What would happen to the US economy if the Defense Industry tanked

[Az]

Forgive the pun.

This is what scared the NeoCons and other Conservatives with the end of the Cold War. Suddenly there was no reason to keep pumping money into the Military Industrial Complex. Without the constant expansion of military spending the Defense industry would collapse and it forms a major part of our economy.

We are utterly dependent on making machines of destruction. There is really no way this can end well.

[MadHound]

1. Short run there might be a bit of pain

But in the long run we would all be better off. There's not much retooling required to go from Humvees to trucks, Predators to RC models, etc. etc. Sure, some of the companies would wind up losers, going out of business. But our overall level of manufacturing would remain the same, especially if there was a bit of gov't money thrown into the mix. You know, Smith's invisible hand and all of that.

An economic downturn is the club that corporations keep holding over our head, scaring the ignorant sheeple into continue ponying up the big bucks for the merchants of death. However any decent economist can tell you that this scenario, in the long run, simply won't hold. In fact slashing our defense budget by seventy five percent would still leave us as the top military power in this world, and provide enough government money for such things as UHC. Interesting, because UHC would take a huge burden both off of families, making workers more productive too boot, and it would be a boon to corporations, taking away those health care benefits that mess up the bottom line.

Don't fall for the BS, we don't need the MI complex. Hell, look at the aftermath of WWI and WWII when we shut off our excess military spending. Did corporations dry up and blow away? A few did, but it didn't adversely harm the economy. In fact we went through boom times as companies retooled and switched over to producing other goods.

[hughee99]

10. I'm not sure that our overall mfg. would remain the same...

If I understand correctly, the defense industry manufactures many (not all) things in the US because it is required to because of "national strategic interests". If you start producing things like RC models instead of Predators, it's no longer "vital to national security" that the product be produced here, and they can ship the jobs to another country where they can produce the products cheaper. After WWI and WWII, some domestic production switched from military to industrial/commercial because they had the capability, it was cost effective to do so, and other countries did not have the mfg capacity to meet the demand. I don't know that this is still the case.

[Az]

11. Problem

Just because manufacturing can be shifted to other products does not mean demand exists for those products. The Defense Industry exists today because the pentagon has created an artificial demand. It pulls funding from our tax dollars to keep this industry afloat. They cripple programs that We The People truly need in order to keep this drain funded.

The military industry we have today is not the same as the converted industries during WWII. It was after WWII that the military industry began to truly take root. WWII saw car plants converted to tank plants. It was a simple matter to convert them back after the war. And there was a demand for the products at that time. Our new found prosperity combined with cheap gas meant we started spreading out like crazy. The Suburb was born and demand for cars went through the roof. So yeah, it was easy to retool and put all those plants back to work.

But today. Today is quite different. We have had half a century of the defense industry developing into its own monolithic form. It sucks on our tax dollars and creates one of the largest industries in the world. Shutting down the spigot may be the right thing to do. But it has a price. One that we should never have induced in the first place.

[MadHound]

12. Again, an easy solve with a relatively mild transition

Like I said earlier, use some of the gov't monetary incentive to make the transition period smoother. Hell, we could beef up NASA, fund alternative energy projects, beef up programs like AmeriCorp and the Peace Corp, actions that would all create that demand that you're talking about and do some real good for this country and the world.

We can kick the military habit if we want to. In fact this country will be destroyed if we don't. Witness the USSR.

[Az]

13. I Agree that the military path is poison

But I don't see the optimism you have that we have not already ingested too much of that poison. I suppose if enough people were made to see the inanity of continuing to support the MIC then they could also be made to see the value of investing their tax dollars in other social growth industries rather than in social destruction industries. But that sounds utopian to me.

[MadHound]

14. Actually you would be suprised at how many, and which, people support a decrease in funding

I live in a very red county in a nominally red state, and even the most die hard conservatives around here are starting to wake up to how all of this insane military spending is hurting this country. And these farmers, small businessmen, salt of the earth types actually see the benefit in cutting back the funding and diverting it to things like UHC and other such programs. Perhaps that is the benefit of Bushboy, he's fucked up this country so much that even his most blind supporters are having their eyes opened:shrug:

[gatorboy]

2. I wouldn't get that Apache I've been saving up for.

*sniff*

[BlooInBloo]

3. There would be a flood of really smart sci/math types, depressing wages in those fields...

... but with depressed wages and a glut of talent, offshoring/H1b visa stuff wouldn't be as comparatively attractive, leading to a re-Americanization of such fields.

And maybe other stuff would happen too. :)

[CrispyQ]

4. In his book, "We the People: A Call to Take Back America", Thom Hartmann

makes a great point that whenever a country puts their money into the military complex, making bullets & bombs, that is something that can only be used once & it's value is spent. Instead, when we put our money into things like roads, bridges, power plants, education, health, we reap the value of these investments for many, many years.

[endarkenment]

6. Worse: not even used at all.

Lots of military spending goes to absolutely useless junk or stuff so horrendous that it can't ever be used. So it sits there and rots and then gets replaced. Rinse and repeat.

[endarkenment]

5. Other nations thrive without this sort of idiocy.

We would manage to muddle through a temporary adjustment and then we would thrive too.

[Ikonoklast]

7. Just think if those vast resources spent on military hardware

was instead spent on R&D for solar cells, biofuels development, renewable energy resources?

Whole new technologies could spring forth, starting new industries in a growth segment of the energy market.

Once a tank is built, what does it do for the economy? A warplane? A bomb?

The MIC is nothing more than a self-sustaining revolving door that involves politicians, industrialists, and the military. They need enemies in order to flourish, or else it all collapses in on itself.

The defense industry is cyclical, but eternal warfare will take care of that. More profits, more money to buy politicians, more enemies to kill.

[Deja Q]

8. But we're told we are a 'global' economy.

Therefore there will be no crash.

[Rosemary2205]

9. We could hope china will F up enough to piss of the US middle class.

We could turn the lockheed plant in Georgia into a chicken processing plant instead of mailing our dead chickens to China.

Fort Gillem has helped turn the surrounding area into an arm pit. When they finally close that sucker maybe we can turn it into something that will revitalize the community instead of depress it.