War Profiteers: Merchants of Death
Whenever someone asks you to believe that war is good for the economy, he asks you to acquiesce in a conspiracy that murders to get gain.
The Cost of War
Last month I had a prolonged debate with an anonymous commenter . He wrote: " I don’t think world peace wouldn’t be great, just that it is completely unrealistic. But there you go again with the, “killing people” garbage. In your mind, Bush and congress gave the OK to go to Iraq, we strapped a bunch of bombs to some jets and went over there and just started letting loose on every Iraqi town we could find. Am I close? I don’t know if you just don’t do any reading about what we are doing and have done over there, or if this is another symptom of getting your news from Comedy Central . " and " By the way, did you know more people were murdered in Chicago last summer than died in the Iraq war last summer ? " Here's my response: 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange , resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects Landmines are cheap to make, easy to bury, and difficult to find and neutralize. A...
believing that war is good for the economy is a good thing to believe because it's true...it does help the economy. doesn't mean it's a good way to help the economy though.
ReplyDeleteThe idea "war is good for the economy" has been repeated so often as to become an accepted truism.
ReplyDeleteIf war is good for the economy, why don't we conspire with one of our allies to build the largest navies in the world. Then we can send our ships into the middle of the pacific, and, because life is precious, we can evacuate all of the sailors. Then let us sink the ships.
This sort of nonsense would certainly be good business for ship builders, but for few others. It results in a net loss of capital.
If war were good for the economy, then so would be burning down your house, or blowing up your car. Destruction, by definition, destroys wealth.
A war economy certainly creates jobs, by funneling money away from what taxpayers would have spent their money on, and giving it to the merchants of death.