<p>Well, I’d venture to say that my AP Gov. teacher IS good at these things, as well as my Economics and APUSH teacher. Just sayin’</p>
<p>Haha</p>
<p>^ Just an observation: you laugh at the strangest times…</p>
<p>I “laugh” to relieve the tension. Also, I said, “Just sayin’”, which is an inside joke for myself and others.</p>
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<p>Einstein was good at physics too.</p>
<p>what annoys me is that you don’t dissect and critically analyse the idea for yourself, defending why war production is stimulating or good for the economy, or why the Broken Window argument doesn’t apply to it.</p>
<p>I specifically meant that World War II was good for the economy, not the current war. The majority of economists believe that.</p>
<p>I’ve analyzed the idea for myself. I think it’s true in some aspects and false in others. It wasn’t good for the quality of life, but it did technically bring the United States out of the Great Depression (ending in 1941).</p>
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<p>Because tanks, guns and planes are such quality-of-life-enhancing products.</p>
<p>$1 of real GDP is worth more than 1 million dollars worth of fake GDP accrued during war production that brings no benefit to my life whatsoever.</p>
<p>You also need to define “good for the economy”. What is good for the economy? How do you define it?</p>
<p>If you paid attention to what I said, you’d see that I said: “It was not good for the quality of life.”</p>
<p>For the United States, World War II and the Great Depression constituted the most important economic event of the twentieth century. The war’s effects were varied and far-reaching. The war decisively ended the depression itself. The federal government emerged from the war as a potent economic actor, able to regulate economic activity and to partially control the economy through spending and consumption. American industry was revitalized by the war, and many sectors were by 1945 either sharply oriented to defense production (for example, aerospace and electronics) or completely dependent on it (atomic energy). The organized labor movement, strengthened by the war beyond even its depression-era height, became a major counterbalance to both the government and private industry. The war’s rapid scientific and technological changes continued and intensified trends begun during the Great Depression and created a permanent expectation of continued innovation on the part of many scientists, engineers, government officials and citizens. Similarly, the substantial increases in personal income and frequently, if not always, in quality of life during the war led many Americans to foresee permanent improvements to their material circumstances, even as others feared a postwar return of the depression. Finally, the war’s global scale severely damaged every major economy in the world except for the United States, which thus enjoyed unprecedented economic and political power after 1945.</p>
<p>Uhhh all humanities content and no science/math content in that argument. utterly worthless. Analyse, not write an APUSH response.</p>
<p>What you have to prove is how WWII resulted in a <em>net gain</em> for the economy. What do you mean by “revitalize”? How is that not simply a gain that could have been gained in greater amounts anyway?</p>
<p>Let’s say my income rises by 10 dollars in real GDP and my neighbour’s income rises by 15 dollars in real GDP for each year of peacetime.</p>
<p>In wartime, my income rises by 5 dollars in REAL GDP, and my neigbour’s inecome is lowered by -3 dollars of real GDP. </p>
<p>It’s still a negative impact. I’ve “come out ahead” … but with lower
MB/MC.</p>
<p>But the scientifc method can not be properly applied to economics like it can be to the physical and life sciences since they can not preform controlled expierments, unless you know of any firm or industry that is willing to be the guinea pig. (this is stuff that is taught in the first week of macro)</p>
<p>The economics version of the scientic method boils down to: 1. collect data 2. form hypothesis 3. study history.</p>
<p>An example is my economics professor, as well as others, believes that deregulation contributed to us falling into this recession. Thankfully (I dont like professors who try to “enlighten” us to their way of thinking) she admits that there is no way to prove this, since you can not preform a controlled expierment, and that is why there are more than enough economist who say deregulation had nothing to do with this recession.</p>
<p>That is the reason why economist 1 says A and economist 2 says B where as chemist 1 and chemist 2 both say A since they can properly test a hypothesis.</p>
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<p>Yes! More Thompson production is absolutely what I want in a postwar economy. Internal economic development suffered during the war … the advancement of television, peacetime activity, peacetime infrastructure, education all suffered. </p>
<p>Know what that meant? </p>
<p>Intellectually and educationally, we were behind such that we were shocked when Sputnik was launched. </p>
<p>The effects to the delay of education are still felt today.</p>
