Gregory's Server@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.
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@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 |
@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.