Comment by Windchaser
11 days ago
Yeah, our use of our military force provides some of the most obvious cases of "bad investment". Vietnam, Iraq, etc
And there are many others that might've been a positive investment from a strictly financial perspective, but not from a moral one: see Banana Republics and all those times the CIA backed military juntas.
I would argue that those bad investments (such an understatement!) were clearly lobbied for by the military-industrial complex. So yes, the state dropped the ball, big, on those. But that was because the private sector pushed for it, probably also in a big way. I would say that, even though the politicians were ultimately responsible for those calamities, the CEOs who greatly enritched themselves from them are absolutely to be blamed, too.