zlacker

You say that as if those products are interchangeable. You cannot simply take those missiles away and buy 2000 water bags.

The US military, especially, is the largest job and training program anywhere in the world, including the military industrial complex (most of those military contracts, incidentally, do not just come with jobs, but with demands that those companies hire x0000 (3 or 4 zeros) in the states that have the highest poverty levels).

I'm not saying it's an ideal occupation (although, hey, Keynes seemed to like it when he was less on guard). So yes, I'd also much prefer them to be building better infrastructure. Or perhaps have a much cheaper postal service.

> That's where you money is going to, not $6 an hour fruit pickers spending all their money in food.

Perhaps. But the inability of the working poor to pick fruit at $15 an hour IS due to (mostly illegal) fruit pickers.

>>candio+(OP)
It is true that the defense and aerospace sector employs larges amount of people and drives significant amount of R&D. But getting inefficient for them became highly profitable and the F-35 JSF is the prime example of that.

Then, if fruit pickers made $20 an hour, you would be getting all of your fruit from Mexico/Central America, and fruit and all products made from it would be more expensive.

Other jobs like gardening and landscaping would simply either not be done, or get done by property owners themselves. Now they will be tired, be less productive at work and have less time for their kids, or, see their property value drop while their local crime rate goes up.

>>partyc+l1
Not just that, those programs create (and are explicitly required to do so) large amounts of spinoffs in specific states. This is one force (almost the only one, frankly) that spreads knowledge, creates new centers of expertise across the US and thus binds the US together economically and socially. (NASA being the other, much smaller one doing this)

It would be very bad to kill it without replacement.