Money flows, it doesn't disappear, and if it isn't spent it might as well not exist -- but the spending affects the allocation of real resources, like steel, ba

Money flows, it doesn't disappear, and if it isn't spent it might as well not exist -- but the spending affects the allocation of real resources, like steel, batteries, and shipbuilders' time. It's ok if there's an excess of materials and the shipbuilders have nothing better to do. More likely it will slightly drive up the prices of batteries, etc. And maybe the yacht builders would have otherwise gone to work making sailboats for normal-rich people, or gone into defense, driving down the price of labor there, and allowing taxpayers to get their next destroyer for a hair cheaper. Or, worst case, there'd be no demand for these shipbuilders, and they'd have to reskill as something else. Maybe they know how to do fiberglass layups and would try making surfboards, I don't know. In short, I don't worry so much about wasting money per-se, as about luring people and resources away from better uses. Kind of like VC's role for the last 20 years. "Greatest minds of my generation", etc.