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lukas099 6 days ago

I don't agree. If I dig a hole in my yard and find a huge chunk of gold, when I sell it very little of what I charge will be for my labor.

Also, even if you're right, the "salaries and compensation" of anyone outside the U.S. are effectively NOT that, since the thing in question is whether defense spending is mostly a jobs program.

9rx 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

> when I sell it very little of what I charge will be for my labor.

That's debatable. Without the labor input the product doesn't exist as far as the market knows. However, if you want to discount the labor portion, which is an equally valid take, it remains that what was said was “salaries and compensation”. Any compensation you receive for giving up the gold in your possession was already recognized. As said earlier, the exchanged value doesn't go to God, it goes to people.

> since the thing in question is whether defense spending is mostly a jobs program.

You can certainly play a game of semantics here, but generally "job" in this type of context refers to any kind of economic role, not necessarily direct labor. "It is my job to provide gold to the world" doesn't imply that you are the one doing the actual extraction. The significance of "job programs" is in offering opportunity to derive an income, not to give opportunity to strain muscles.

Workaccount2 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>when I sell it very little of what I charge will be for my labor.

No, almost all of it would cover your labor.

What you are describing is winning the lottery, which isn't really useful since it is a rounding error of possible scenarios. A "Having a career is meaningless because you can just win the lotto instead" kind of scenario.

In reality you would be digging for ages in your yard to find a nugget of gold. If you went to a place with gold to dig, you would be a gold miner, and no, it's not easy money, go ask them.