esselte said:

ms spock said:

esselte said:

-1 from me.

US arms manufacture is a small part of the US economy. It sits mid-tier, well behind the truly giant sectors like health care, real estate, finance, retail, wholesale, construction, transport, education, utilities, agriculture, hospitality etc.

Weapons related manufacturing accounts for somewhere between 0.5% – 1% of US economic output.

Strategic importance of the sector is high, but economic importance is low.

Heya esselte

It is true, healthcare and Social Security take up significant amounts.

From what I have read military spending takes up 13.3% of the federal budget. So it is not insignificant spending.

Hi ms spock,

The federal budget accounts for about one quarter of the overall US economy. 13% of that equates to 3 and a quarter percent. The Pentagon spends approximately one third of its budget on weapons research, development and production, which gets us down close to 1% of the over all economy. The production (buying) of weapons is only a part of this 1%, which is why I said between 0.5 and 1 %.. Military spending includes all the costs of running a military, not just buying weapons.

I agree it’s not insignificant, but it is also not a large component of the American economy.

The “it” in this case being Roughbarked’s assertion that “Guns and rockets and all things to kill people are big part of the US economy.”