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Comment by newsclues | Hacker News Reader

The US military needs to absorb the military side of the business as a state owned enterprise

That sounds like a good idea until you realize that the military does is state owned anyway. The private sector supplies everything. But it's not like the military makes any of its own stuff. They buy all their trucks, guns, body armor, ammunition, radios, helicopters, boats, etc. etc. from private companies.

Yeah, and so does Boeing so own the contractor and cut out a big cost.

Lots of countries own state arms manufacturers. Doesn’t mean the state would takeover the entire supply chain.

I'm not saying it can't or shouldn't be done. It's that we don't have anything like a state military manufacturing industry currently, so it would be a new and significant undertaking to nationalize a company like Boeing.

Not entirely true https://dnr.mo.gov/waste-recycling/sites-regulated-facilitie....

Look I understand it’s not done enough thus my proposal to do so. It can be done, it should be done but it is not done widely because of $$$

Trillions spent on defense, and there isn't a factory just sitting around waiting to spin up and crank out artillery shells for ukraine?

Carriers, subs, and planes are expensive.

Owning the primary arms contractors would make it easier to shift production into shells, rather than negotiating long term deals before breaking ground to expand production capacity

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