On the RW talking point that WWII, not FDR, got us out of the Great Depression,

[zbdent]

why hasn't George W. Bush's current war kept us out of this depression?

[Citizen Number 9]

1. It's not BIG enough?

:shrug:

[no limit]

2. He's still got 11 more days to fix that

[Blue Meany]

3. That's partly true, because

in World War II the industrial capacity of Europe was decimated, leaving the US as the only major industrial country with no real competition. So their solution, apparently, would be attack the other industrial countries: China, Japan, Germany, etc. That ought to work out well, I think <sarcasm>

[Citizen Number 9]

7. So, you're saying that the terrorists just haven't

held up their end of the war very well? <sarcasm>

[Brgotn]

10. Well, a lot of the things FDR did

, even thought they made people feel good, actually prolonged the depressions. What WWII did thought is it brought this country together working for a common goal. Everybody was involved whether it was a a victory garden, scrap metal drives or volunteering. Unfortunately so many people have been poisoned by such viral hatred of those who have differing political viewpoints that they themselves do I really doubt we as a nation, are capable of the teamwork that brought us out of the depression and helped us win WWII.

[no limit]

13. lol

welcome to DU, I hope you brough your flame suit.

:popcorn:

[Blue Meany]

4. Out of curiosity, what is it that they say got us into

the Depression?

[kenny blankenship]

5. I don't know why they would lean on an argument like that anyway

In WWII the US became a completely centrally planned economy.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

6. It's a "different kind of war." And a different kind of economy.

For World War II, we had to ramp up production to make arms. It seems that we already had a lot of arms lying around ready to be used. As for new arms and military goods, they're not made exclusively by American manufacturers anymore. I recall about a year ago my dad had a fit when he read in the American Legion how China held a number of military manufacture contracts.

So while my grandmother worked in a local factory making tank parts while her brothers and husband fought overseas, a lot of current military goods come from the lowest bidder, who sometimes happen to be overseas. Wars will no longer stimulate our economy like they used to.

As for FDR... well, I know it's a popular meme among those on the right to say the New Deal aggravated the Depression and caused the 1937 market crash. That smelled funny, so I did some digging. It seems what really sank the market then was a collective panic among Republicans in Congress and investors on Wall Street as various New Deal programs were struck down as unconstitutional. That panic is what damaged the economy, not the New Deal (unless you want to argue that without the New Deal, there would have been no panicking. Then you might as well argue if there were no capitalism or currency there would have been no panicking either).

[cap]

8. Every college textbook on economics teaches otherwise

it is basic to economics that the federal government budget doesn't run the same way that your family budget does.

Every MBA in this country has been taught otherwise. Everyone who has taken a college economics course has been taught otherwise. Every Econ 101 courses teaches otherwise.

This fact is backed up by statistical validation of historic data. There are reams of journals in professional publications to counter this.

If what the Republicans state is true, then every college textbook should be thrown out. All government funding for the studies on the Great Depression should be banned.


This is another example of Republicans refusing to face the facts. Just like global warming. It did not fit their world view and so they are ignoring it.

While we are on the subject, If what the Republicans say is true, why hasn't the Iraq War generated that number of jobs? (That's one snarky question. Because they've outsourced everything.)

[Fovea]

9. Read the book World War Three, august 1985.

Written by the NATO chiefs of staff, it showed that late 20th century warfare was not economically sustainable.

In the book, the Soviet Union crossed the Fulda Gap in the the FRG.
Two weeks later, they were forced to go nuke in order to
hedge off economic collapse.

Like WW1, the nature of warfare drains wealth and resources at a rate far faster than the nation state can generate it.
WW2 was fought in ways that would insure rapid victory.

Blitzkrieg was about winning without massive crippling costs.
It almost worked.

After that, warfare evolved to deal with armored assault columns.

I could go into a lot more detail about 21st century conflict. But you get the basic idea.

[Blue Meany]

14. It did work, for a while

>Blitzkrieg was about winning without massive crippling costs.
>It almost worked.

"Slash and grab" warfare did work as long as they kept moving fast, but the Russias had so much territory that they could retreat to that it didn't work so well there. Germany didn't have that much of an industrial base, in comparison with the US, so they needed to sieze weapons and supplies, to supplement those they produced.

[Fovea]

16. Yes. I agree.

Though Ploesti exposed the Wehrmach's fundamental weakness in fuel supply (and in the case of synthetics, long supply lines)
By the 1970s, the assault column was no longer a usable technique.

indeed. had it been, the six day war would ahve been a three day war, and Israel would have lost.

[Zynx]

11. There is a difference between saying he didn't end the Depression and that he didn't

mitigate it. The truth is that output under FDR reclaimed its old all time highs before WWII even started.

[Juche]

12. Paul Krugman also supports that theory

He believes WWII created enough demand to lift the world out of the depression. However unemployment was going down under FDR. But it really drops around WW2.



I suppose war lowers unemployment not just because there is military spending but because the labor market shrinks as so many people are taken out of the labor market to become military personnel. In the Iraq war that is not really happening. Something like 16 million people served in the military in WW2, barely 500k have served in Iraq. And consider that US population is 2x bigger now than in the 1940s. Also the fact that manufacturing makes up such a smaller % of the labor market now (maybe 3%, I'm guessing in the 40s it was about 15-20%) also would play a role. And the fact that alot of manufacturing is outsourced now. If we go to war and China or India end up getting the raw materials and building them for us to build our military hardware, alot of the economic growth goes there instead.

But infrastructure, education and healthcare create about 2x more jobs per $1 spent than the military or tax cuts. So that is where we should focus.

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/303126

In late 2007, economists at the University of Massachusetts published a report that compares the number of jobs generated by investing $1 billion in different sectors. Here is what they found:

Investing $1 billion in the military creates 8,500 jobs.

Allocating $1 billion of tax revenue to tax cuts for personal consumption generates approximately 10,800 jobs.

Investing $1 billion generates either 12,800 construction for home weatherization and infrastructure jobs; 12,900 health care jobs; 17,700 education jobs; or 19,800 mass transit jobs.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

15. Where does this absurd notion that war is good for the economy come from?

Yes, it provides temporary employment to some people but essentially war is destructive and expensive. It destroys buildings and human beings. In the aftermath of both WWs millions were thrown into destitute poverty for years after. Economies recover from war they don't grow from it. The economic success the U.S, Europe, and Japan enjoyed postwar was in spite of the war not because of it.