Hey finebead, how you been? I have a question for you. My understanding is that WWII spurred a huge manufacturing effort to sustain our military, and if what you say is true that we suffered a recession immediately following the war due to that dropping off, then what pulled us out? Could it be that an equally strong demand for goods such as houses, cars, durable goods, textiles, ag products etc. all manufactured in this country did that trick? If so then it was American business, and manufactured goods that spurred economic growth, not government nannyism.
j-mac
Hi j-mac, I have been doing well! I'm still employed in a good job, mainframe computer software related. It's been nearly recession proof, we don't sell more in bad times, but we charge an annual maintenance fee and since nobody throws us out, we have a steady source of income. Yes, I count my blessings!
Let me recap this thread. CPwill starts with article that says CBO finds the stimulus is now retarding growth. I say that is not unusual, whenever you print a lot of money, something bad will happen. That is not the point to me, the point is, what was the alternative and how would it have worked out (which nobody has answered)? Then the UCLA study is posted saying FDR's New Deal retarded the recovery in the great depression, which I don't believe (and what was the alternative)? Then I hear "New Deal didn't end the depression, WWII ended the depression". I agreed that all that govt. spending stimulated the economy, like the current $800 billion stimulus did. Then I was told, no it was not the spending, it was the happiness over the end of the war that ended the depression. Then I pointed out that there was a recession immediately following the end of the war, caused by the withdrawal of govt. spending.
As to your point about the aftermath of the war, and the demand for new houses and cars and was that stimulative, sure it was. There are natural business cycles from recession to recovery and back that go on continuously. They can be fairly regular unless they are impacted by extraordinary events like a big war or big bubble/bust, then they get distorted. But this line of reasoning is mighty far from the original premise of the thread. We were talking about the Obama stimulus and it's effect, and using the FDR new deal as a similar stimulus to analyze the effect. Then this got pulled to WWII, and now nobody knows where this thread is anymore.
My problem with this, and why I post much less these days, is I work a full time job, and I have to watch my investments closely these days. At Whistlestopper, there were not that many posters, and you could leave a thread in the morning and hop back in at night and it had not moved that far. I came back tonight and this thing added 4 pages, not 4 posts. And we're off on another tangent. Given my life, there does not appear to be a way for me to participate meaningfully. I'll just have to settle for an occasional comment, sans much followup.
How are you doing? You can PM me, I'd like to know.