Comments by "buddermonger2000" (@buddermonger2000) on "Why the US Military Costs so Much" video.

My thought at the point where he said "The US military doesn't innovate anymore" was asking "At which point did they stop innovating?" and having to ask myself if you can cut it off at 30 years ago to make that decision before realizing that even immediately after that, those prime contractors have been making new stuff, and they're still making new products in order to try to sell to the government...
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Not Hakarl!
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No that's not right. At all. In all of these you see them basically going back and trying to fix it. The most interesting part about the ships in this instance is that the US had already divested its other ships and so tried to get these to work despite design issues. It's also a problem with regards to what the government wanted. They wanted size, firepower, and range, so compromises had to be made. The problem started with a shit idea. The fact that it was used is not the problem of the companies, but instead that of policymakers. And it's very interesting how he's basically cherry picking for this video given the immense success of the Joint Strike Fighter despite the immense cost overruns from an attempt to make things LESS costly via a new manufacturing method.
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@swell07_ If the US spent 30% of its GDP on defense you'd see the entire economies of Japan and the UK combined spent exclusively on defense. You have no idea what you're talking about. If you believe as a percentage of the government budget, you're correct it's not 3%. However, spending is tracked as a percentage of GDP as a way to keep things relatively constant since government budgets can change over time and can choose focus.
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@Appletank8 I mean, even if that was the case (no, there is still substantial dual-use development they draw upon), this wouldn't be the data to draw on to make that point as it's flawed for the reason I just discussed. It'd still be the incorrect conclusion from the data.
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Yeah I'd say that after making this video, go talk to Perun
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It's mostly the first part which comes into issue. The final one is also an issue, but it's genuinely what pushes innovation forward. The second part however is indeed a large problem though, and the US already has problems maintaining that who already exist
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@dustinbrueggemann1875 This is a bit wrong and does some funky accounting (44 trillion across 10 years is basically the entire current mandatory budget for fiscal year 2023). Not to mention that the reason Amazon doesn't pay taxes is because it literally doesn't turn a profit some years, at which point you're essentially asking someone out 10 dollars to pay taxes on that loss of 10 dollars. But at least the defense industry we do get what we pay for. Wendover is a bit misleading when he says that the US military was 30% of all innovation in 1960 and only 3% today given everything that's happened since 1960 with the rest of the world getting wealthy and doing R&D on just about everything now. Not to mention that innovation is primarily in computing, and it's still using those innovations, as well as creating its own, to create new things such as the F-35 for which 80% of the technology for it didn't exist when it was originally commissioned.
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