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The F-35 project is (so far) the ultimate expression of our permanent war economy which has propped up the United States since the end of world war 2. As such i
by gnu8 8y ago
The F-35 project is (so far) the ultimate expression of our permanent war economy which has propped up the United States since the end of world war 2. As such it is no less misguided than QE since the object of this type of military spending is to consume excess production.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in a final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”
- gazsp 8y agoWho's the quote from?
- Someone1234 8y agoDwight D. Eisenhower
- twunde 8y agoI believe it's from Eisenhower's "Chance for Peace" speech, one of his two major speeches against military spending. The other major speech was his farewell address, where he discussed the military industrial complex. If anyone's interested, I'd highly suggest watching Why We Fight, a documentary from 2005
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ryanackley 8y agoThis is exactly what I think of when I hear senators and congressman talk about cutting so-called entitlements. The narrative needs to be switched around to highlight defense spending as "entitlements" to defense contractors and numerous local economies that depend on them.
- iancmceachern 8y agoThis.
- outside1234 8y agoYou forgot about Russia and China in the statement above. You can't make an absolute statement that every gun comes at the expense of the poor, because if we hadn't had guns, I can assure you we all (including the poor) would have been worse off under a Nazi or Russian Communist regime.
- astrodust 8y agoIn every major historical engagement the US has fought it went in woefully under-equipped, under-manned, and out-gunned. It prevailed because it can tool up quickly and out-produce. You can't tell me that if the entire US fleet was sunk, every tank blown up, that the US couldn't rebuild in a year or two if the public was all-in on support. Instead the US has this enormous force that, by virtue of merely existing, it feels compelled to use now and then.
- octopoc 8y ago> In every major historical engagement the US has fought it went in woefully under-equipped, under-manned, and out-gunned. It prevailed because it can tool up quickly and out-produce. It doesn't seem wise to rely on that always being true. The U.S. has not been involved in wars for very long (considering the history of war) and war has changed so much recently that assuming things won't change in the future seems like a bad plan.
- mdpopescu 8y agoEr what? The US has been at war for 222 years -- https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473 https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473
- digi_owl 8y agoSince WW2, the "wars" have been mismatched to the extreme (never mind that in both world wars USA came in late, and never had its industrial capacity threatened). The closest to a symmetrical war was in Korea, after China sent troops. And that war has never really been resolved.
- notfromhere 8y agoMilitary spending is such a negligible percentage of GDP that calling the US a 'war economy' is nonsensical.