s'true
I'm slightly torn about the "defence" industry. On one hand, making things designed expressly to kill people isn't very nice, but on the other, people are always going to want to buy weapons and therefore we might as well get a piece of the pie.

What I'm not convinced about though is if these arms companies actually benefit the UK economy overall as they get a lot of their money from government contracts, so it's not really new money.
(Bazongaloid, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 9:02, 3 replies, latest was 15 years ago)

I can't help but think
if some bunch of nutcases want to machine-gun their own citizens or whatever they're hardly going to write the idea off if we refuse to sell them our guns.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 9:03, Reply)

I just thought it was a very interesting way of putting it.

(BelladonnaAnodyne Melissa's gonna wet herself, I swear..., Mon 7 Mar 2011, 9:06, Reply)

They're not actually much use to the economy
the reason they're so loved by governments around the world is that it ring fences a load of highly skilled labour in the country which they don't want to lose.
The problem is their cost/benefit is a lot worse now than when you were hiring mainly machinists and skilled welders.
(PsychoChomp, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 9:10, Reply)

You've pretty much summed it up there
not a nice business, but it does bring in money, if not quite as much as we would like
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 9:36, Reply)