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<p>Fallacy … the rapid scientific and technological development could just have easily developed in peacetime, and more effectively. (A more direct route … rather than the wasteful proxy route of using military applications => civilian applications.)</p>
<p>“The pent-up demand for roads, bridges, houses, cars, and even radios led to massive inflation in the late 1940s. The war delayed the commercial introduction of television, among other things, and the resources sent overseas to rebuild the rest of the world after the war were not available to directly benefit the American people.”</p>
<p>Galoisien, from where did acquire that statement?</p>
<p>I have to second what msc said…you can’t apply science and math where they do not belong, namely in this specific argument. You haven’t supplied me with any statistics either. You have simply used hypothetical situations to demonstrate your opinion. </p>
<p>Also:
Gross national product, not gross domestic product, was the widely used measure back then. You used GDP in your example.</p>
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<p>Ah, macroeconomics. Which is why it’s flawed. It tries to make a convergent argument, which doesn’t add up from the perspective of methodological individualism.</p>
<p>You can definitely perform a controlled experiment on the microeconomic level … game theory, dynamic equilibrium, evolutionarily stable strategy, mechanisms of human behaviour, etc. Then extend to a population using statistical methods. </p>
<p>Then slowly increase your model’s scope. </p>
<p>The same approach is taken in meteorology, where you start with the basic theory; atmospheric physics, radiation distribution, ideal gas law, etc. and then extend to a chaotic environment. The models are then refined and corrected with empirical data. If we had way more empirical measurements (the resolution of measurement, especially of surface to upper air maps, over the ocean and in the polar regions is quite poor), we could predict weather way more accurately.</p>
<p>Not saying that economics doesn’t employ math…but I think this debate cannot be solved with mathematics.</p>
<p>Even though the War Production Board implemented manufacturing bans on certain consumer products during World War II, it is important to realize that our economy grew substantially during this period due to nearly full employment and better cash wages that accrued from war jobs.</p>
<p>Roosevelt warned the country that we could not sustain a consumer economy and a war economy at the same time, but Americans did just that. While war spending jumped from $3.6 billion in 1940 (2%GNP) to a peak of $93.4 billion (nearly 50% GNP) in 1944, consumer (civilian) purchases of goods and services grew an astounding 12%.* The War Production Board estimated that labor productivity increased by 25% during the war years, even while millions of men and women were in uniform overseas. The economy was good due to the immense war production spending ending up in the pocketbooks of labor.</p>
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<p>Science and math <em>always</em> belong. ***. They are applicable, everywhere. Only a non-sciency person would say that.</p>
<p>No I haven’t supplied you statistics, but neither have you. A mathematical argument does not have to be a numerical one … rather one based on analysing the inputs and outputs of a given situation, and this little something called “opportunity cost”. (Indeed, you never analysed opportunity cost). You did not define revitalisation. What is “good for the economy”? How does a strong national government benefit the economy? How was WWII better for the economy, than having no war? And what made WWII better than current conflicts? The current conflicts are “revitalizing American industry too”… </p>
<p>Ah, I know! You’re paying the taxes (or your parents are) currently, of course you think the current war is less productive since it’s such a burden on <em>your</em> situation. But it’s so easy to accept fallacious arguments made about the struggles of people decades ago.</p>
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<p>You’re not looking at where the **** this money came from.</p>
<p>where did it come from? The government paid for it. How was it paid? By borrowing, or promising to pay … e.g. by increasing the national debt. Ultimately, American taxpayers paid for their own income … or borrowed the money, so to speak.</p>
<p>Look at the national debt today.</p>
<p>so … WWII revitalized the economy all right … all those loans … man, we made <em>such</em> a gain because of it. </p>
<p>You have to use opportunity cost analysis. (Please, please, stop ignoring the opportunity cost. It’s how broken window fallacies get made.)</p>
<p>And for those Keynesians who say this war spending was a form of “pump priming” … that form of borrowing could have easily been made in peacetime.</p>
<p>And don’t forget, there was massive war inflation during the war. An increase of 5% GNP in 1944 was not the same as an increase of 5% GNP in 1937.</p>
<p>why is this still going on</p>
<p>So, a simple question:</p>
<p>What’s your point in arguing all of this? What ultimate goal is being accomplished?</p>
<p>Clearly, you do not enjoy debate for the sake of debate.</p>
<p>I do enjoy it, but I don’t enjoy it with insults/obscenities.</p>