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To: SeeSharp
You raise some goods points. Like I said, we can reach our own conclusions, but the overriding facts speak for themselves.

Actually, there were 16 million men (and 350K women) who were either drafted or joined the military during WWII. However, all 16 million didn't enter military service in one year. But the military employment factor was central to a rapid economic recovery.

In addition. The war effort on the home front saw record levels of Americans going back to work, with millions of women leading the way and getting a job for the first time in their lives. The US work force reached 98.8% employment during the war by manufacturing hundreds of thousands of vehicles -— tanks, jeeps, half tracks, etc. -— along with building ships, subs and planes of all shapes and sizes. Not to mention millions of firearms, billions of rounds of ammunition and other miscellaneous products to support the armed forces.

WWII provided the stimulus that pulled America out of the economic downturns of the 1930`s and eventually ended the Great Depression.

It was only natural after WWII the size of the federal government shrunk as a percentage of GDP. Sadly, never again would the federal bureaucracy in WashDC ever be confused with the smaller government that existed prior to WWII, with spending per GDP in the range of 10% level, or less. Following WWII the federal government remained a huge part of the overall American economy and remains so until this day.

32 posted on 07/29/2009 8:11:13 PM PDT by Reagan Man ("In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.")
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To: Reagan Man
No one is disputing that the war ended unemployment, but unemployment isn't recession. See my post #36 on the subject.

But the military employment factor was central to a rapid economic recovery ... The war effort on the home front saw record levels of Americans going back to work ... millions of firearms, billions of rounds of ammunition and other miscellaneous products

You are arguing the Broken Window Fallacy (break all the windows and put people to work). By this logic the best thing for the economy would have been to stay at war forever. But what happened to those workers who made the goods consumers would have bought but couldn't because of war taxes, rationing, and restrictions? How can it have been a real economic recovery if the only things being produced were things no consumer would ever buy? The end of the Depression consisted of a return to investment and production of consumer goods, something no sane capitalist would have attempted while FDR was still in office. If Roosevelt had survived the war the Depression would have survived the war also. It was the end of his administration that finally gave investors the confidence to begin producing again, ending the Depression.

39 posted on 07/30/2009 6:57:03 AM PDT by SeeSharp
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