velocity and is approximately linear in surface area, whereas the energy lost to accelerating fuel grows exponentially with mass. As long as the lift mass is large enough, a properly designed railgun will be more efficient. Most likely, that minimum mass is not very large.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:4, Informative)
Which is really bad due to the exponential increase in drag as you increase speed.
Drag increases quadratically with regard to speed, not exponentially. People really ought to stop using the term "exponentially" to mean "more than linearly".
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No, it's not a matter of playing semantics. Neither x^2 nor x^4 are exponential functions, they are polynomial functions. Exponential does not mean "there is an exponent involved" -- it means that the variable is in the exponent (such as 2^x).
The behavior of an exponential function is fundamentally different from that of a polynomial function. Keeping them apart is more than just details. Things that change at an exponential rate are usually abrupt or violent: a nuclear detonation for instance.
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Re:I've heard that before (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets see - in your list of possible uses - Launching stuff into orbit is a bit weird - You're still going to use a comparable amount of energy in order to do so. And I'm pretty sure accelerating humans that quickly will kill them. Fusion reactions - I have no idea.
They are launching only the payload. They are not launching two or more rocket motors and the fuel necessary to make them work and yet you think they are going to use a comparable amount of energy. I am sure the rate of launches and success rate would be much better. We need to launch automated factories into space and than launch the raw material for them. They could than manufacture huge solar collectors which could provide the world with all its energy needs many times over. You call it a bit weird. I call it one of the greatest advancement in human history.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know if education works optimally unless people have to earn the opportunity for an education, not just offering a way to earn a degree. You can give people tuition and they'll go, but if they don't have an appreciation for the cost of what they've been given, they're likely to spend as much of the time as possible partying, squandering the opportunity they've been given.
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Yeah, paying for all kids to go to college could very well be just like printing diplomas and mailing them to everyone. Especially with the political correctness going around. Luckily though, colleges still fail students... but if the government starts dumping cash into colleges you better believe the college will get the most money out of it (ie: they will make it easy for kids to stick through the whole ordeal.)
Re:I've heard that before (Score:5, Interesting)
We already have the largest aircraft carrier fleet on the entire planet, our most likely enemies are groups like NK and Iran that would be lucky to come at us with kamikaze speedboats, and THIS is what we add even more debt for?
BTW - When we did red vs blue naval wargames a few years back, those kamikaze speedboats kicked the blue team's ass.
It was so embarassing that... [nytimes.com]
When the Red Team sank much of the Blue navy despite the Blue navy's firing of guns and missiles, it illustrated a cheap way to beat a very expensive fleet. After the Blue force was sunk, the game was ordered to begin again, with the Blue Team eventually declared the victor.
The last few meaningful encounters the USA has had with low-tech asymmetric warfare have gone relatively poorly for them.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:5, Interesting)
I knew I recognised that story - but it seemed to miss some fairly interesting points for whatever reason...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 [wikipedia.org]
At this point, the exercise was suspended and Blue's ships were "re-floated" and changes were made to the rules of engagement; later this was justified by General Peter Pace as: "You kill me in the first day and I sit there for the next 13 days doing nothing, or you put me back to life and you get 13 more days' worth of experiment out of me. Which is a better way to do it?" In the new restarted exercise the different sides were ordered to follow predetermined plans of action, leading to allegations that the exercise was scripted and "$250 million was wasted". Due to his concerns about the scripted nature of the new exercise, Van Riper resigned his position in the midst of the war game. Van Riper later expressed concern that the wargame's purpose had shifted to reinforce existing doctrine and notions of infallibility within the U.S. military rather than serve as a learning experience.
The re-floating of blue teams boats was just the start of embarrassing behaviour.
Quite interesting how US media differs from other parts of the world when telling this story - obviously it might look insulting to you guys, but isn't this the sort of shit you would like to know about? - http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/sep/06/usa.iraq [guardian.co.uk]
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The US defence industry is plain and simple a form of welfare, without the "socialist" moniker.
