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Money isn't real. Yes, allocating funds to this means there is a large swath of the population (with accompanying hard resources) which would work on this when

by fastball 10mo ago

Money isn't real. Yes, allocating funds to this means there is a large swath of the population (with accompanying hard resources) which would work on this when they could arguably be working more productively on something else. But would they be spending their time more productively? Keeping what little remains of our shipbuilding capacity on life support might actually be more productive than the alternatives, given how little of value the US seems to produce when it comes to heavy manufacturing. "Spending billions" is meaningless concern until you ask the question: what would these people have been doing instead?

Reubachi 10mo ago
Of course money is real. Any financial movements humans make + the sovereignty of our respective states are completely beholden to purchasing power parity via the modern economy. The "spent billions" isn't about me/my constituents/the US not having those billions. It's that those billions where finely calculated by (supposed) experts to help maintain PPP advantages over adversaries. When one "side" starts playing pretend with money (IE; using 50 billion in western currency on the Zumwalt class of destroyers before tossing them) the other side doesn't do the same, and stop taking advantage of PPP.