My friend works for L3 Harris and has been working on useless government contracts for years. The bloat is real.
The assholes at ID.ME are pushing their way into the government ID system and I hate them because they just want to market bullshit restaurants coupons to me and my vet friends.
I hate predatory government contracts that happen because shit bag politicians allow it.
There is absolutely no argument that can be made in good faith to continue the bloated military budget. We grossly overspend. Of course the US should strive to have a strong military and national defense, but so much of the budget is used to line the pockets of political “donors”
It’s called the “Military Industrial Legislative” Iron Triangle. It works like this: Military retirees go into cushy industrial lobbying positions then lobby to the congressperson to build weapons and “create jobs”, this is an easy win for the congressperson and helps with reelection. The congressperson then passes laws that give huge military contracts to the industry.
I think it’s the abrams tank where each of the 50 states makes at least one part for the tank and then it is assembled somewhere else. It’s not just a complex any more, it’s much worse than that.
I honestly don’t think that most people understand how incredibly bloated the US military budget is. Even if you accept the premise that we have to have the biggest military in the world, so much money is spent on overseas military bases that don’t meaningfully contribute to our national defense. We have >750 military bases around the world so that we can intimidate other countries into doing what we want, which is both wasteful and evil. Learn more at Al Jazeera
sooooo yes you’re not wrong, but i’d argue (as not an american mind you) that also it’s a little more complicated than just national defence
overseas military bases aren’t just for intimidating other countries into doing what the US wants: they also contribute significantly to global stability… having THE world super power kinda everywhere means it’s probably much less likely that some random country is going to start shit… sure, the US gets to pick and choose to benefit itself, but it certainly contributes
and that’s not just good for the world: AS the worlds leading superpower, the US benefits enormously from global stability: from cheap trade, financing, more global budget being spent on STEM/R&D (which because of trade and financing the US almost always capitalises on somehow!)
I would argue that having only one nation in charge of policing the world’s stability is incredibly unstable. Its like having a table with only one leg. If that leg suddenly fails the whole thing topples over. The whole world would benefit more from a more distributed system than relying entirely on one nation.
Of course that also means they’d have to start getting their own hands dirty, and risking the lives of their own citizens for world stability, which doesn’t seem particularly likely at this point.
More to the point, other countries would have to start spending money on their militaries. Most NATO countries don’t even meet the purported spending goals, and that’s just for the single goal of deterring Russia. Many countries benefit a lot from America’s military spending, both by being able to utilize the peace and by being able to save their own money.
Whether or not this is a good or fair state of affairs is a different question, but there are a lot of reasons why things are this way.
hey i never said it was “fair”, but the US does benefit significantly more from global stability than anywhere else… its not like they do it for selfless reasons
Well, China is spending money to expand itself. You’re right about Nato though, they just want the US to do it all for them and then be the scapegoats too
Why do you think “globalists” is a scare word these days? The idea of centralizing any decision making globally would impact profits in the US.
Of course you don’t want a one-world authoritarian government, but I think the world could benefit greatly from a more organized way of distributing food for one thing.
Non-rhetorical question: Would people worried about “globalists” care if it was the US that was in charge of the globe?
Yeah probably, I don’t know though. I’m not one of them.
I think that being mindful of global fascism rising is important, but I don’t believe that any and all decision-making on a global level is that.
Also, that if a person is feverishly pro or anti globalism that they haven’t thought too much about it.
nervously watching the US go through all the stages of a collapsing empire
What other countries? The only global power that is a near peer of the US with respect to military power is China.
There are geopolitical reasons that the US is in the position it is, and while a distributed system might be nice, unless the underlying geopolitical realities change, the US is stuck at the top
Didn’t keep Russia from invading Ukraine.
it did not; that’s correct! and i’m unable to list the conflicts that were prevented because of it, because, well, they were prevented
global stability doesn’t mean world peace
It did keep Russia from succeeding.
It does keep Russia from invading NATO countries.
NATO keeps Russia from invading NATO countries.
Are you implying that if the USA stopped projecting force globally NATO would continue deter aggression like it does now? I doubt that but I’m open to changing my perspective.
I am saying that the general statement about the US power keeping countries from invading is not true on its own, but that the multi country agreement that includes the US is the important part.
Sure, most of NATOs military power comes from the US, but the overall power comes from being a united front of multiple countries.
Sure, most of NATOs military power comes from the US, but the overall power comes from being a united front of multiple countries.
We can agree on that.
Are you claiming that the US doesn’t contribute using the defense budget to NATO? Are you claiming the US had bases in Ukraine that failed to stop the Russian invasion?
Sorry for the question deluge, I just want to make sure I’m reading you right because I don’t think either of those things are true…
Idk if I’m able to have an in depth conversation about this topic but I also don’t want to get you wrong, you know?
No to everything you wrote.
The US military power and reach on its own does not discourage countries from attacking other countries. Defensive treaties between multiple countries does, becsuse that allows for a united front that the US is part of.
Ukraine is in a wierd position. A decade ago it had corrupt Russian puppets running rampant through the government. It was explicitly not under the US umbrella of protection.
Now, having nearby bases makes the logistics of providing aid to Ukraine much more feasible. Without them, the invasion of Ukraine might be complete, not just begun
Personally, I do not think that we should be the police of the world, and I don’t want to spend my tax dollars on it.
We have >750 military bases around the world so that we can intimidate other countries into doing what we want, which is both wasteful and evil.
The US military is the most efficient global logistical operation ever. Open up flghtradar sometime and just look at how many military planes are moving tons of equipment and resources every hour of every day. You don’t achieve a global logistics network without those bases. To claim it’s just for intimidation and wasted is laughably naive.
