Did WW2 boost the economy? Why are wars today not beneficial anymore?
WW2 got America out of the depression, since it freed up room in the workforce (by sending men abroad) and created a huge demand for unskilled laborers (for the war industry).
Wars like the Iraq War are beneficial in the same way, but we also have to spend trillions on them.
>>352450
>Did WW2 boost the economy?
In America, but not too many other places.
> Why are wars today not beneficial anymore?
Wars are only beneficial to the economy when aggregate demand is way lower than what aggregate supply can provide. Suddenly you have a huge amount of new needs, people mobilized, weapons produced, transport arranged, etc.
If you have slack in your supply side, you can put it to good use with the new demand.
But "excess" aggregate supply doesn't usually happen economically.
>>352464
>Wars like the Iraq War are beneficial in the same way, but we also have to spend trillions on them.
Not really, they only help if your economy is in a slump.
>>352450
large scale war between nations of comparable wealth and power like in WW1 and 2 are not beneficial because the economy is so much more entwined with each other, and the advent of nuclear weapons made invasions a whole lot less appealing. this is why the only "wars" now days are the western powers shitting all over some durka, and third world vs third world conflicts.
>>352450
>Why are wars today not beneficial anymore?
On the cost side, because nations are spending a whole lot more per soldier. Casualties are less accepted by the public, so you have to keep nearly all of your guys alive. That's expensive as hell, and it means you're not even freeing up jobs for the unemployed. Your opponents are also not significant enough to change your economy's share of the worlds production.
On the income side, because you can't really do anything with the defeated nations anymore, because that would be "morally wrong", i.e. your people won't like it for some reason. Instead of getting compensation payments or land, you may even have to pay them to rebuild their nation.
>>352450
Yes, but only as surface value statistics. Full employment, GDP increases and market growth were great but these weren't accompanied by increases in spending that you typically see with healthy economic growth. There really wasn't anything to buy for consumers and everything produced in excess was dedicated to the war effort. Thus the only businesses that prospered were the already well established ones with heavy government ties. There was no rising bottom line, so to speak.
It's ironic really that in an effort to defeat Nazism the allies adopted the exact same systems that Hitler put in place to artificially uplift the German economy in the 1930's. It was great for employing people and building monuments but there was nothing to spend the money on so all Germans did was save. This lead to a drop off in imports and a rise in interest rates, which lead to more savings which reduced imports further. Hitler then HAD to expand Germany in order to keep resources flowing into the Reich. So Fascism did little for the small business man in America and in Germany.
So it helped the economy from a very shallow perspective only. And a refusal to dial down this type of government spending and centralization helped lead to the Soviet downfall. Keynes can suck my dick.
>Why are wars today not beneficial anymore?
they are
Nah
>>353289
I don't know man, sending the men to the front and their wives to ammo factories is not a real breakthrough. But having the rest of the world's industry obliterated does kill the unemployment.
In the US it created jobs. We needed weapons, ammo, and supplies. We didn't have a stock pile of it like we do today and we needed a lot of it. With large amounts of men volunteering and being drafted meant we needed large amounts of supplies. FDR's Deal helped a little but was nowhere near as effective as going to war.
Wars today are still beneficial depending on how you look at it. In the US we no longer have a draft. Being a soldier is a paying job. We even hire mercenaries whom get paid more then our own soldiers. And one thing that most wars have in common is after everything is said and done, rebuilding of countries has to be done. IMO contractors rebuilding after are making the most money in modern wars. So a modern war isn't really going to benefit you and me financially unless you were a soldier, work for a factory that makes supplies for our armies, or a contractor.
Obviously this is all just my own opinion.
What about this - was war beneficial in other ways than economical? Hitler claimed that war was the best way to raise the youth.
>>352450
It was beneficial for the US because every other economic power got fucked on the home front, and with the US being left entirely unscathed it was able to take advantage of the destruction. The same shit happened in WW1.
>>354782
Everything points to involving 'the youth' in a major war is a great way to just create an absolute waste of a generation.
>>354782
>What about this - was war beneficial in other ways than economical?
National identity and purpose. Two things that we're sorely lacking in today's relatively peaceful world.
![wwi-trauma[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/eCD1KLK.jpg "wwi-trauma[1].jpg")
>>354782
Yea man, WW1 was lovely for the young adults forced to enter it.
>>358079
>National identity and purpose. Two things that we're sorely lacking in today's relatively peaceful world.
Where do you live where this is true?
>>352450
the aftermath did. shit had to be rebuilt in Europe.
>>352450
All the war industries gradually controlled more and more and the profits fell into fewer and fewer hands.
But another thing is that the US economy changed after WWII so that war wasn't just an occasional thing that boosted profits but something it required for any kind of stability. It's literally been running on war ever since.
>>352450
Yes, by giving birth to savage capitalism and fucking up everything to this very day. A lot of the shit happening now could've been avoided if WW2 never happened.
>>352450
Wars destroy material goods and buildings that need to be rebuilt, that costs money. Skilled and educated people are killed and cannot be replaced immediately.
WW2 boosted Americas economy, simply because everybody else was bombed to hell and needed to rebuild. Wars can be beneficial to your economy if you sell the weapons and bullets, and they're not being used on yourself.