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It's true, but not in the way you sophomorically imply. And the people receiving the benefits of the US having to spend that money and do all of that work are the other countries around the world that opt out of having to do it themselves. There's the real irony: actually socialist-leaning countries in places like Europe get the benefit of cozying up to the US via NATO, while letting the US do the heavy lifting when it comes to paying for this
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I don't understand your argument. So when the US spends government money in the defence industries it's not "socialist" (by your definition) to do that in America but it is "socialist" if "socialist-leaning" countries benefit? Are you serious? If so, I'd love to hear your views on the bailout of Wall Street.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:4, Insightful)
And the military spending is redistributive. Unless you had some unstated adjectives in there you were implying that you'll only reveal when called wrong, in which case you would be the only liar here. As saying something with the intention of deceiving others is a lie, and purposefully hiding constraints on your vile and incorrect spew to make it sound like you were right all along is something the greater internet fuckwads like to do.
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No one is asking you to do the heavy lifting, which is why we resent having it shoved in our faces all the time you stupid American. It's not like you're even doing a good job at it anyway. Then you wonder why everyone hates you. The other day I bumped into an guy with a Canadian flag on his backpack. He left it open on the floor, and my girlfriend asked me if the Canadian passport had an eagle on the cover. You stupid shits are ashamed of your own country when you go abroad, yet you don't stop acting like
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No one is asking you to do the heavy lifting
Poppycock. We hear all the time how people resent the US being slow to get into WWII, or how Europeans want US bases to stay:
http://www.toytowngermany.com/lofi/index.php/t124887-90.html [toytowngermany.com]
Not to mention everyone and their brother wants in on NATO.
As far as I am concerned the US should pull up its stakes and come home except where there is a clear national interest as there is in the Middle East. Euros, Asians, etc. you name it can go to hell. No more help against Rus
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The politicians and military will tell you military developments will filter down to the consumers in some way eventually. So they will continue to justify the amount of spending going on, while the US economy continues to sink into oblivion. Has it not dawned on people in the US government why China has had enough of buying US debt?
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military spending does trickle down. GPS, Apranet, infrared detectors even the new M-25 all have very valuable civilian or police uses that would be possible without some major money funding their initial 20-30 year developments.
If you don't know why the M-25 with vaulable for police, it can fire flash bangs, and rubber bullets instead of bombs. You can flash bang a hostage room from far away on one side, while breaching on the other.
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Yep, the US military should have watched more Si-Fi movies - then they'd know that the (evil?) empire with all the cool tech always gets beaten in the end by the brave underdog (freedom fighter/guerrilla - take you pick) fighting with whatever old crap they can beg, borrow or steal.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:5, Funny)
Sadly I think your joke just hit the nail on the head of one of the things that is seriously fucked up about this country. I mean here we are, factories shuttered all over the place, people losing their homes left and right, over 22,000 factories offshored since 2001, and debt climbing like there is no tomorrow and
BOOM
stupid Osprey turkey while we are at it. We already have the most tech heavy military on the planet but as we are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan all that means exactly jack and squat against the enemies of today. quit blowing money on stupid weapons already, Sheesh.
I'm sorry, I didn't hear you over the sound of how awesome my 32MJ rail gun is.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:5, Informative)
While the defense budget is no doubt way out of control, this is not at all the sort of thing that worries me. It has no practical military value in the near term, and at least produced interesting results.
I'm more concerned about other high-tech anti-personel weapons or robots, that will inevitably be pointed at people, possible even at our own citizens before long.
Speaking of waste, and far more disturbing at that, take a look at what the anti-terrorism efforts have spawned [washingtonpost.com]. I really had no idea of the scale of it. Having this turned against our own citizens as the fascism ramps up is truly frightening.
