there are two big exceptions to this, the military and healthcare. playing world police is incredibly wasteful and so is funding a system based on submitting to the demands of big pharma and for-profit hospitals.

the problem is 50 years worth of propaganda convincing americans that all this is good and necessary and if you disagree that makes you a communist/welfare queen/terrorist supporter/woke activist. at least now with gen z even the far right agrees that foreign wars are a bad idea.

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johnrgrace 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The US has made an active policy decision for decades to be the world police, flowing from that policy spending on world policing isn't automatically waste unless it's highly inefficient.

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kridsdale1 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It’s money well spent if you view the cost of not doing it as another war that leaves half the world’s industrial capacity in literal ruins as happened several times before.

I’m not saying this is true, but it’s the motivation.

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rileymat2 17 hours ago | parent [-]

A war that was very good for what the US economic juggernaut has become. We may be significantly better off maintaining great relationships with our Western Hemisphere countries and let the oceans protect us.

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gowld 17 hours ago | parent [-]

There is an ocean in the middle of the "western hemisphere". Did you mean "Americas continent countries"?

	▲	rileymat2 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Including South America too, yes. I'd not characterize it as the middle, it's mostly centered around the landmasses on most maps.

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Hikikomori 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

MIC gets paid handsomely to make sure this gets perpetuated. But goes back to even Smedley Butlers time, using the military and intelligence services to ensure capitalists have cheap access to resources. Supercharged with the second Iraq war as mercenary companies took over military work and contractors "rebuilding" the country.

Trump is a continuation of this well played track, with the a large sprinkle of fascism, grifting and destruction of the federal government as a goal.

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gruez 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>and for-profit hospitals.

but only 36% are for-profit?

https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/hospital-ownership

	▲	gowld 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Medical services are for-profit, not the hospitals. The hospitals funnel money to for-profit vendors.

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tvh56r 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Depends on your definition of wasteful. Americans expect their government to be able to waves hands DO SOMEthing about various things in the world. Maintaining that capability is expensive.

I don't know if that desire is caused by intentional propaganda or if it's just who we are as a people because of our history.

Maybe it's not right, but it's what Americans expect from our government right now.

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watwut 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> playing world police

The most expensive are purely for oil, for hawks feeling manly bullshit wars.