[nilamo]

We're also talking about a governmental body. Generating the highest returns possible is a non-goal, and disregarding potentially useful things simply because they aren't the best possible use of funds is an easy way to just never do anything.

[NHQ]

The best possible use of funds would be "useful things", and these would produce benefits for people. "Nonproductive" indicates not producing these benefits. Government doing nothing is better than government "potentially" doing things that have no clear benefit or that are definitely nonproductive (like military spending).

[nilamo]

I disagree that government doing nothing is better than keeping money flowing. Or, I disagree that money should be removed from the populace via taxation, if that funding doesn't have any path back to the populace. Government doing nothing is a net negative to the entire country, and is worse (imo) than doing "nonproductive" spending. A nonproductive spend is still spend that keeps people employed, families fed, researchers researching, etc.

I don't believe that you guys all believe the military industrial complex should start sitting on cash and collecting interest, even though that's what you're saying. The obvious solution is "they don't need that much money", but that's unrelated to how they spend the money they do have.