"The US seems to routinely make bad investments in defense and seems to waste a lot of money in efforts that have little or no payoff."
They absolutely have payoff; they keep a lot of people at work. We have a workfare system where we give corporations money to build equipment so they'll pay workers. The post-Cold War "Peace Dividend" tau…
"The US seems to routinely make bad investments in defense and seems to waste a lot of money in efforts that have little or no payoff."
They absolutely have payoff; they keep a lot of people at work. We have a workfare system where we give corporations money to build equipment so they'll pay workers. The post-Cold War "Peace Dividend" taught a lot of politicians that cutting defense is a good way to crush a lot of local economies in the short term, which is all they care about.
If the only reason you are doing these things is to keep people working, their are more effective ways to do it.
You can make an argument for using procurement and R&D as a tool to maintain an industrial base for future defense needs. But the question is, is it the best way to do this? And are you getting good product out of it?
What would be more effective, spending a crap ton of money for a weapon system you build a few hundred of (because it either ends up being too expensive or just actually a PoS) or paying for dedicated research while building, IDK, useful things.. or upgrading old things to be better?
Plus we hand out cash to our "friends" so they can then turn around and buy our weapons. That seems a bit roundabout and clumsy.
But all the people who cry about "socialism", don't seem to have a lot to say about this "socialistic" behavior--especially if they are Red State politicians who benefit from it.
Maybe some or even many of these people would be better employed doing other things? Maybe we might be better off a government armory built these things, even if a private company (or university or whatever) did the research?
We have a system that is apparently ripe for abuse and that is, seemingly, often abused.
There can be a valid debate to be had on how much to invest (& whether there is sufficient ROI) on strategic/aspirational fronts (like trying to stay ahead in defense, technology, medicine etc.). But the problem in US seems to be that every expense is many times what it ought to be (e.g. why does it cost almost 10X times to build a mile of roadways in the US as compared to France, how much value-add does a realtor or a car dealership offer to their customers, what about the outrageous medical expenses our systems allow?). The systems/processes in US is built to accommodate middlemen who need their cut. True whether we are talking about our military expense or others.
"The US seems to routinely make bad investments in defense and seems to waste a lot of money in efforts that have little or no payoff."
They absolutely have payoff; they keep a lot of people at work. We have a workfare system where we give corporations money to build equipment so they'll pay workers. The post-Cold War "Peace Dividend" taught a lot of politicians that cutting defense is a good way to crush a lot of local economies in the short term, which is all they care about.
If the only reason you are doing these things is to keep people working, their are more effective ways to do it.
You can make an argument for using procurement and R&D as a tool to maintain an industrial base for future defense needs. But the question is, is it the best way to do this? And are you getting good product out of it?
What would be more effective, spending a crap ton of money for a weapon system you build a few hundred of (because it either ends up being too expensive or just actually a PoS) or paying for dedicated research while building, IDK, useful things.. or upgrading old things to be better?
Plus we hand out cash to our "friends" so they can then turn around and buy our weapons. That seems a bit roundabout and clumsy.
But all the people who cry about "socialism", don't seem to have a lot to say about this "socialistic" behavior--especially if they are Red State politicians who benefit from it.
Maybe some or even many of these people would be better employed doing other things? Maybe we might be better off a government armory built these things, even if a private company (or university or whatever) did the research?
We have a system that is apparently ripe for abuse and that is, seemingly, often abused.
There can be a valid debate to be had on how much to invest (& whether there is sufficient ROI) on strategic/aspirational fronts (like trying to stay ahead in defense, technology, medicine etc.). But the problem in US seems to be that every expense is many times what it ought to be (e.g. why does it cost almost 10X times to build a mile of roadways in the US as compared to France, how much value-add does a realtor or a car dealership offer to their customers, what about the outrageous medical expenses our systems allow?). The systems/processes in US is built to accommodate middlemen who need their cut. True whether we are talking about our military expense or others.