David Rosenthal: belief

Transcript context

…Yeah. I google cornering resources on really smart people, despite the fact that they weren't getting any economic output out of them. The biggest argument against dates all the way back to 1961 and Eisenhower's farewell address. He gave this legendary military industrial complex speech where he says, "In the council's of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." It's interesting, I have two things. One, I think that was maybe in part from observing what was happening in the Soviet Union, where the military and military spending overran the whole rest of the economy. Clearly, as we're talking about here, I think this is a nuanced issue, and certainly a lot of degree of non market-based dynamics are warranted here. But you can't let the military industrial complex get so big, it overruns the rest of the economy. That would not be good. The other thing I was going to say is, I think the end of that quote or speech, or at least part of it is, Eisenhower's I think very naively puts forth the solution. What does he say? An engaged and vigilant citizenry, a populace. Especially in this day and age that things are so complex, that's not possible. Is the average person really going to dive into the details of how the F-35 program works? No. Right. That's not a good outcome either if everyone is preoccupied and keeping an eye to make sure the big complex doesn't get too complexy.…

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