>It's a pretty interesting tradeoff. Should we pay outrageous amounts of money for stuff like this? It keeps people employed, which generates other positive eco

>It's a pretty interesting tradeoff. Should we pay outrageous amounts of money for stuff like this? It keeps people employed, which generates other positive economic effects, like buying houses and groceries. It's certainly true that much of the US military industrial complex is a publicly funded jobs program, and that tightening the purse strings would cause widespread economic distress. But that isn't better than a UBI - in fact, a modest UBI plus a market that needs a better trash can would probably lead to much better trash cans than a contract of this nature. But I think it doesn't really stop at being a jobs program - US military spending also seems like an important part of how the sausage is made at the congressional level. Arbitrary sums can be assigned to different districts, which makes it a convenient method to broker deals between high ranking politicians. I suspect that's the real reason it can't be reformed.