I didn't realize it was this bad - Wars are not a friend of the U.S. dollar.

[avaistheone1]

I just came across this chart and I am stunned. Years ago I had read a work from a previous Nobel prize winning economist which made the case that wars are harmful for economies. Myself, I never thought that war was good for our economy, but I never realized how truly parasitic it is - as this chart illustrates. Eishenhower's words regarding the corporate miltary industrial complex seem ever the more prophetic and real to me at this moment.

[McCamy Taylor]

1. War spending is the worst way to jump start an economy---after tax breaks for the rich.

Education spending is the best way to jump start an economy. Health care spending and infrastructure spending are second to education.

Any politician who advocates military spending and tax breaks for the rich is secretly trying to wreck the economy---and drive middle class Americans into poverty, where they will be easier to control. This is what W. did.

[avaistheone1]

2. What a disaster it has been.

I just hope this administration, this Congress will stand up and make a real difference.

We are at the breaking point where it is readily apparent that our security depends on taking care of the needs of our own people, not fighting never ending wars against elusive boogie men.

[Echo In Light]

3. K&R

[Recursion]

4. There's this WWI-era myth that big companies like war

While some do benefit from military contracts and purchases, they would much rather have the kind of free trade that you can only have in peace. In fact up until the start of WWI the Rothschildes were frantically shuttling from capital to capital trying to talk the governments down from the ledge. Wars are bad for trade.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. Rothschildes didn't like it, but the Krupps LOVED it. nt

[LiberalFighter]

6. If the economy is based on the war what happens to funding for other areas of the economy?

I doubt that it helps it grow housing, business and other areas of the economy as much.

[Lorien]

7. And yet McCain said himself "If war weren't so profitable there would be a lot less of it"

(from the documentary "why we fight"). Like so many US endevors; it's only "profitable" to that elite 1%-the ones that keep their bank accounts overseas and their money in Euros.

[gristy]

8. Value of the dollar? Relative to what?

Relative to other currencies would be interesting. Relative to what goods it will buy in the US is simply a measure of inflation in years prior.

[caraher]

10. Good question. I don't understand the graph at all.

It's not as though high values = good times. The only sustained plateau on the overall pattern of decline on the graph is the Great Depression.

I'd agree that wars are not good for the economy, but I'll be damned if I can figure out how that graph proves the point...

[Hannah Bell]

9. the chart also shows depression to be good. it's a chart of inflation not war.

[avaistheone1]

11. No. I think what the chart is showing is that the New Deal was good for the economy.

The New Deal ran from 1933 to 1939 which is consistent with the graph's peak.

http://memory.loc.gov/learn//features/timeline/depwwii/newdeal/newdeal.html

[Hannah Bell]

14. The chart shows "the value of the dollar" (v. what standard, I have no clue).

"The value of the dollar" is not synonymous with "the economy". So I don't know why you think the chart shows the new deal was good for the economy, or why you think it ran from 1933 to 1939, either.

[girl gone mad]

13. inflation..

or dollar deflation, to be more precise.

I agree with the premise that wars are a net drain on the economy, though.

[amborin]

12. K&R