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Overheard somewhere in Europe 9000BC
"Bejeebus mister Grok. We're out here starvin' and you're trying to fix a piece of string on a flimsy rod so you can what? Shoot projectiles at things?!? We already have a spear and it's worked so well for us. All those animals don't have spears! The best they have are horns! Harharhar Now come help me kill this stupid turkey."
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>>THIS, this is what we spend our non existent money on? Giant fricking superguns?
You say that like it's a bad thing. But since the insane awesomeness of a railgun doesn't impress you, let's look at the numbers.
>>(we already have 11 carriers for the love of Pete)
Okay, so you like our carrier fleet?
Railguns are being designed to counter a threat to carriers, namely swarms of cruise missiles. The amount of money they've spent on developing this thing ($211M) is less than one percent of what Califo
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While I imagine that a super railgun isn't the best thing to spend money on, I can think of much worse things. Some of the things that would be worse are the things that we have already been spending our non-existant money on like stimulus packages, company bailouts, and more entitlement spending. These things are certain to crash our economy and we're seeing the effects.
Right now, I'm not a big fan of spending anything that we don't have to. With those other things, the only thing that we get from the spen
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There's no reason for ballistic missiles against the U.S. It's far far easier just to bring the bombs into the country in containers and transport to the target city.
Civilian version? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm still trying to get them kids off my lawn. But kids on bikes are quick, wily and seem to move in Brownian Motion tracks. Mach 8 could give me a good tactical advantage . . .
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the shickwave tares em apart.
Do kids actually die when losing their fluff [wikipedia.org]?
Mach 8 to Orbit? (Score:2)
Re:Mach 8 to Orbit? (Score:5, Informative)
Mach 8 = 2 722.32 m/s.
Escape velocity being 11.2 km/s, so the answer is no.
Re:Mach 8 to Orbit? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mach 8 to Orbit? (Score:5, Informative)
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Thats 270s * 1.35km/s = a height of 364.5km, so it could conceivably enter into the region we call 'low earth orbit' which is between 160km to 2000km.
I dont know where to begin to calculate the drag as it rises, so I wont bother to calculate the decreasing dece
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While escape velocity could theoretically be achieved with a gun orbit cannot. This is because the orbit of a satellite will always pass through the point at which it ceased to be accelerated, which in this case is at the muzzle of the gun. You would have to add an orbital insertion rocket.
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Re:Mach 8 to Orbit? (Score:5, Informative)
If something is thrown or shot, the orbit will go through the point the shot was fired. You have a problem if that is on earth surface. Even if you are fast enough for a stable orbit you need a rocket to shift that orbit away from your starting point.
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If something is thrown or shot, the orbit will go through the point the shot was fired. You have a problem if that is on earth surface. Even if you are fast enough for a stable orbit you need a rocket to shift that orbit away from your starting point.
Shoot twice, then move gun quickly.
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No it doesn't. You MUST apply thrust AFTER you reach a suitable altitude in order to get an orbit. There is no way to achieve an orbit purely by firing a gun from the surface, no matter how much velocity it produces. The projectile will either come back down and hit the ground, or fly away and never come back. That means your projectile has to carry a propulsion and guidance system that will survive the humungous acceleration coming out of the gun.
Earth rotation does reduce the total energy you have to
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But that means you need a rocket that is orders of magnitude smaller.
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Any electronics would be fried by the magnetic fields in a spectacular way. "Heat seeking" won't work, I think.
The video is cool, but... (Score:3)
...I would be also interested to see what the projectile does at the "destination". Time to buy me some kilofarad supercaps :)
Re:The video is cool, but... (Score:4, Informative)
It streaked down range, generating a small sonic boom, and traveled about 5,500 feet before tumbling to the ground harmlessly.
So not all that interesting.
The ideal plot for a videogame from the eighties! (Score:2)
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??? Altough I still own the machine, I don't recall that game...
50 feet away? (Score:5, Insightful)
More like 50 miles right? (Score:2)
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You should consider exercise and less food.
