Hello all - first time poster (and new member), long time lurker.
I've read on the economics topics a number of times of posters claiming that the massive government spending during WWII put an end to the Great Depression.
Usually it is done by Keynesians/Krugmanites trying to prove that massive government spending is needed to end the current recession, because that is what it did during the early 1940s.
While it did solve the unemplyment problem, I was always taught that many factors were used to measure an economy's health, not just employment. Things like GDP, inflation rates, prices, value of stocks and bonds, etc. etc.
The problem I have is this: it is hard to think of your economy as "growing" and a depression as "over" when 29% of your labor force is conscripted, there is rationing, shortages, price controls, an inability to buy consumer goods, and a longer work week.
Many would argue: after the war was over, in 1946, when government spending fell by 67%, we experienced a tremendous economic boom. Why? because the normal economy was producing the consumer goods people wanted. That's when the Great Depression was over.
If we don't correctly learn from the past, it seems we'll be doomed to repeat it.
I've read on the economics topics a number of times of posters claiming that the massive government spending during WWII put an end to the Great Depression.
Usually it is done by Keynesians/Krugmanites trying to prove that massive government spending is needed to end the current recession, because that is what it did during the early 1940s.
While it did solve the unemplyment problem, I was always taught that many factors were used to measure an economy's health, not just employment. Things like GDP, inflation rates, prices, value of stocks and bonds, etc. etc.
The problem I have is this: it is hard to think of your economy as "growing" and a depression as "over" when 29% of your labor force is conscripted, there is rationing, shortages, price controls, an inability to buy consumer goods, and a longer work week.
Many would argue: after the war was over, in 1946, when government spending fell by 67%, we experienced a tremendous economic boom. Why? because the normal economy was producing the consumer goods people wanted. That's when the Great Depression was over.
If we don't correctly learn from the past, it seems we'll be doomed to repeat it.