After US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth estimated that President Donald Trump's illegal war on Iran has cost $37.5 billion, critics pointed out the range of ways that money could have been better spent.
Might as well have just disappeared. We’ve known since developing the guns vs butter economic model after WW1 that military spending has a giant opportunity cost. There are so few corporate “defense” contractors, all of which with relatively small amounts of employees, that the money spent in those areas rarely positively influences the greater economy. It just drives inflation without actually getting the government spending to circulate in the economy.
If you spend that money on something like hospitals or schools the economic return is so much greater that it’s not even really comparable. You can buy guns or butter, but you can’t buy both. It’s telling that the party of fiscal conservatives are so willing to spend tens of billions on a war that actively harms their own citizens, but absolutely refuses to invest in education or healthcare.
Right right right, sorry, I wasn’t trying to make the claim that this was “good for the economy” or something. All I was saying was that the money didn’t disappear, it was given to someone. And it wasn’t Iran. Well, maybe some of it was Iran… but most of it might as well have been printed out on a giant novelty check and handed to some rich dudes.
Might as well have just disappeared. We’ve known since developing the guns vs butter economic model after WW1 that military spending has a giant opportunity cost. There are so few corporate “defense” contractors, all of which with relatively small amounts of employees, that the money spent in those areas rarely positively influences the greater economy. It just drives inflation without actually getting the government spending to circulate in the economy.
If you spend that money on something like hospitals or schools the economic return is so much greater that it’s not even really comparable. You can buy guns or butter, but you can’t buy both. It’s telling that the party of fiscal conservatives are so willing to spend tens of billions on a war that actively harms their own citizens, but absolutely refuses to invest in education or healthcare.
Right right right, sorry, I wasn’t trying to make the claim that this was “good for the economy” or something. All I was saying was that the money didn’t disappear, it was given to someone. And it wasn’t Iran. Well, maybe some of it was Iran… but most of it might as well have been printed out on a giant novelty check and handed to some rich dudes.