If the Depression was ended by WWII mobilization, production and consumption, then why didn't the USA plunge right back into Depression when 12 million soldiers returned home and war spending was reduced by 90%?
Then what you suppose ended the Depression?
“If the Depression was ended by WWII mobilization, production and consumption, then why didn’t the USA plunge right back into Depression when 12 million soldiers returned home and war spending was reduced by 90%?”
Much of the worlds production capabilities were destroyed during the war.
By wars end most of Europe was reduced to buying the tools to make the tools that make the products. Not to mention the massive war debt owed to the US by virtually every nation on the planet.
The US was not called the Armory of Democracy without reason.
The US supplied most of the goods of war needed to defeat the Axis powers.
England depended on the US for everything from blankets to tanks. We even lent them the money to lease some warships from us.
We even shipped Ford and Studebaker trucks to the Soviet Union along with other supplies.
All of that accumulated debt had to be repaid. The world spent decades repaying the US for those supplies.
The rebuilding of Europe would have taken decades longer if the US had not had the ability to supply the most basic needs to the affected nations. They could not even feed their own citizens. We had to do that too.
The vast majority of those returning 12 million soldiers, sailors and airmen were disciplined and highly motivated men with boundless pride and desire.
Face it, the US turned a profit on WW2.