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What's the true story? (Score:2)
Impressive boom (Score:2)
that is, ... almost as loud as dropping a frying pan. Very impressive.
Really sad... (Score:3)
Only one Quake2 reference, and none to Bayformers :(
Not Very Big (Score:3)
Charging 33Mj in 300s is only 110KW. A US house typically takes from the grid 200A at 220V: 44KW max (uses a special panel to distribute it; standard is 100A:22KW). So two neighbors and I could charge this thing in just about 4 minutes. It consumes only 9.17KWh, which costs under $1 from the average US grid utility. A US car [greentechhistory.com] floored at about 200KW would charge it in 2m45s.
Of course the real action is in the firing, when 33Mj is released in (FTA) 10ms. That's 3.3GW, which powers 1.65 million typical US homes (typical SF-sized city + immediate suburbs) at their 1KW average consumption (non-electric heating: if all electric heated, that's about 200,000 Northeast homes in January). At about 35Mj:gal [wikipedia.org] that's only about 9 gallons of gas at 100% efficient electric generation; a typical high-end generator at 20% needs about 45 gallons for each shot.
Of the storage, quick charging and even quicker discharging this railgun demonstrates I hope the Navy produces even more productive research in just the storage and quick charging efficiencies. Naval ships probably won't want to wait 5 minutes, or even 5 seconds, to reload, so 1.1MW charging is a good target. I don't know whether these capacitors charge in a massively parallel array, but they should; I'm not really sure why all modern batteries don't charge many subcells in parallel for faster charging than discharging - though this gun will never achieve that rate, even if charged on shore by a nuke plant (typically 2-3GW). More research, especially basic science in electrochemistry on nanomaterials, would improve electric appliance performance, especially in our critically growing mobile devices.
But storage density is the key factor. Destroyers typically carry about 200Kgal of fuel retaining about 25Kgal reserve, plus about 30Kgal jet fuel. A fuel cell at 70% efficiency would need only about 22 gallons per shot; 1000 shots would be less than the reserve. These caps are designed for fast charge/discharge, not capacity, since they're much larger (at least a couple shipping containers, over 5000 cubic feet, instead of 6CF). We need supercapacitors that can store greater than gasoline's 35Mj:l (and better than its 45Mj:Kg). At large scales, capacitors should be much smaller and lighter than gasoline, since each cap atom should store more electrons than in the one or two max in each chemical bond in fuel molecules (and which never completely, or even mostly, "discharge"). This project probably won't do that kind of research, but it could feed other research into that much harder and more common problem of increased storage density.
In the meantime, it's great the Navy will be able to move to very powerful electric guns. Instead of fuel energy locked up in separate propulsion turbine tanks and ammo charges, the whole mission can be more flexible with electric powering everything. Fuel cells can double or triple (or better) the conversion efficiency, while eliminating emissions (and generating drinking water at sea with no extra energy consumed). Which all means more efficiency, which means less fuel carried around, which means even more efficiency. Ships might eventually carry square KMs sheets of solar panels to float around them, generating a megawatt (in daytime) for charging caps that fire every 5 seconds or faster.
And the more we get the Navy energy efficient, the less the Pentagon will demand we stay at war to protect global oil supplies, and the more it will prioritize energy innovation that keeps America more independent and effective generally. Which means less shooting, which is the real (and only legitimate) goal of the military: to end wars with America victorious, either by superior force or by avoiding them entirely.
For the naysayers (Score:3)
Advantage of a rail gun (Score:5, Interesting)
Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
You'll finally dominate the USSR militarily, ending the Cold War.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I am all for world peace. I really want us all go just get along. But we are humans. Some of us are passive. Some of us are not. Turns out, the passive end up serving the non-passive and we end up fighting over "stuff." This will never end so long as we are human. No one is "equal" so long as I think I am better than you and the resources you have should be mine.
