NationStates Jolt Archive

Large scale war seems to be good for the economy. I am not talking about the war in Iraq, or war on terrorism war. I am talking about global wars, aka world wars. Here are my reasons why war will be the answer to this global economic crisis:

Job Creation:
-Automobile companies would be used to build new vehicles for combat on a large scale. This could save the big three from decline.
-Bombs, guns, and other weapons would be needed. Again, more job creation
-There would likely be a draft, which would give millions of young men and women a place to work. Also, since many of these people might well end up dead, which means there would be less of a stress on resources here at home, as well as making jobs more available.

Economics:
-With these weapons and vehicles being built, you could almost guarantee that stocks would increase like crazy.
- War bonds will help the debt, temporarily.
-Others involved in the war process will buy loans from us, to fund their own effort. When they pay it off, our debt will go down further.

Downsides:
-If we are on the losing side, then we don't get very much help from this idea
-Use of WMDs may cost more than what we expect to pay in war. We very well may lose a city, but win the war. Even if we win the war, our loss will be so great that there is no economic recovery.
-Death/destruction are never good
-After most wars, there is usually a little hiccup in the economy. After ww2, there was a bit of a downturn, as well with the aftermath of the Korean War.


So, personal feelings about war aside, does it not seem like a world war would be the best bet to get us out of such a deep downturn?*




*It should be noted that I am no fan of war/death/destruction. This was just an idea proposed to me by a peer, and I was seeing what NSG thought.

War can be profitable - if you turn up late and sell lots of arms to your allies (especially if you make them pay via a massive loan that takes 60 years to settle)

Hehe, I'm getting the banner "I am a: Student" from University of Phoenix. I find that funny because college students were exempted from the draft in Vietnam era.

Anyways, I don't think we'll see another World War, unless Iran get holds of Nuclear missiles and lobs one to Israel, then we're pretty much fucked.

If another war on the scale of the one that pulled us out of the last Depression occurred, it would almost certainly go nuclear. Not an option.

If another war on the scale of the one that pulled us out of the last Depression occurred, it would almost certainly go nuclear. Not an option.

I am not quite sure. I think the idea of mutual destruction would prevent anyone from using nuclear weapons.

It is an illusion that war is good for the economy. A bullet fired is human effort and money wasted. If you invested the amount of money in peace time in the economy that gets put in by governments during war time you would see just as much benefit without people getting killed. It is better for people and the economy to build the Hoover Dam than it is to invade Kuwait.

The war was great for the economy of the US, no doubt.

It destroyed the economies of most of Europe, it took the UK, for example, decades to recover. War is only good for the economy if you spend the first half of it selling weapons to allies and the second half of it fighting it in someone elses country.

War is good for business. Somebody link Ike's speech about the military-industrial complex.

Large scale war seems to be good for the economy. I am not talking about the war in Iraq, or war on terrorism war. I am talking about global wars, aka world wars. Here are my reasons why war will be the answer to this global economic crisis:

Job Creation:
-Automobile companies would be used to build new vehicles for combat on a large scale. This could save the big three from decline.
-Bombs, guns, and other weapons would be needed. Again, more job creation
-There would likely be a draft, which would give millions of young men and women a place to work. Also, since many of these people might well end up dead, which means there would be less of a stress on resources here at home, as well as making jobs more available.

Economics:
-With these weapons and vehicles being built, you could almost guarantee that stocks would increase like crazy.
- War bonds will help the debt, temporarily.
-Others involved in the war process will buy loans from us, to fund their own effort. When they pay it off, our debt will go down further.

Downsides:
-If we are on the losing side, then we don't get very much help from this idea
-Use of WMDs may cost more than what we expect to pay in war. We very well may lose a city, but win the war. Even if we win the war, our loss will be so great that there is no economic recovery.
-Death/destruction are never good
-After most wars, there is usually a little hiccup in the economy. After ww2, there was a bit of a downturn, as well with the aftermath of the Korean War.


