tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post602580961037559366..comments2024-03-17T00:23:24.896-07:00Comments on Social Democracy for the 21st Century: A Realist Alternative to the Modern Left: Davies’s Top Three Myths about the Great Depression and the New Deal: A CritiqueLord Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-26907392440559362252013-07-03T13:15:41.149-07:002013-07-03T13:15:41.149-07:00What utter tripe.
'by definition, military pr...What utter tripe.<br /><br />'by definition, military production does not create wealth. Wars destroy wealth rather than create it.'<br /><br />Sure, buddy. The US and UK would've done much bettter to allow the Axis powers complete victory, and we'd all be better off on net somehow. Containment of Soviet power? Total waste across the board. We'd all be better off if Korea and Japan were abandoned to the soviet orbit. The wealth destroying occupations of these countries wrecked their economies along with that of the US. Seems legit.<br /><br />Not to mention that by a similar logic, police and court systems are also not 'wealth creating'. I suppose we'd be better off without them as well.Argosy Jonesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-80018817356015588462013-07-03T12:49:59.179-07:002013-07-03T12:49:59.179-07:00Yes, the social and economic consequences of the G...Yes, the social and economic consequences of the G.I. Bill were profound, not just in a personal sense (as you have just demonstrated with these interesting facts about your father), but also for the whole economy and society.<br /><br />It's likely that the G.I. Bill stopped unemployment from soaring too after 1945, as many of the demobilised went and pursued higher education.Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-11122215213380241372013-07-03T11:31:37.255-07:002013-07-03T11:31:37.255-07:00I don't know if anyone has researched this, bu...I don't know if anyone has researched this, but the war also gave the U.S. Government a gold mine of data on the health and intellectual abilities of the male population the armed forces processed through the draft. The poor physical condition of many of the recruits who grew up during the Depression alarmed the government and led to programs to improve the nutrition and health of the nation's children; while the IQ testing gave some idea of how many men from lower socioeconomic backgrounds had the cognitive abilities to benefit from higher education. This knowledge might have played a role in the inclusion of subsidies for college education in the G.I. Bill. <br /><br />I know my father, a poor Oklahoma farm boy, benefited from the G.I. Bill. The Air Corps drafted him after he turned 18 in 1945, looked at his IQ test results, and trained him as a cryptographer, which says something about his cognitive abilities at the time. After the demobilization, he used his G.I. Bill benefits to go to the University of Oklahoma and earn a pharmacy degree. He wouldn't have gotten a college education otherwise and he might have wasted his life as a manual laborer. Mark Plushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03859046131830902921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-82833540562103306672013-07-03T05:57:08.571-07:002013-07-03T05:57:08.571-07:00"For example, the American government’s inves..."For example, the American government’s investment in aircraft during WWII helped to created a great deal of new technology and the capital goods to produce new and better generations of aircraft after the war ended. Many new technologies were invented during the war that were useful in the peacetime economy after the war ended and in the production of consumer goods."<br /><br />Suggest you look at Alex Field's book A Great Leap Forward on productivity growth during the Great Depression. The logic of his argument is that war production was so effective because of the productivity growth up to 1941 not because of the stimulus of the war programme itself. However Field also argues that government intervention for the road building programme was crucial to that productivity growth. Tomhttp://www.creditcapitaladvisory.comnoreply@blogger.com