Now we’re down to brass tacks. If I could conscript millions of otherwise unemployed prospective workers and print money to pay factory workers making munitions and bombers, I might even stumble my way into a “recovery.” What do you think?
Now it is often argued that making munitions (or digging ditches) puts money in the pockets of workers, who then spend the money back into the economy creating demand for the goods and services they consume. This is called the Broken Window Fallacy. Its true the workers will get paid and spend the money. But it ignores what the money would have been spend on and what effect that would have had if the government hadn't taxed it away from those who earned it. Others workers will not get the benefit of the lost spending power of the taxpayer.
As for conscripting workers... There's no denying slaves have capital value just like machines. That's not what you had in mind though.
Printing money is never helpful. It just transfers wealth through inflation from savers to the government. It's more beneficial to the economy to let savings remain in the economy. An efficient economy is one that maximizes consumers ability to have what they want to have and do what they want to do, given a scarce pool of resources. If the things government spends money on were economically efficient consumers would have chosen them in the first place so taxation and inflation (money printing) always reduce the efficiency of the economy.