So, personal feelings about war aside, does it not seem like a world war would be the best bet to get us out of such a deep downturn?*




*It should be noted that I am no fan of war/death/destruction. This was just an idea proposed to me by a peer, and I was seeing what NSG thought.

War equals a war economy. Not a "good economy". Think Nazi Germany in 1937. People have money and nothing to spend it on.

It is an illusion that war is good for the economy. A bullet fired is human effort and money wasted. If you invested the amount of money in peace time in the economy that gets put in by governments during war time you would see just as much benefit without people getting killed. It is better for people and the economy to build the Hoover Dam than it is to invade Kuwait.

Agree wholeheartedly.

War is not good for business, military hardware sales produce extremely short term profits, and have very little positive capital return, unlike industrial and consumer goods. If a business seeks to have its profits derived from military hardware, they will gain during a war, but the net cost to society is quite high.

War is good for business. Somebody link Ike's speech about the military-industrial complex.

As you command. http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html

War can be profitable if you fight it somewhere else like Germany and Japan did at the start of WW II and like USA has done always. When your territory becomes the battle field the economic loses are massive.

So if you have to fight, fight somewhere else.

The last thing the US needs is to start pouring more and more government money into the private sector, which is exactly what will happen with your plan. Inflation will just get worse, and debt will rise.

War is not good for business, military hardware sales produce extremely short term profits, and have very little positive capital return, unlike industrial and consumer goods. If a business seeks to have its profits derived from military hardware, they will gain during a war, but the net cost to society is quite high.
It's kind of like applauding the vandal because he broke a plate glass window. The owner needs to hire a glazier to replace it. The glazier needs to buy a big piece of glass -- The benefits spread through the town. The broken window is good for everyone, right?

Not quite. We forget that the money spent on repairing the glass could have been spent on other pursuits with much better results. The shopkeeper could have bought a new suit -- employing the tailor, etc. Second, the shopkeeper now only has a new window. Not a new window and a suit.

So goes war and the economy. Thanks to M. Bastiat (Not Mr. Krugman, by the way) we know why.

It's kind of like applauding the vandal because he broke a plate glass window. The owner needs to hire a glazier to replace it. The glazier needs to buy a big piece of glass -- The benefits spread through the town. The broken window is good for everyone, right?

Not quite. We forget that the money spent on repairing the glass could have been spent on other pursuits with much better results. The shopkeeper could have bought a new suit -- employing the tailor, etc. Second, the shopkeeper now only has a new window. Not a new window and a suit.

So goes war and the economy. Thanks to M. Bastiat (Not Mr. Krugman, by the way) we know why.

Exactly. I've always loved to use the vandal/glazier illustration when dealing with war and economic progress, and I was hoping someone else would bring it up.

War is good for the economy is a perversion of Keynesian economic theory.
the idea being that you can deficit spend yourself out of a recession and war makes a larger deficient more acceptable.
Really deficit spending only buys you time. Because eventually you have to pay off those Debts. And if you don't fix the underlying problem while the deficit spending bought you time your in the same boat just now your in Debt. If there had been no Breton Woods agreement Western Europe and the US would have looked little different then 1990 Russia.

The current issue at hand is a broken World wide banking system. Not just the US's either. Until we resolve the issue of this collapsed banking system we will be in this boat.

And if you don't fix the underling problem...

It's true, you just can't get decent servants nowadays :p

It's true, you just can't get decent servants nowadays :p
"IGOR! I SAID TURN OFF THE DEBT CREATOR!"
"S-S-S-Sorry master :("
"YOU FOOL! LOOK AT THIS TOTAL! EVEN OUR EVIL GRANDCHILDREN WILL HAVE TO PAY THIS RUBBISH!"
":("

War can be profitable if you fight it somewhere else like Germany and Japan did at the start of WW II and like USA has done always. When your territory becomes the battle field the economic loses are massive.

So if you have to fight, fight somewhere else.

What World War II did was remove millions of people from the labor force, and put them under arms.

At the same time, those men and women under arms wound up saving vast sums of money, through their military derived compensation, because their ability to spend the money was cut.

