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Sorry, I cannot find the posts that were referring to the days of yore (1920s) and how depression used to be.
I agree that we are living in interesting times ...even inprobable ones.
How can it be that a country could spend $800 BILLION dollars and have its population suffering though a "recession" that has gone on for at least 7 years?
One of the few things that I remember from college history were the times when a war springboarded the economy into a time of prosperity: without anywhere near that much being spent.
I understand that things cost more these day. Still, $12 Billion a month was quoted during last year (2008). Where did it go, exactly?
Trillions spent on the war in Iraq, yet ...the footage that I see does not show a place that has had an infusion of billions, for military or anything else.
How can the Technology sector suffer as badly (and increasingly) as it has for over a 12-year period during a war that has billions being spent. The military and Technology sector have a lot of overlap ...
it just doesn't make sense anymore: it never did.
What about the construction of all of the repairs from the 9/11 attacks, isn't that going to generate additional revenue?
Sure, the war, 9/11 are costing a lot ..WHO exactly is benefiting?
One of the reasons is that the economy is not mobilized for war as happened in WW II. Iraq also is more of a "police" type action rather than total war as we define it, the overall troop levels really haven't gone up, the military is roughly the same size it was pre-Afghanistan/Iraq . The Navy hasn't built more carriers, except those one or two that were already in the pipeline, the Air Force is getting ready to cancel an aircraft program (F-22) and the Marines have finally deployed the V-22 Osprey after being in development for almost thirty years. In WW II all production of civilian goods like cars, tires, refrigerators, washing machines, evn cigarettes was halted and those factories began to build things like planes (a Heinz plant in Pittsburgh made bombers), tanks, rifles, munitions, etc. Those civilian goods like tires and cigarettes were sent to the military.
The answer is to understand who benefits from recessions and wars. In order to finance government stimulus and war, the government has to expand the money supply which means it must pay ever increasing interest to the FED, who prints the money. The private banks which make up the FED gain power thru financing government spending and especially thru deficit spending. Some of the banks even have a history of financing industries in both sides of wars.
In reality the real story is this war is a small committent as to the country. Its nothing like so many wars that the entire nation was much more mobilized by. It does even come close to Korea or vietnam as far as man power committed to it.That is why as the election got closer it faided into the background as far as what was on the voters minds. Even now its nothing comapred to many issues on voters minds. IMO the deficit and spending will become the #1 issue but that is not certain in thsi ever changinf world that can expoldoe a issue to the forefront in no time.
Sorry, I cannot find the posts that were referring to the days of yore (1920s) and how depression used to be.
I agree that we are living in interesting times ...even inprobable ones.
How can it be that a country could spend $800 BILLION dollars and have its population suffering though a "recession" that has gone on for at least 7 years?
One of the few things that I remember from college history were the times when a war springboarded the economy into a time of prosperity: without anywhere near that much being spent.
I understand that things cost more these day. Still, $12 Billion a month was quoted during last year (2008). Where did it go, exactly?
Trillions spent on the war in Iraq, yet ...the footage that I see does not show a place that has had an infusion of billions, for military or anything else.
How can the Technology sector suffer as badly (and increasingly) as it has for over a 12-year period during a war that has billions being spent. The military and Technology sector have a lot of overlap ...
it just doesn't make sense anymore: it never did.
What about the construction of all of the repairs from the 9/11 attacks, isn't that going to generate additional revenue?
Sure, the war, 9/11 are costing a lot ..WHO exactly is benefiting?
Hi futureperfect5,
The best thing to do when trying to understand economics is to burn most of the books . To answer that kind of question is more like why a particular restaurant is serving a particular meal 5 minutes later than usual. Is there a good rule of thumb for that? No. Is it break time for the fastest chef? Did someone call in sick? Is an oven broken? War does not create wealth but when a country has spare capacity and is not being bombed while its manufacturing competitors are that will tell you what happened in WWII.
Thats Grand Coulee on the Columbia river. In the 30s when it was built it could have powered the electrical grid for everyone west of the Mississippi at that time. The surplus power was enormous. Aluminum manufacture, for example going into all those airplanes, had no effect on prices since the surplus was more than a match for the surplus labor coming out of the depression. At the end of the war the US was the only game in town and one cure for deflation, which is too many goods for too little money, bombing goods is one way to dispose of the surplus. The post war monopoly certainly helped the US economy.
We are not not running energy surpluses or any other material surpluses and we were not running labor surpluses either until recently, even if it is a useless do nothing job. We are also not bombing the only industrial competition which at that time was Europe and Japan.
War curing bad economies is a false economic rule of thumb and economics is in the details. Importing energy while bombing deserts is not going to revive any economy especially one that does not have any economic surpluses to speak.
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anymore: it never did.
