Every time anyone spends money, it gives power to the person receiving and fails to give power to the billions who didn't receive it. Every economic act is a grant of power.

If you give money to people who believe in violence, they will spend some of it on weapons. If you give it to nonviolent people, more of it will pass along to growers of food, writers, builders, educators.

If your country spend $1 trillion or more a year on military and police forces, don't be surprised if the most violent people in your society end up with more material wealth, including weapons, campaign donations, and giant pickup trucks.

Of course nothing is binary. A transaction might give money to a wonderful worker and producer but also feed a cold-hearted investor or distributor. You never know. But you can do what you can to throw more seeds of caring and love, and fewer of violence and division.

Nowhere is this more important than in a public budget. That spending seeds everything. Is where money comes from. So you need to decide: will I print money and start its journey in the hands of a weapons designer? Or in the hands of a teacher? A cop or a gardener?

To a big degree people will just be cops or gardeners, gun makers or teachers. Buy we can choose whom to support -- and the thousands of people ramifying away from them whom they support in turn.

People wonder why the US is so different from the rest of the OECD and I think 80 years of endless war should be front of mind in any explanation.