So while the USSR failed, Russia and the remnants of the USSR's resources still exist. Also, China is showing itself to be a much larger threat than the USSR ever was. (Plus they "look different from us" and so it's much easier to make them an enemy!) There WILL be some serious conflict with China in the near future. Whether it is cold or not remains to be seen, but it is clear that things are changing much faster than we know in Asia. China's influence is moving at an amazing pace and we had better be prepared to defend ourselves. Using powerful, non-nuclear weapons is an important way to prepare.
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Interesting)
The USA worries me often. Or to be precise, the US government does. I'd like to believe that they'll use those guns for a good cause, such as against a rogue country who would suddenly decide to conquer the world. But we're in a time where enemy threats are most likely to come in the form of terrorism and nuclear standoffs. The way I see it, there are several reasons why the USA would want to build Railguns:
- They have info that aliens exist and can come to Earth.
- They have confirmation that someone (e.g. China, Iran, North Korea...) really plans to attack the Western World (or only the USA).
- They are planning to conquer the World in the next 10-20 years.
- Or they are really just being careful and making sure they can face the unexpected.
That last option seems to me to be the most reasonable explanation. But there are a few things that bother me:
1) A rogue president (yes, Bush Jr.) had no trouble hijacking the US government, making laws that brought the USA a lot closer to a tyranny*, and manipulating most of the Western World into following him in a criminal war. Bottom line, the US government is vulnerable to hijacking and if that happened again then the world would be in serious trouble if the USA has access to so powerful weapons. Bush did not attack Europe, fair enough. That does not mean the next US president who decides he can do whatever he wants won't attack Europe either.
*Patriot act, Guantano (jail without a trial), use of torture, use of secret evidence in criminal trials, illegal wiretaps and surveillance of citizens, etc. (Note that Obama has added a few more things to the list, like the right to kill people without a trial).
2) The recent leak of diplomatic cables offers more evidence that the USA does not seem to respect it's allies. Like what? You really think France or Germany would attack the USA? Not in 1000 years. Most of Europe is not the military, war-waging type. I have a hard time imagining how the USA can justify spying on these countries and their officials. If even the closest allies of the USA are treated with so little trust and respect, then I'm not certain any country can fully trust the USA.
3) Are the USA planning to share this technology (Railguns) with their allies? Again, I don't see France fighting against the USA in 1000 years unless the USA starts the war. So it would look very suspicious that the USA would not share with them. I also think, as a general principle, that no single country should have far more military power than all others. It's dangerous if a country is so powerful that no other country can stand up to it, even if that country is the USA. I would like to know that should the US government suddenly go rogue and turn against Europe and the rest of the world we stand a chance to fight back. It's too much power for only one country to have.
I think it's very likely that this technology is being developed just to stay on top and be ready in case China attacks. I don't think the USA plans to conquer the World. But there are still reasons to be concerned about the USA having so much power, especially if the rest of the world doesn't have that power. I wish the press would report on what Europe says about these railguns, I'm curious to know what they think over there.
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Funny)
such as against a rogue country who would suddenly decide to conquer the world.
I fail to see how the US can use this technology against itself.
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
You're forgetting the obvious explanation: that ever since WWII, we don't know how to run an economy that isn't propped up by military spending.
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Informative)
Well, the U.S. economy has a GDP of a little north of $14 trillion. The current defense bill is about $720 billion. And somehow this $720 is supporting a GDP of $14 trillion?
Incidentally, the U.S. deficit is about $1.4 trillion for FY2010 which ended Sept. 30. The total debt is about $14 trillion (no relation to the GDP number, the latter is per year, the former spans decades of financial mismanagement).
The rich, say the top 1% of the pop. pay approx 37 % of all the income tax in the country. The top 20% pay about 85% of the income taxes. The bottom 50% of the pop. pay no income tax.
It is important to have a sense of proportion, it can keep you from making unwarranted assumptions.
