[streetfighter64]

The military industrial complex is a "narrative"? If anything the public does not understand it enough. But please, do scrutinize it. What is the goal of all of the USAs wars in the middle east, if not to funnel taxpayer money into the pockets of shareholders of weapons companies? The latest one for example, in Iran, is clearly just because Trump can profit off of it, and because Israel wants to destroy all of their enemies in the region. And of course, Israel is a great consumer of USAs military technology (which they buy with "aid" i.e. taxpayer money from USA itself).

[Fizz43]

Just to be clear what your position is. You believe that US is getting involved in wars particularly the middle east because US government wants to give money directly to military contractors or it wants to boost the value of these weapons companies to benefit the people who invested.

[streetfighter64]

If they just wrote the owners of the weapons companies a check directly, the public wouldn't like that as much as the "patriotic" "war on terror". But of course there's also other reasons such as religious fundamentalism (christian zionism) that influence it.

[Fizz43]

They do write weapons companies direct checks through research and procurement contracts. No one cares because the amount is tiny. Its not this huge market being pumped like slopulists pretend it is. Politicians dont need to invest in defense companies to get rich they can invest in anything with their insider knowledge. Defense companies dont need a war to get government money.

[streetfighter64]

> research and procurement contracts. No one cares because the amount is tiny.

> In Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, DOD obligated more money on defense contracts ($445 billion) than all other government agencies combined ($310 billion).

https://www.gao.gov/blog/snapshot-government-wide-contractin...

> Defense companies dont need a war to get government money.

> military operations in support of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). DOD's reported annual obligations for GWOT have shown a steady increase from about $0.2 billion in fiscal year 2001 to about $162.4 billion in fiscal year 2008

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-09-233r

[Fizz43]

445 billion is tiny on the budget of the US government. your stat showing the increase in spending from 2001 to 2008 does nothing to support your narrative. Defense spending goes up after you're attacked wow shocking.

Money is spent on defense contracts regardless of an active war. There is no evidence that wars are being started to get an extra few hundred million in budget each year spread out across the entire industry.

[streetfighter64]

> 445 billion is tiny on the budget of the US government.

I don't know if you're just not very good with money or straight up denying reality, but 6.6% of the total government expenditure or 9% of total revenue for 2024, is not at all tiny. To give you an example so you might comprehend it, that's like a yearly expenditure of $5900 for a person with the mean salary of $66000 yearly. How is that tiny?

For comparison the annual spending on ALL education K-12 costs 850-950 annually. So what's 2x tiny, is that also tiny?

> Defense spending goes up after you're attacked wow shocking.

Let me help you out with the math a bit here: 162.4 / 0.2 = 812. This is an increase of 81100% in 7 years. If you compare 1940 ($17.5B) to 1945 ($89.5B) that's an increase of 411% in 5 years.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/information-resources/budget/...

Anyway, I will stop replying to you now since your statements have already became highly nonsensical.