Re:The Most Patriotic Thing You Can Do
by jwallaceparker on Tuesday September 20, 2011 @03:47PM
(#3019276)
The cost of war is always high and has always involved private industry. This didn't start with Rumsfeld.
The government has never made its own guns, bombs, planes, tanks or any other tool of the trade.
> And waste in free markets definitely is not isolated to one firm. Ask a bank.
The banks are not a free market! They were all bailed out by government. In a free market they'd all be gone.
When I say "one firm" I mean "one at a time." Instead of systemic waste like in a government-run industry.
There is a good case that the cost of the war(s) is so high because the administration which prosecuted them relied so heavily on private companies for services. Donald Rumsfeld came into the DoD with an ideological belief that private companies could do the job more efficiently, and, based on that belief, he turned the DoD into an ATM for the largest defense and security contractors.
And waste in free markets definitely is not isolated to one firm. Ask a bank.