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Who sells these things, and is £1b not that much for them? There is much to be said in favour of a predictable legal regime, where producing and selling foo is
by Arnt 8y ago
Who sells these things, and is £1b not that much for them?
There is much to be said in favour of a predictable legal regime, where producing and selling foo is legal this year if it was last year. Where producing and selling weapons is legal iff it was when the Royal Army suggested starting developing the weapons in question.
- nicoburns 8y agoBAE Systems is a big one. £1b is almost certainly less than the cost of the wars we have gotten ourselves into due to the trouble that people having access to these weapons has caused. e.g. the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have cost the UK ~£20b (quickly googled). And a lot of the problems in the region seem to come from the Saudi regime which is pushing an extreme version of Islam. Selling weapons to Saudi Arabia is madness.
- sfifs 8y agoBut a lot of those 20 billion pounds also went to enrich the arms manufacturing company owners and keeping factory workers in jobs. So cynically, it's probably a net win for the UK Government :-) As Frederick Forsyth said in one of his novels, arms manufacturing factories once started cannot be shut down when you have outfitted your own armies - hence exports.
- Arnt 8y agoThat sounds too glib to be true. Consider nuclear weapons. About eight or nine armies have that, nearly 100% made in the relevant country... those factories were started with the clear condition that they would produce for the domestic market only, they set their prices accordingly, and it worked. What doesn't work is encouraging people to invest in arms production and later telling them they cannot export. Doing that may work, but the prohibition often fails. And fairly IMO. Those are long-term investments and it's not fair to change the rules on much shorter notice.