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
The rich, say the top 1% of the pop. pay approx 37 % of all the income tax in the country. The top 20% pay about 85% of the income taxes. The bottom 50% of the pop. pay no income tax.
Yet that top 1% control 99% of the capital. It looks like that 37% is a fucking good deal. For them.
And think how much tax the government could be bringing in if that narrow section of society didn't expend massive efforts in hiding their income and assets in tax havens?
Whilst those at the bottom might not be paying income tax, they still have to pay the other taxes that exist, and generally those taxes are much more of a burden than they are on the rich. A rich person can easily afford a couple of extra percent on purchases, but it is much more of a poor person's income, so relatively those taxes are higher.
If an something has a dollar of tax on it, for someone earning 15kUSD a year that tax is 0.0067% of their annual income. For someone earning a million a year, it is 0.0001% of their income, 67 times less!
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
The rich, say the top 1% of the pop. pay approx 37 % of all the income tax in the country. The top 20% pay about 85% of the income taxes. The bottom 50% of the pop. pay no income tax.
The rich earn most of the money, so of course they pay most of the income tax. And the bottom 47% (not 50) still pay Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes, certain state and local income taxes, sales tax, and excise taxes on things like gasoline and alcohol.
The utility of wealth is not linear. Progressive taxation makes economic and psychological sense, and it was supported by, among others, Benjamin Franklin."the most equal of all Taxes...is generally in proportion to Mens Wealth." (Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Ruston, October 9, 1780).
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
And the bottom 47% (not 50) still pay Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes, certain state and local income taxes, sales tax, and excise taxes on things like gasoline and alcohol.
And? Questions about the programs aside, those Medicare and SS taxes are nothing compared to what they'll actually get from those programs. Historically, we've received more money from Medicare and SS than we've actually put into it. So that's a net gain. And those state and local taxes and alchohol and gas taxes go for things like police departments and roads... stuff that they benefit from directly. You make it sound like not paying an income tax is OK because they pay those other things, when they come out ahead even without paying an income tax. In fact, most people under the 50K line (with families) end up being paid by other taxpayers when January rolls around. Most tax "refunds" aren't refunds at all, but are cash bonuses, courtesy of richer taxpayers. The "Earned Income Tax Credit" may be the most misnamed tax statute on the books. You get extra cash, gratis, if you fall below a certain income and have kids. How is that "earned"?
The utility of wealth is not linear. Progressive taxation makes economic and psychological sense, and it was supported by, among others, Benjamin Franklin."the most equal of all Taxes...is generally in proportion to Mens Wealth." (Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Ruston, October 9, 1780).
Your mistake is in assuming that "proportion" has to be your so-called progressive taxation scheme. With a flat tax, ALL taxation would be in proportion to wealth. You make more, you pay more. You make less, you pay less. But everybody actually pays taxes in that system, which is important in a Democratic Republic, lest a significant portion of the public comes to see those richer than them as their meal ticket, and develop an entitlement to what others have earned. Which is exactly what has happened. That chunk of the populace has discovered that they can vote themselves other people's money. Two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner, in a kind of way.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
Only the kind of fuckin' unempathetic eedjit who's never had to worry about where his next meal is coming from and doesn't recognise this as an extraordinary piece of luck compared with the situation of 99% of humanity throughout history and far too many people in the US today writes this kind of garbage.
If it was that fucking great to be poor -- if you got to receive so many privileges without having to work for them -- then rich people would be giving up their earned income for the plentiful largesse of the state. Funnily enough, those rubbing along on the $250k+ that earns them the major benefit from the Bush tax cut (now perpetuated by the pusillanimous Obama administration) aren't rushing to give up 90% of their income and live on $25k p.a. instead. That's cos they've recognised that life earning that much money is shit shit shit. Shit food, early death, violence, just shit.
