Gregory's Server@chrisisgr8 There was that time the government just gave money to scientists and engineers hand over fist at NASA which gave us people on the moon, space blankets, the microwave, better computers, and a lot of other things. And then we stopped giving them so much money for ... reasons?
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@Mrw @chrisisgr8 There's that, but not really. The government can and does literally print money and the extent to which that drives inflation is over-stated. The government also already does this via the DoD, but the DoD gets the same perrenial AI and surveillance panopticon fetishes that silicon valley does. @Matt5sean3 @chrisisgr8 That’s a really great point! Thinking about that, it’s probably because a dollar spent on the space program doesn’t eventually enrich the ruling class. @Mrw @chrisisgr8 Absolutely, also don't forget that the military is probably the biggest collection of pork barrel projects in US history. Shut down a military base and you're sometimes closing the biggest source of good jobs for an otherwise poor community. @Matt5sean3 @Mrw @chrisisgr8 @Matt5sean3 @Mrw @chrisisgr8 "Biggest collection"? No no. The problem (from an actual market perspective and not crony capitalist perspective which, fuck both I'm a socialist) is that it's the smallest. See Matt Stoller here: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-america-is-out-of-ammunition?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=11524&post_id=138078817&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1t5ww&utm_medium=email @LeftistLawyer @Matt5sean3 @Mrw @chrisisgr8
Maybe the US being out of ammunition is not a bad thing, if it help them stop waging useless imperialist wars everywhere @LeftistLawyer @Mrw @chrisisgr8 I was slow to respond to this because I wanted to sit down and read the article. I've failed in not yet mentioning that the military is, in fact, a big grift. Yes, even on capitalist terms. I guess I forgot this isn't common knowledge. The article isn't shocking news, that's the least of it. Up until around 2012 or so the DoD would have companies evaluating the bids on projects that they had themselves bid on in an obvious conflict of interest.  @Matt5sean3 @LeftistLawyer @chrisisgr8 Oh, it’s an excellent article! Thanks for including it in the thread. That's an important perspective. I was talking about bases in mainland US mostly. For many states it's undeniable that the military bases prop up the economy because areas with the bases are doing well and similar areas away from the bases are a reference for how the economy would do otherwise. For a place like Ohio, you get a Beavercreek near Dayton attached to Wright-Patterson AFB that is doing well while the surrounding area is mostly run down and disinvested. (1/2) You do see perhaps a little of what you’re talking about in Virginia, which does wildly well in northern Virginia in large part to military expenditure, but also has a healthy economy in central Virginia that stands mostly on its own merits. Government shutdowns demonstrate the usually invisible disruption the military plays in parts of the state as the economy of northern Virginia crumbles during such shut downs. (2/2) @Mrw @Matt5sean3 @chrisisgr8 that, and the motivation for spending it that way was to demonstrate technological superiority that could be applied to missiles that can reach anywhere on the earth with high precision and low delay @Matt5sean3 @chrisisgr8 Neoliberal reasons. They did all that before Reagan. He then proceeded to leg hump the Chicago school of Econ for eight years and here we are. I was curious, so I looked up NASA's budget over time. For once I don't think we can actually blame Reagan for that budget cut. JFK gets the budget rising, LBJ sees the budget peak and start falling, then Ford and Nixon preside over it continuing to fall and level out and then every subsequent administration except Bush Sr lets it shrink.  @Matt5sean3 @LeftistLawyer @chrisisgr8 Recall that Nixon hated Kennedy, so when budget concerns threatened Apollo 18 and 19, well, that was an easy decision for Nixon to make. Then the shuttle program came along like an industrial money vacuum hose, and Carter didn't really care about the space program, and Reagan's only semi-creative space thought was Star Wars, which was a defense program. Sigh..... I've heard that theory posed before. I'm a little skeptical just based on the fact that the Soviet Union seems to be a credible threat in the popular imagination until 1989 and coked up finance bro is kind of THE meme of the 80s and wages get decoupled from productivity well before 1989. That I could potentially see agreement with, but it necessarily says the outward perception of the power of the Soviet Union differs from the power of a spectre of communism, at least as it pertains to the US domestic sphere. That makes some sense too given radical organizations that draw inspiration from the Soviet Union seem to be in relatively bad shape by the early '80s, but I'm not as well informed on that era so I could just be wrong about the facts on that. @Matt5sean3 @chrisisgr8 I was born in 70. It's a bit more adjacent to me. Something I feel (felt as a child?) more than know for sure. @Matt5sean3 @LeftistLawyer @chrisisgr8 the soviet union never ceased to be a credible threat. For those of us who live anywhere east of Berlin, that is.  @Matt5sean3 @chrisisgr8 reasons been the moon landing happened and the Soviet threat of a military platform in orbit ended so they shifted funds to "problems at home".
It was also a matter of national pride. The Soviets sent up Sputnik and the race was on. Nobody would have needed to put people in the rockets to justify making an ICBM, but they certainly did put up astronauts and cosmonauts past the point when it was clear that both sides had the technology necessary to create an apocalypse in about an hour.  @Matt5sean3 @chrisisgr8 Just wanted to say that NASA still gives out a lot of money to small scientists and the like through their innovators funding project. You can apply for a NASA grant if your project is even remotely adjacent towards their goals, and they have terrific terms. For example, you keep full control over your intellectual property. |
@Matt5sean3 @chrisisgr8 That money was spent when the top income tax bracket was 70% and there wasn't an entire international industry dedicated to tax evasion.
All the money that took us to the moon? The rich just keep that now. Thanks Reagan.