We don’t need a global logistics network.
The existence of those bases means we can negotiate with soft power where instead we might need to make a show of force. Intimidation, aka diplomacy, is superior to actual fights.
We wouldn’t need to intimidate people if we weren’t all up in the business of other random countries, constantly inciting coups, etc.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_navigation
International shipping: just one of the freedoms protected by the modern us armed forces
I honestly thought it was already over $1T annually.
However, I still remained pretty worried about shipbuilding capacity, at least until the situation over Taiwan can be resolved. If there ever is a large conflict that causes loss in any significant amount in ships it will be very, very difficult to replace. The current shipyards have orders beyond what they can produce, but even more significantly there is a severe shortage in labor that can even build ships.
Also the comparisons he makes I strongly feel are quite poor. There is a large difference in the budgets of various countries in defense spending. Its really hard to argue that the US and France should spend in similar amounts due to size, population, and commitments. And the cost for manufacturing and paying salaries in the US is quite different than what China can do. So the US will always have to spend the more, though we do still in other measures such as a per capita basis its not as extreme as its made out to be.
Remember on September 10th, 2001 when Donald Rumsfeld publicly announced the Pentagon couldn’t account for $2.3 trillion in transaction?
Or again in 2015 (2016?) when that number grew to $6.5 trillion with just the army alone? Yeah, no one does.
Bernie!!✊
Well, if the US doesn’t need to protect their allies in Europe, Pacific, South China Sea, support Ukraine against invasion, prepare for invasion against Taiwan…Yeah, then it doesn’t need that money. But we live in this world.
Yes, but also no, imo. We absolutely need to accomplish those objectives.
But … Do we need to have a system that requires us to buy Tomahawk missiles at whatever cost Raytheon decides to charge? All the weapons we use are supplied by a single company, and the military does not own the IP for their weapons, even the ones initially invented by military research bases (e.g., sidewinder).
Our system of military contractors has, imo, failed us utterly while making a handful of companies incredibly rich
Oh I definitely agree on that part. Even the F35 is a super bloated project. The US use to have multiple competitors for each weapon categories but industry consolidation (monopoly) made everything worse.
Bernie Sanders, lol, wouldn’t have the first clue as to what the Pentagon needs and what it doesn’t
This is a particularly low effort comment, provides no value, and is therefore unwelcome here. It’s also demonstrably nonsense, as others have shown you.
Please consider engaging intelligently, and in good faith.
L take, this guy has been on more committees than most (if not all) of the current Senators. He understands well. If you have ever written him a letter and asked him direct questions you would know. Dude is a literal power house that nobody has heard of because he does his job unlike many other “popular” ones.
I don’t know about where you are, but Bernie support in my group of friends and otherwise is still pretty strong and I live on the other side of the country. I don’t know if “nobody has heard of” him, but I know that people in power frequently try to subvert and de-fang him because he doesn’t accept the status quo and seems to be open to changing the system.
You’re disagreeing with that then:
much of this additional military spending will go to line the pockets of hugely profitable defense contractors – it is corporate welfare by a different name. Almost half of the Pentagon budget goes to private contractors, some of whom are exploiting their monopoly positions and the trust granted them by the United States to line their pockets. Repeated investigations by the DOD inspector general, the GAO and CBS News have uncovered numerous instances of contractors massively overcharging DOD, helping boost these companies’ profits to nearly 40% – and sometimes as high as 4,451% – while costing US taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. TransDigm, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon are among the offenders, dramatically overcharging the taxpayer while reaping enormous profits, seeing their stock prices soar and handing out massive executive compensation packages. Last year, Lockheed Martin received $46bn in unclassified federal contracts, returned $11bn to shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks, and paid its CEO $25m a year. TransDigm, the company behind the 4,451% markup, touted $3.1bn in profits on $5.4bn of net sales, almost boasting to investors about just how fully it was fleecing the taxpayer. The fact that a share of the profits from these lucrative contracts will flow back to the congressional backers of higher defense budgets in the form of campaign contributions – America’s unique system of legalized bribery – makes the whole situation even more unconscionable.
Remember when liberals weren’t huge warmongers?
Me neither.
“If you want peace, prepare for war. Si vis pacem, para bellum.” - Vegetius
Big bureaucracies do tend to have waste, but spending less reduces both useful spending and wasteful spending equally. Cutting a budget does not achieve virtue. US military spending keeps the world at peace
Do you have any sources to back up your claim that useful and wasteful spending decreases equally?
If that is the case, it sounds like the issue is with management which can also be replaced.
The military is unbelievably wasteful and I have a very hard time buying your argument. You’re framing makes it sound like he’s proposing getting rid of the budget all together.
Also, I didn’t realize the world was at peace…
I didn’t realize the world was at peace…
Compared to what’s in the history books, yeah, it is. This is by far the most peaceful time humanity has ever known.
I wasn’t making a relativistic statement. The world is not at peace.
spending less reduces both useful spending and wasteful spending equally.
I also would like a source or 2 supporting “equally” wasteful, although that’s a good point that both types of spending are likely to be reduced.
This is suspiciously similar to Trump’s anti-military rhetoric. And at this of all times, when that very same military is engaged in defending a sovereign nation from being conquered by an infamously brutal dictator.
Just whose side are you on, Mr Sanders?
You are suggesting Bernie is doing this as some secret team-up with Trump, which I think is just super funny. I’d watch the shit out of that cartoon
Wouldn’t be the first time Sanders did something that was awfully convenient for Trump…
What other conspiracies you got? I’m entertained. Doesn’t have to be politics
My cat is secretly planning to murder the cat hair brush.
You can tell by the fact that he tries to murder it whenever I use it on him.