After the war, upon returning to society, their ability to demand new goods and services was high because these 17 million or so individuals had cash, and the producers were nearly unable to meet those needs. Demand drove the producers to increase productive capacity, hiring new workers and such.

The economic relief of the war was the result of having 17 million people suddenly pulled from the work force, and the economic relief after the war was the result of those 17 million people having significant savings and a desire to demand goods. The creation of consumers during the war is what drove the economic boom thereafter, not the military expenditures.

It's true, you just can't get decent servants nowadays :p

point ruined by my browser's spell check. for shame

What World War II did was remove millions of people from the labor force, and put them under arms.

At the same time, those men and women under arms wound up saving vast sums of money, through their military derived compensation, because their ability to spend the money was cut.

After the war, upon returning to society, their ability to demand new goods and services was high because these 17 million or so individuals had cash, and the producers were nearly unable to meet those needs. Demand drove the producers to increase productive capacity, hiring new workers and such.

The economic relief of the war was the result of having 17 million people suddenly pulled from the work force, and the economic relief after the war was the result of those 17 million people having significant savings and a desire to demand goods. The creation of consumers during the war is what drove the economic boom thereafter, not the military expenditures.

not quite. with out a restoration of world trade that money would have inflated to nearly worthless levels. Just like what almost happened in 1919. And if there are no jobs for those returning servicemen they have a tendency to sit on their money and only buy the bare needs food clothes and the like.

not quite. with out a restoration of world trade that money would have inflated to nearly worthless levels. Just like what almost happened in 1919. And if there are no jobs for those returning servicemen they have a tendency to sit on their money and only buy the bare needs food clothes and the like.

Oh, I recognize that completely, what I'm saying is that it isn't the military spending that drove the boom. It was civilian spending on common consumer goods. Fridges, vacuums and stoves. This was made sustainable through international trade, and the increasing demand for consumer goods, which happened through a whole series of psychological factors.

Exactly. I've always loved to use the vandal/glazier illustration when dealing with war and economic progress, and I was hoping someone else would bring it up.
Glad to oblige...
And it's even more satisfying to see our sainted Nobel Prize Economist, Paul Krugman, claim (http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200109/msg00140.html) that the terrorist attacks in 2001 "... could do some economic good."

If Krugman is right, wouldn't the terrorists have done us a bigger economic favor if they had destroyed buildings in other cities?

Go Bucks!

Large scale war seems to be good for the economy. I am not talking about the war in Iraq, or war on terrorism war. I am talking about global wars, aka world wars. Here are my reasons why war will be the answer to this global economic crisis:

Job Creation:
-Automobile companies would be used to build new vehicles for combat on a large scale. This could save the big three from decline.
-Bombs, guns, and other weapons would be needed. Again, more job creation
-There would likely be a draft, which would give millions of young men and women a place to work. Also, since many of these people might well end up dead, which means there would be less of a stress on resources here at home, as well as making jobs more available.

Economics:
-With these weapons and vehicles being built, you could almost guarantee that stocks would increase like crazy.
- War bonds will help the debt, temporarily.
-Others involved in the war process will buy loans from us, to fund their own effort. When they pay it off, our debt will go down further.

Downsides:
-If we are on the losing side, then we don't get very much help from this idea
-Use of WMDs may cost more than what we expect to pay in war. We very well may lose a city, but win the war. Even if we win the war, our loss will be so great that there is no economic recovery.
-Death/destruction are never good
-After most wars, there is usually a little hiccup in the economy. After ww2, there was a bit of a downturn, as well with the aftermath of the Korean War.


So, personal feelings about war aside, does it not seem like a world war would be the best bet to get us out of such a deep downturn?*




*It should be noted that I am no fan of war/death/destruction. This was just an idea proposed to me by a peer, and I was seeing what NSG thought.

It worked before...

What World War II did was remove millions of people from the labor force, and put them under arms.

At the same time, those men and women under arms wound up saving vast sums of money, through their military derived compensation, because their ability to spend the money was cut.

After the war, upon returning to society, their ability to demand new goods and services was high because these 17 million or so individuals had cash, and the producers were nearly unable to meet those needs. Demand drove the producers to increase productive capacity, hiring new workers and such.

