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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (482323)	5/20/2009 4:27:52 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1573954

During the war, Germany, Japan, and Russia were spending far more than the US. No they didn't. Particularly in the case of Japan. At our peak spending in WWII we where spending significantly more than the entire Japanese GDP. Remember they had been fighting for three years before we entered the war. Yes and during those three years (1939 to 1941) Germany and Russia where spending more. Japan? I have my doubts (even though they where fighting before 1939). But from 1943 to 1945 we outspent any other country in the world, probably any other two countries, maybe any other three combined. Then, as now, we had the largest GDP/GNP in the world, and in 1944 we spent well over a third of it on the military. We stopped designing and building new cars, we rationed all sorts of goods, all of this production was shifted in to the military. In 1944 the US GDP was about $1.5trillion (in 1990 dollars), All the Axis countries put together combined with the USSR had a total GDP of about $1.15tril. en.wikipedia.org After WW II ended, most of the factories set up for war production were dismantled. Many of them, but not all. However, out of the war emerge some defense industries.......companies like Lockheed, Boeing, General Dynamics etc. Defense contractors where very large during WWII. Boeing probably produced more military aircraft during WWII than in the entire period since, certain than in any similar sized period after WWII. Almost 13,000 B-17s where produced. Compare to 744 B-52s, and about 2000 B-47s (and far fewer of later bombers, although they didn't come from Boeing, 100 B-1Bs and 21 B-2s), 816 KC-97s, 803 KC-135s, 68 E-3s. (I didn't count the about 4K B-29s since they where produced both during and after the war but most of them where built during the war). There where other big defense contractors during WWII, some of which no longer exist, or no longer exist as independent companies. Others just shifted to defense production for WWII and are not big contractors now. Companies like Ford and GM turned over their production to the military effort (and they where a much larger portion of the American economy at the time). "Again even if we accept your premises they don't lead to the conclusion of a strong move to the right." Yes, I know Tim......we were already too far right. But that isn't what you said, you said we had moved to the right. Whether or not we have moved to the right is a complex question but at least allows for some objective measures. Whether or not we are "too far to the right", is pretty much entirely subjective.