Socialism for wealthy interests will always prevail
phainopepla2•1d ago
Regulatory capture is not socialism
salawat•1d ago
It is for the ones capturing the regulatory apparatus.
butvacuum•1d ago
No, no it isn't.
crusty•5h ago
I mean, as Americans would consider it (and not the red scare "socialism" of Fox-types), what is often the colloquial military industrial complex is already socialism, without incoming the privatized profits and socialized losses enabled by regulatory capture or too-big-to-fail. It's a single-payer operation (with strict caveats) where the government not only pays and sets prices through cost-plus schemes (that may or may not separately be perverted and exploited) but they also control the products produced. Even universal, single-payer healthcare as a practical concept is likely less socialist.
In case you're wondering, this is an argument for universal Healthcare and not for the US government having to buy aircraft carriers off the rack or against it limiting/ controlling whom besides itself can pick up reaper drones and hellfire missiles.
mainecoder•18h ago
What will happen when the greed of defense companies outweighs the needs of the country for defense? can the defense companies continue overcharging the US government and being drunk on their profits lag behind and lagging behind lobby for the requirements of the US military to be out of date(which is already happening as we see requirements persist that still look like they are from the 1970s in an era where low cost drones, and cheap loitering munitions do not exist, era only way to track a fighter jet is long range radar that distributed camera and ir camera tracking does not exist that fighter jets have true stealth.)and once that lobby works they become over budget and late on delivering on those requirements. This thinking that the defense companies can slumber and we will still be ok is erroneous and will result in us getting humbled in the conflicts to come (having nukes will not make us impervious)
bell-cot•17h ago
There's a fine line between parasites short-term maximizing how much blood they can suck out of their host, and parasites ending up net losers because they got too greedy and undermined their host's longer-term health.
Historically, military grafters and war profiteers haven't been know for either their long-term thinking, or their judgement about fine lines.
Bender•1h ago
I know this will be an unpopular comment but this totally makes sense to me. As much as I want a right-to-repair for my own consumer goods, forcing all the defense contractors to uptake this all at once especially for top secret systems is highly unlikely to ever happen as it would increase exposure risk of secret leakage via enlisted people working on these systems and would put service members at higher risk of compromise. I think this part of the bill would have to be teased apart and resubmitted.
sharts•1d ago
phainopepla2•1d ago
salawat•1d ago
butvacuum•1d ago
crusty•5h ago
In case you're wondering, this is an argument for universal Healthcare and not for the US government having to buy aircraft carriers off the rack or against it limiting/ controlling whom besides itself can pick up reaper drones and hellfire missiles.