[lorecore]

Investing in domestic infrastructure would generate even greater returns. Yes, through some financial hand waving, we may funnel money spent on bombs back to US military contractors, but imagine if that same money was spent on a high speed rail system. It would unlock greater efficiency and logistics with the same money staying with US contractors. That's a purely financial take and not even touching on humanitarian or ecological costs of imperialism.

[virgildotcodes]

I’m very much for infrastructure spending in the US. The point of our international geopolitical scheming is to give us greater wealth and power in the end to then apply to whatever ends we’d like.

The dollar being the world’s reserve currency gives us the ability to print dollars for infrastructure projects with relatively little consequence.

This is now being threatened by our best attempts to get everyone in the world to hate us and see us as hostile, unstable idiots and unreliable partners.

I’ll also note that the America First MAGA crowd seem to also be against funding public infrastructure projects, especially the radically socialist notion of high speed rail.

[NickC25]

Greater returns for whom, and what would we gain geopolitically?

I don't disagree that money should be spent here. But instead of billions spent on military contractors, using some of that money in developing countries through USAID gets us some incredible returns...such as our work in the Congo securing our rights to the largest Cobalt deposit on the planet. Or our work in Namibia giving us access to the 4th largest deposit of Uranium on the planet. The top 3 countries for Uranium exports are either under the Sino-Russian sphere of influence (Kazakhstan) or are nations that could get there due to the fact that they fucking hate the US due to the genius words of Donald Trump (Canada and Australia).

You want America's sources of Cobalt and Uranium cozying up to China and giving the US the finger?