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

To: bentway who wrote (616116)	6/14/2011 2:08:01 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1580264

>> But, you have to spend MASSIVELY, as FDR did, for WWII. All WWII was economically was MASSIVE SPENDING OF BORROWED MONEY. It is great to hear you coming around to the idea that the massive spending programs of the 30s were useless in terms of helping the economy turn around. At least SOME facts are getting out. The truth is that no amount of spending will solve an economic problem. What solved the Depression was winning the war. Had it been done without spending a nickel the Depression would still have ended because of a renewed sense of optimism. THAT is what ended the Depression. And that's what it will take to end the current problem. Fixing a stalled economy is 100% about getting consumer confidence rolling, making people feel like spending money. There is no evidence that the government spending money has EVER done that.

To: bentway who wrote (616116)	6/14/2011 2:46:09 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1580264

Bentway, > But, you have to spend MASSIVELY, as FDR did, for WWII. All WWII was economically was MASSIVE SPENDING OF BORROWED MONEY. The spending didn't stimulate the economy. Victory did. Can't just spend spend spend and think that's just going to boost economic output. That's the folly of those making s--t up in the name of Keynesian economics. Especially those who claim that "wasteful spending is stimulus." There has to be a real purpose behind it all. Tenchusatsu

To: bentway who wrote (616116)	6/14/2011 3:29:39 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 1580264

WWII gave FDR new enemies to fight instead of American business. And he died before the war was over. So after the war, a new less economically adventurous President (who also had foreign crises to absorb his attention) allowed the economy to recover from FDR's Depression. FDR was another President that enjoyed the press's backing. They covered up his affairs as well as his health situation.

To: bentway who wrote (616116)	6/14/2011 5:57:15 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1580264

The spending for all the weapons and supplies used in WWII nominally got us out of the depression (if we where not out already, the growth started before we got in to WWII), by "nominally" I mean it caused recorded production/GDP/GNP to go up. And it wasn't fake production, actual items where produced, but I'd still say its only nominal for the most part because actual economic well being wasn't increased by that spending. The spending just shifted money and resources out of the civilian economy to military uses. We could have a similar effect by paying trillions to build copies of the great pyramid all over the us, something would be produced, people would be employed in doing it, but we wouldn't be increasing the economic welfare of Americans. The use of resources for the war led to shortages. That could have been dealt with by letting the prices of the goods rise, that would have increased recorded inflation, and thus reduced the recorded GDP growth. That would have given a more honest picture of the economy, but such an honest picture would have been less politically advantageous. Also the government hardly wanted to have to pay more for its equipment, so instead of paying more for the goods, they imposed rationing (with the government of course immune to the limitations), reducing non-government demand, so the extra government demand could be more easily met, and met with less government spending. Some things related to WWII did help us climb out of the depression. One was the purchase of American goods by other countries before we got in to the war. (Of course the foreign currency only really helps, at least over more than the short run, if we can eventually buy something with it, and we shifted more to "lend-lease" from sales over time, so there was some limit to this benefit). Another reason was the removal of some of the limitations and economic experiments imposed by the government during the depression (there where some new ones, most notably rationing, but at least we no longer had constantly shifting economic experimentation and central control being pushed by FDR. But perhaps the main reason we got out of the recession was the simple passage of time, combined with the adjustments people made to change production to meet different types of demand, to no longer have to struggle to pay down debt, since the debt levels had become low, etc. Recessions or depressions don't last forever, esp. not if the government isn't pushing policies that keep them in place. Message 27110640 WWII wasn't real recovery in any way except for unemployment (with millions being sent over to fight you where going to have lower unemployment). The real recovery was after WWII. Consumer demand had been suppressed by the war (no new cars, the old cars going without replacement parts that you mentioned etc., all the goods people wanted more of but where rationed etc., people had built up savings (war bonds etc.), so they could spend. The worst of FDR's economic policies where gone. The rationing was gone. The consumer economy that had been messed up in the 30s, and suppressed in the first half of the 40s came to life. The downside was the time and cost to shift from producing to meat military demand to producing to meet civilian demand. This (like after WWI) caused a recession, but it wasn't as bad as the economic statistics make it look. A lot of the officially recorded 12.7% drop in GDP was just wringing out the distortions of war policies from the statistics. Unemployment was never high during this recession, considering both of those points I'd say it was a very mild one (and it was over in the fall of '45, so it was a short one as well), even though the officially recorded drop in GDP (or probably GNP was used then) was over three times as large as our last recession. Message 27111331