Wednesday, July 17, 2019

J. T. Harvey: The Cowboy Economist - How the American People (could not possibly have) Financed World War Two!

If you have rattlesnake on each arm and you shake one off, then things are a whole lot better, right?

War bonds didn't fund the US effort during WW2, but they did stop inflation.


We hear about the glorious job the American people did in financing World War Two. Only thing is, that story isn't quite right. They did something that was glorious, all right, but it was not financing the war--it was holding inflation in check.

2 comments:

hoonose said...

A related and very interesting book:

https://www.amazon.com/Keep-All-Thoughtful-Men-Economists/dp/1591144914?tag=nakorn-20

Joe said...

Good funny video.

The thing that gets me is that once you reflect upon it for just a minute or two, it becomes so incredibly obvious that it's hard to imagine anyone arguing against it. He put it in stark relief when he said something to the effect of "If we didn't have the money, you think we're just gonna sit there and let Hitler roll his tanks into our country while we sit idly by with plenty of unused resources?" Of course, it's always about real resources, but the VSP just can't grasp that, they're worried about numbers on a ledger.

I wonder, how did mainstream economic thinking get so messed up in the first plac? It should be obvious from day one that the govt has to issue the money first before it can collect it in taxes.. I mean, this was understood long ago with hut taxes and stuff. They knew the pounds originated in Englad.