The money is there, or was..

[riverpunk@defcon.social]

@stux even before thinking about how much the US spends on actual weapons and military stuff, it's important to realize how much is simply *wasted* because it's getting skimmed off the top by contractors, inefficiency, or just straight up fraud.

One of the consequences of having a functionally infinite funding stream for a department is that nobody involved thinks of money as a scarce resource, and so they walk the department into fuckass rip-offs.

Recently read a pretty good Cory Doctorow post talking about this.

https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/24/mamdani-thought/#:~:text=Turning,business,-%21

[baloouriza@social.tulsa.ok.us]

@gettie I posit being Republican is worse because they're like this even without war so billionaires can exist.

@stux

[duncan_blues@norden.social]

@stux
Ferengi rule of acquisition 34: War is good for business.

[phantasus@fedi.at]

@stux I have heard that only the friends of the "enemy" are against wars and military equipment....

[bjorndown@mastodon.social]

@stux Look here, if we did not throw billions in weaponry at the "bad people" they would eventually come over and take away the healthcare we have. You don't want that, do you? Once we have stopped the "bad people" we will give everybody everything. I solemnly swear.

[cehteh@karlsruhe-social.de]

@argonaut @stux @rudy

As much this numbers may be sadly true, be careful with the linked site. Looks like some Pro-Russian Propaganda Outlet to me.

[xs4me2@mastodon.social]

@stux

It’s a matter of killing innocent people vs curing innocent people.

Easy choice isn’t it?

[gokushrm@mastodon.social]

@stux they ll never listen until u start boycott them

[joe_von_saporski@bunt.social]

@stux
no no, the money is in another pocket.
what you see is what the money is spend too

[strawdog@infosec.exchange]

@stux In discussions with neolibs I rather encounter the argument "the state can't deliver quality healthcare, it would all be bureaucracy and long wait times" or "it would remove all competition out of the healthcare sector and things will get worse and worse" or even better "you will take the right of people to choose to pay for the healthcare they want". On the other hand the US government has a fracking expensive military apparatus driving up markets, competition and technological progress in weapons manufacturing while literally nobody (not even their congress) has a say in what they fracking use it for. One would think these guys see the contradiction. But never saw one realize it.

[notsoloud@expressional.social]

@argonaut
Which is more than Ukraine fired over the entire war. A war of no choice.
@stux @rudy

[woe2you@beige.party]

@StrawDog @stux State healthcare haver here. We do sometimes have long waits because the neolibs in power deliberately underfunded it to make it look like there's a problem for private enterprise to solve. It literally has to be sabotaged to be worse.

[strawdog@infosec.exchange]

@woe2you @stux I know ... but in the defense industry you can see to which "technological wonders" and fruity competition government overspending can lead.

[fredy_pferdi@social.linux.pizza]

@stux I think it is important to point out; today's money is basically an entry a spreadsheet. Stolen labor is creating wealth, weapons, healthcare and trains.

[argonaut@mastodon.social]

@cehteh @stux @rudy
it IS a russian propaganda site: https://militarnyi.com/en/blogs/military-experts-are-ecstatic-how-russia-uses-pseudo-experts-to-spread-military-fakes/

but they have the correct numbers and unfortunately i cannot spend half of my morning to post a fully purity-checked site because i have a life too.

consider the irony that a pro-russia site has more accurate info that most US media outlets.

also, which one of the US ones today is not also a pro-russia propaganda outlet?

[stux@mstdn.social]

@argonaut @cehteh @rudy Take the numbers with a grain of salt, just know it's a shit ton money for the average person

Too much

[charlesdelavalleepoussin@mastodon.social]

@stux

this applies to Europe just as much to the USA

[stux@mstdn.social]

@charlesdelavalleepoussin it goes world wide unfort

[charlesdelavalleepoussin@mastodon.social]

@stux

but especially Euope and the USA