alt Hacker NewsArms, weapons, fighter jets and so on. The US sounds a trillion $ a year subsidizing the military industrial complex.
The US chose their market (arms). The Chinese chose consumer goods. Go figure.
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sarchertech • last Sunday at 12:02 AM
US Arms exports bring in around $13 billion a year. The military industrial complex is a domestic jobs program that sells the vast majority of what it makes domestically. The US is clearly not spending a trillion dollars a year subsidizing defense in order to make their products more competitive in other markets.
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mstachowiak • last Saturday at 7:32 PM
Sadly, consumer goods are the new arms (drones, batteries, etc)
Basically every "made in USA" consumer product has a DOD contract. The DOD is mandated by law to purchase from US companies, so there is a huge sector of small-to-medium businesses which only exist because there is a guaranteed order coming every quarter for uniforms or boots or other equipment that would likely be 1/3 the price if they were contract-manufactured in China or Vietnam.
Not saying this is uniformly bad, because without the law the number of businesses with the ability to manufacture this stuff would trend toward zero, but it is a form of subsidy.