I never claimed that military production resulted in useful things, other than military advantage. But, because that production is not consumed in a normal sense, it has the same effect, in a macro sense, as capital spending -- i.e. you are paying people for production that will not be consumed. They will spend their wages on things that are consumed. That helps the larger economy, which is largely based on production of goods and services for immediate consumption. See THE GREAT SLUMP OF 1930 by Keynes and do the little arithmetical calculation he suggests.

This used to be more effective, before consumer goods manufacturing was exported to low labor cost countries, but it would still help the domestic service based economy by providing relatively high wage jobs and injecting purchasing power into the base of the economy.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Better than buying and dropping bombs at least.

But they do them both at the same time. The classic Reagan get what you give motif: finance both Iran and Iraq to kill each other, hiding the addicted wife while buying and selling drugs to finance munitions prohibited by Congress, spend massive amounts of money for carriers, battleships and planes while kicking off the faux dream of missile defense.

27 years later they still have failures with beacon-blaring targets.

The only spin-off so far is a good laugh or two from the one or two comedians keeping track.

Happy Cuban Missile Crisis Anniversary.

Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.

Frank Delaney ~ Ireland