- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/62796168
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This is a bit technical, that is a lot of components. Millions in one rocket.
Not really though.
The US would have more money available for weapons if schools, healthcare etc. was properly founded. That’s basic macro economy.
Without defining that a bit more, basically no.
The US has a certain tax base in a given year, and then has to fit their spending into 140% of it or whatever. Simple as. Where medicine and education might help is tax base in a decade or two, but then again a tax cut or basic research grants might work even better. (Spending on weapons now definitely doesn’t help weapons later; that’s “guns vs. butter”)
Where most would say it helps is still having a stable democracy to spend it, but then that’s not really macroeconomics anymore.
tax base in a decade or two
That’s what I’m referring to. A healthy, well-educated population is significantly more productive than an ill and stupid one. And more productive generally translates to more taxes in the long run.
Think of how strong of a military the US could’ve had if it were not controlled by companies looking for short term profits.
Genuinely curious: I would have guessed the payload and guidance were the expensive bits, and the rocket fuel/body/shell were fairly cheap?
The picture is metaphorical, not literal.
I bet fuel/body/shell have a 100-1000x markup either way though.
From what I’ve heard it’s like 100x markup on certain things to pay for the massive losses on whatever other crazy project the government demanded, or just on making only so many of whatever bespoke technology.
In the end, defence manufacturing is good money in wartime, but the rest of the time has a reputation as “a rat trap without the cheese”.
The markup comes from two different sources. One is as you said. It’s to fund the black ops “doesn’t technically exist on paper, so we can’t have any funds publicly going towards it” types of things. People tend to complain a lot when the government “loses” money, so the government just hides their black expenditures in other more mundane things. Let’s say a bullet for a particular weapon only costs $1. The government marks it as $3, so they can then funnel $2 from every bullet into a black operation. Now the government doesn’t have to solve the problem of their books being unbalanced, because (at least on paper) money out=money spent.
The other reason is due to testing and ratings. Let’s say you need a new bolt for a tank. You can’t just go buy a $1 bolt from Home Depot, because the engineering spec requires that the bolt be able to tolerate a specific (high) amount of torque, shear force, shock (drop) force, static tension, etc… And Home Depot makes no guarantees that their bolts will be able to tolerate those forces. So the government hires a manufacturing contractor to do it. But then you run into scale issues. Because you can’t just buy a hundred bolts in a batch and let them sit on a shelf until they’re needed. People tend to complain about government waste when you do that, (and this bolt doesn’t usually need a lot of maintenance, so it isn’t replaced very often) so you’re only allowed to buy this bolt as needed.
You send the spec over to the manufacturer, who produces six bolts. One for sale, and five more for rating testing. There was also one trashed bolt, because it was out of spec (tolerances on the threads were too loose, by one or two thousands of an inch). Because they need to be able to put those bolts through various destructive tests to see when they fail. Because if you know when a bolt fails, you know what the spec is. So they test the bolts, ensuring it breaks above a certain weight, deforms/snaps (the head twists off or the threads strip) at a certain torque, the bolt cuts at a certain shear force, etc… All of these tests destroy the five testing bolts, but now the manufacturer knows when these specific bolts, from this specific batch of steel, will break. So they’re able to certify that this particular bolt will meet or exceed all of the listed requirements.
Congrats, you just purchased an $800 bolt. Because you’re not just paying for that one bolt. You’re also paying for all of the testing time. All of the materials and machinery needed to test the bolts. All of the fabricator’s hourly time to actually make and test the bolts. And the next time you need another one, it will cost another $800. Because the rating is only for that particular batch of steel. Steel varies pretty widely in quality, and the manufacturer can’t be sure that next month’s batch will have the same rating. So when you need another bolt next month, they have to repeat the tests all over again.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
Perhaps my favorite speech.
It is emblematic that the Americans care more about the economic cost than the human cost of using their missiles.
Yup just Americans.
[The rest of human history glancing off to the side]
Edit: And actually, it’s only true of distant, unfamiliar people’s lives. If Iran had gotten that pilot, the American public discourse would look very different right now, because it’s an American in imminent danger.
It’s not an either/or thing, nor is such a dichotomy implied. It’s possible to waste money committing atrocities.
