(JDupre5762) wrote in
:

Why not? Thousands of Americans could have served and thousands
more could have been building the weapons and bases that were
going to be needed. They could have been working in the factories
and shipyards that would have had us better prepared for WW2.

Um, no. You're wrong.

Let's pretend that in 1935 Ford's Dearborn plant was assembling
tanks instead of Model A coupes. First of all, these will be
1930s era tanks, obsolete within five years. Second, where is
the money to pay for these tanks coming from? It's a depression,
and tax revenues are in the toilet. Furthermore, you've got to
pay for people to man these tanks, people to maintain them, shells
to arm them, and transporters to move them to the front, all at
wages below the prevailing minimum at the time.

But with the plant churning out those Model A coupes, you're
employing people at Ford, at Goodyear, at the subcontractors,
at the oil companies, all without a single dime spent by the
Federal government. Instead, these employees are making a
decent living, paying taxes and, when the time came, buying
bonds to support the building of a modern armed force.

War is a revenue sink, not a revenue source. As my EC101
prof liked to say, "War is ****ty economics".

Roosevelt got it spectacularly wrong.

Thank God. Had the US tried to build the so-called "Arsenal
of Democracy" before 1940, the USAAC would have entered the
war with 10,000 P-26 Peashooters.

Even the Italians with their CR.42s would have busted a gut
laughing.


Your fiend,

Ed