The economic relief of the war was the result of having 17 million people suddenly pulled from the work force, and the economic relief after the war was the result of those 17 million people having significant savings and a desire to demand goods. The creation of consumers during the war is what drove the economic boom thereafter, not the military expenditures.

I would say not quite. The war was good for a few things beyond that, namely that it forced a rapid buildup of industrial capacity of most major nations. This rapid industrialization became the means of feeding the post-war boom.

Large scale war seems to be good for the economy. I am not talking about the war in Iraq, or war on terrorism war. I am talking about global wars, aka world wars. Here are my reasons why war will be the answer to this global economic crisis:

Job Creation:
-Automobile companies would be used to build new vehicles for combat on a large scale. This could save the big three from decline.
-Bombs, guns, and other weapons would be needed. Again, more job creation
-There would likely be a draft, which would give millions of young men and women a place to work. Also, since many of these people might well end up dead, which means there would be less of a stress on resources here at home, as well as making jobs more available.

Economics:
-With these weapons and vehicles being built, you could almost guarantee that stocks would increase like crazy.
- War bonds will help the debt, temporarily.
-Others involved in the war process will buy loans from us, to fund their own effort. When they pay it off, our debt will go down further.

Downsides:
-If we are on the losing side, then we don't get very much help from this idea
-Use of WMDs may cost more than what we expect to pay in war. We very well may lose a city, but win the war. Even if we win the war, our loss will be so great that there is no economic recovery.
-Death/destruction are never good
-After most wars, there is usually a little hiccup in the economy. After ww2, there was a bit of a downturn, as well with the aftermath of the Korean War.


So, personal feelings about war aside, does it not seem like a world war would be the best bet to get us out of such a deep downturn?*




*It should be noted that I am no fan of war/death/destruction. This was just an idea proposed to me by a peer, and I was seeing what NSG thought.


It takes more money to clean up after a war than to have a war. If you're on the winning side then you have an obligation to rebuild the losing side's economy and infrastructure. If you're on the losing side then you have to worry about rebuilding after everything has been damaged and destroyed. It is more expensive in the long run.

The economic benefits of war could be reproduced by hiring people to dig ditches and fill them back in. If we're going to stimulate demand, let's actually do something useful with that government spending.

It is an illusion that war is good for the economy. A bullet fired is human effort and money wasted. If you invested the amount of money in peace time in the economy that gets put in by governments during war time you would see just as much benefit without people getting killed. It is better for people and the economy to build the Hoover Dam than it is to invade Kuwait.

^^^ This.

"IGOR! I SAID TURN OFF THE DEBT CREATOR!"
"S-S-S-Sorry master :("
"YOU FOOL! LOOK AT THIS TOTAL! EVEN OUR EVIL GRANDCHILDREN WILL HAVE TO PAY THIS RUBBISH!"
":("

LOL!

The government thinks so, so it must be right!

The war was great for the economy of the US, no doubt.

It destroyed the economies of most of Europe, it took the UK, for example, decades to recover. War is only good for the economy if you spend the first half of it selling weapons to allies and the second half of it fighting it in someone elses country.

what he said. if you don't end up in huge debt, if your infrastructure isn't left in tatters, and your population isn't decimated, then it could be a good thing.

but the thing that makes it good is the government spending - government buying automobiles, putting factories to use to produce weapons, government paying the wages of soldiers, etc. there's nothing stopping the government putting, say, unemployed people to work on creating, say, a national autobahn network. its socialism when its desired in peacetime, but in wartime its a good idea suddenly? (rhetorical question/musing not aimed at OP/anyone in particular)

I think it is mostly a mental thing. People stop worrying about their finances and worry about the enemy. Alot of the current market melt down in bought upon by people being scared that the market will fall so they take out their money and hold onto it tightly. Then the market becomes poorer and people get scared it will fall all over again thus creating a vicous cycle. What we need is not so much a good leader to get us out of this situation but a great spin doctor to say that they will solve and fix everything even if all they do is hold press conferences