Altruism, Utopia, Morality, Socialism, Communism

Economic Depression and World War

On October 29th 2008 we recognized the 79th anniversary of 'Black Tuesday' – when the US stock market crashed setting off the Great Depression. Lately on the daytime and nighttime talk shows, news broadcasts, television news magazines, radio programs, etc... numerous experts, academicians, announcers, etc....speak about stopping the recession, depression, deflation, and job losses through the direct actions of the government. Even more interesting are the predictions that it may take till mid 2009 or even to the end of 2010 for these 'Economic Stimuli' to take effect and reverse the downward trend. They talk about 'creating jobs' through infrastructure and public works projects and putting 100,000 or even 1,000,000 people back to work. Those numbers not only sound great but are great but will they make a difference. The answer to that is 'no' because even 1 million people put back to work by government spending paid for by increased taxation of those still working is statistically insignificant. 'They' talk about 5 to 10 percent unemployment, but they never seem to tell you home many are actually still employed. Looking at data from December 2008 (see http://www.bls.gov/ --Table A - accessed on 12 Jan 09 at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm) we see that over 145 million people were employed and 9.3 million were unemployed. If we take all these 'great' initiatives to stimulate the economy and the numbers were to change for Jan 09 to 146 million employed and 8.3 million unemployed would that really change anything in the multi-TRILLION dollar US economy. It isn't too hard to see that even with a minimum of common sense (or cents) that the difference (except to the 1 million back at work) to the US economy is insignificant.

The Great Depression and the 'failed' policies of Herbert Hoover and the 'great' policies of Theodore Roosevelt for fixing the depression are frequently discussed. What most of the pundits consistently fail to mention is that there is no quick ( i.e. 1-2 year) fix for this problem. The Great Depression officially started in the fall of 1929 but it was still going strongly on the eve of the US entry into World War II with the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Even WWII did not stop the depression nor cure it. One needs to recall or read about rationing of basic items and foodstuffs to realize that the war did have a lot to do with it but it wasn't the reason people were rationing – there wasn't enough economic activity and production to meet the needs of the nation and certainly not those of a nation fighting a world-wide war.

From the http://www.americaslibrary.gov/ website for the Library of Congress:

“October 29, 1929, was a dark day in history. "Black Tuesday" is the day that the stock market crashed, officially setting off the Great Depression. Unemployment skyrocketed--a quarter of the workforce was without jobs by 1933 and many people became homeless. President Herbert Hoover attempted to handle the crisis but he was unable to improve the situation. In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president and he promised a "New Deal" for the American people. Congress created The Works Progress Administration (WPA) which offered work relief for thousands of people.

The end to the Great Depression came about in 1941 with America's entry into World War II. America sided with Britain, France and the Soviet Union against Germany, Italy, and Japan. The loss of lives in this war was staggering. The European part of the war ended with Germany's surrender in May 1945. Japan surrendered in September 1945, after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

(accessed on 12 Jan 09 @ http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/jb/wwii)

Earlier this week preceding the swearing in of our newly elected President many were calling for major cuts in military spending. This is a bad idea and not in the long-term interests of the national security or energy security of the United States.

We had the 'Peace Dividend' after the fall of the Berlin Wall because we 'wouldn't need a large military anymore' – well, turns out we did and now we're trying to rebuild not just the numbers but the experience and institutional memory of the more robust military force of the past. Throughout history crises and boom periods have been heralded as 'new era's of prosperity and peace' only to end in conflict and war again and again. This followed our American Revolution with the War of 1812, Mexican-American War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, The Great War (i.e. The War to End all Wars or World War I as it was later numbered), World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Cold War, Persian Gulf War (i.e. Operation Desert Storm), etc... How many times will we 'downsize' or 'rightsize' to divert money to other 'more worthwhile' causes and leave our nation inadequately defended and ill-equipped to hand crisis around the world. Do we let genocide occur again in Rwanda? Do we allow ethnic cleansing to take place in Bosnia or anywhere in the world?

We should not sacrifice military spending for programs that will not 'save' the economy anytime in the near future. We can't afford to do it economically or militarily. We would prefer to avoid another world war (even though we've declared a world-wide War on Terror, War on Drugs, War on Poverty, War on Hunger, etc... and we have yet to win any of these misnamed wars).

Our national security now and into the future

depends on demonstrating to the world that we

ARE

The Land of the FREE

and

The Home of the BRAVE!