If you are just against government spending there is no argument you can make that can challenge that.
> specially if the money had been left in the tax payers pockets.
This was peak suberbia and peak people buying cars. I think there is a good argument being made that more money invested in suberbia and cars wouldn't be good investment. In fact, there is a good argument that this is a negative investment for society.
On the other hand, Apollo lead to a massive investment in engineering and scientific talent and to a huge amount of technology development that was then utilized by lots of other industries.
If I could have picked, I would have preferred some of that investment into nuclear technology. But that wasn't really in the cards.
People have always been critical of Apollo as specially on the left they would have preferred social programs, and libertarians would have preferred nothing.
I am libertarian leaning myself but as far as government spending goes, this is some of the better things they can do. They did arguably spend to much to fast, rather then taking a measured approach.
> If you are just against government spending there is no argument you can make that can challenge that.
Government spending that clears a reasonable bar of utility is fine by me. Eg overall I think I am getting good value for my tax dollars here in my adopted home of Singapore. (Of course, I don't agree with every last item on the budget.)
> This was peak suberbia and peak people buying cars. I think there is a good argument being made that more money invested in suberbia and cars wouldn't be good investment. In fact, there is a good argument that this is a negative investment for society.
I am glad that we have you to tell people that what they want is bad, and that they should want something else instead.
(Btw, it's spelled suburbia. It's not a problem for me, just thought you might want to know.)
> I am glad that we have you to tell people that what they want is bad, and that they should want something else instead.
Suburbia and cars were massively subsidized by the government and have a very high cost for society.
I don't want to tell people what to do, but if a damaging thing is subsidized, suggesting that subsidizing something else might be better isn't much of a stretch.
> Suburbia and cars were massively subsidized by the government and have a very high cost for society.
Yes, and you can probably predict my opinion of those subsidies.
So I'm not sure why you strawman me to be in favour of suburbia, or subsidies for suburbia?
(Btw, I think we should shift more of the funding for roads onto usage fees for them. Ie toll roads. The technology for road usage tracking has become a lot better and cheaper in the last few decades.)
> I don't want to tell people what to do, but if a damaging thing is subsidized, suggesting that subsidizing something else might be better isn't much of a stretch.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Just drop both subsidies.
It's the same thing with free trade: unilateral free trade is optimal, no matter whether the other guys insists on damaging their own economy with protectionism. So mutual 'trade agreements' are useless. (Or should be.)
> specially if the money had been left in the tax payers pockets.
This was peak suberbia and peak people buying cars. I think there is a good argument being made that more money invested in suberbia and cars wouldn't be good investment. In fact, there is a good argument that this is a negative investment for society.
On the other hand, Apollo lead to a massive investment in engineering and scientific talent and to a huge amount of technology development that was then utilized by lots of other industries.
If I could have picked, I would have preferred some of that investment into nuclear technology. But that wasn't really in the cards.
People have always been critical of Apollo as specially on the left they would have preferred social programs, and libertarians would have preferred nothing.
I am libertarian leaning myself but as far as government spending goes, this is some of the better things they can do. They did arguably spend to much to fast, rather then taking a measured approach.