You need to get a fucking grip, mate, and see what the real world is like. That 1% of people paying 37% of income tax are doing so because they are richer than fucking Croesus and are, practically speaking, living in a completely different world to the rest of their "fellow" Americans, who have practically no assets to their name, no discretionary income, and virtually no life chances. They are born in poverty, will live in poverty and will die in poverty. But that statistical truth will be ignored while the other statistical truth -- normal distribution -- will throw up enough who do escape to allow people to keep pointing to rags-to-riches stories as endorsements of this setup as "the American way".
Quote Fail (Score:4, Interesting)
It is difficult to understand how you could have pulled that BF quote so far out of context. It was referring to the devaluation of currency being effectively a tax and was not related to income tax whatsoever. If anything is would be similar to a tax on the value of savings and investments (not the numeric amount), due to inflation.
Even if it were referring to income tax (e.g. "the most equal of all taxes...is generally proportional to Men's income"), it is per the wording not a progressive tax. A Tax is a nominal value of money paid for some reason, not a rate. Progressive taxes are by definition defined by a tax RATE that is proportional to income/assets/whatever. In a progressive tax, not only does a person with more taxable assets pay more in taxes due to a fixed percentage of the larger value... the percentage itself rises. This is not what is referred to here. Fail.
(Now one could argue that a flat tax on paper assets integrated over time is a progressive tax, since wealthier people would potentially have more money "in the bank" being taxed in relation to total assets, which may be true... The interesting bit about that is it would punish those who saved paper assets, which would likely result in the wealthy moving away from that paper currency as a container of wealth. Franklin argued against use of Gold and metals as wealth containers since the prices were volatile at the time, and with paper effectively taxed, by deflation, other methods of escaping the deflation would likely be sought.)
Re:Yay!(income is not wealth) (Score:4, Insightful)
If you can look at those charts and see any trendline I applaud you. To me it appears the numbers are statistically brownian noise.
Your first paragraph is ok, but then you dive into the deep end... You give no basis for why para 1 is "poison to democracy". Speaking of which, what is this Democracy to which you refer? People like you, with no basis in economics, or civics, are what make the long term prospects of the US "not good".
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
(That is, until we learn to duck just in time while holding the beer bottle just so and the bullet spins the screw cap off. Oh, yeah. Beer. Mmmmmm.)
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You really think France or Germany would attack the USA? Not in 1000 years.
And a little discrete spying keeps everyone mostly honest. In the 1890's I bet USA thought it would be a thousand years or more before Japan ever attacked US soil. 1000 years is a long time when measured in human generations/lifespans.
Obama has added a few more things to the list, like the right to kill people without a trial
Citation?
AC Is Idiot, But He Knows It. (Score:3, Informative)
The way I see it, there are several reasons why the USA would want to build Railguns:
- They have info that aliens exist and can come to Earth. - They have confirmation that someone (e.g. China, Iran, North Korea...) really plans to attack the Western World (or only the USA). - They are planning to conquer the World in the next 10-20 years. - Or they are really just being careful and making sure they can face the unexpected.
You're an idiot, but you know that right? You're list shows you have no real critical thinking skills beyond what you learned from apocolyptic comic books, movies, and video games, but that doesn't stop you from trying act like you have deep thoughts.
The reason I am assuming you know you're an idiot is because you post as AC and have that little scrap of pride.
Try this: They've been working on railguns for ages, as a launch system for ballistic missiles, manned spacecrapft, projectiles, and other purposes.
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Interesting)
China also has a fairly large surface fleet, rivaled by only a few countries.
The race never stops, it just has clear leaders at certain points in history.
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Re:Yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
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As to count, America has 14 boomers, 4 missile boats, and a number of attack subs.
CHina acknowledges that they have 5 boomers, but at least 7 different ones were spotted, with mo
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Informative)
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modern ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles are launched underwater. nuclear subs only have to surface for food, and fun.
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And as such this is what you get. We in the US spend more than most of the rest of the world combined on our military.
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
That word "most" is dispensable here. You in the US spend more on military than the rest of the world combined.
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God I loved that weapon...!