A U.S. Army M1A2 Abrams main battle tank assigned to the Minnesota National Guard races through a breach in a barbed wire obstacle during the 116th eXportable Combat Training Exercise at the Orchard Combat Training Center, Idaho, Aug. 21, 2014. The scalable live-training program has proven effective for pre-mobilization forces, in accordance with the Army Force Generation model. (DoD photo by Sgt. Leon Cook, U.S. Army/Released)
At the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, former congressman and presidential candidate, Dr. Ron Paul, explains why Biden’s plan to spend American money on war material isn’t the best plan for economic growth. Paul writes:
Faced with growing American frustration over more than $100 billion spent on a failed proxy war in Ukraine, President Biden’s handlers have hit on a gimmick to convince us that this foreign aid is actually an investment in our own economy! In his recent television address, Biden explained that as we transfer more weapons to Ukraine we then will build new weapons at home to replace them. That, explained Biden, means more American jobs and a stronger American economy.
So “Project Ukraine” is not really about foreign welfare, but rather domestic corporate welfare for the military-industrial complex. Should that make us feel any better?
There is no denying that this nearly two-year Ukraine/Russia war has been a boon for the US weapons industry. Profits at the military-industrial complex are back to record highs after a brief slump during the Covid scare. And the money that goes to the weapons manufactures also saturates Washington, DC: a little of it goes to the think-tanks promoting war, another little bit goes to the political campaigns of candidates who promote war, and so on.
As Connor O’Keeffe reminds us in a recent article at the Mises Institute, the arguments that more war spending is good for the economy ignore the “broken window fallacy” as first explained by French economist Frédéric Bastiat in his essay, “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen.” In the tale, a shopkeeper has a window broken and must pay to have it replaced. The locals view the mishap favorably, as they see the $50 for a new window to be a benefit to the glazier which he will then spend, thus improving the economy as a whole. What is not seen, however, is what the shopkeeper might have done with that same $50 had he not been forced to replace a broken window. Perhaps he would have invested it in a way that created far more wealth and more jobs.
Unfortunately, Biden is not alone in coming up with new gimmicks to enable Washington to operate in a “business as usual” manner.
Read more here.
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