[Quartus]

Meanwhile, the Homeland Security Research Corporation predicts that global homeland defense as an industry will almost double in three years, from $100 billion in 2003 to more than $170 billion by 2006.



Hmm. WWII did a great job of getting us out of a depression...



The full story is about wireless network security (http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6298-5053938.html) , but it's not too technical and there are some interesting tidbits there for lovers of freedom.

[telomerase]

Hmm. WWII did a great job of getting us out of a depression...

Post hoc fallacy. Killing people and blowing things up doesn't produce wealth. (If it did the best economies would be in the Mideast and ex-Jugoslavia). The US recovered after WWII, because some of the worst of the New Deal was ended; remember that the Republicans actually won the 1946 elections (not that they were really for free enterprise, just shows that the public mood had shifted).

[Kaylee]

further, as I recall, we were about the only major industrial power left standing (more or less untouched on the homefront even!) after WWII. There were a whole lotta countries needing rebuilding, and we had a whole lotta just-released-from-the-war-effort industrial capacity. *

The post-WWII boom was the result of a historical oddity from an economic standpoint... something a lot of modern "let's go back to 60's-style income redistribution and expand the Welfare State" neo-coms don't seem to understand. Nor, for that matter, those advocating another global war to boost the economy.

Money for investment in war material comes from somewhere... it's gotta be either taxed or borrowed -- either way, it comes out of the private sector. Which means reduced investment in more productive endeavors. (Really, which gets more return on investment -- a passenger plane or a bomber?)

Now no, I'm not saying that national defense isn't important. Only that looking to massive military spending to bolster the economy is fruitless over the long run.



-K

[Marko Kloos]

Never mind that the long, fruitless wars tend to get expensive, without giving much return on that investment. The U.S. military missed an entire modernization cycle because of Vietnam. I suspect that the same will be true if we slog through the Iraq mess for another 5 years or so, at the cost of $80+ billion per year.