Who won WW2?

December 30, 2008

I’ve been listening to The Tarp Song all afternoon and it reminded me of these clips with Peter Schiff and Stephen Leeb arguing about an auto sector bailout.

It appears Stephen’s great argument in favor of a bailout boils down to the US government’s successful campaign against Hitler. He’s not comparing economic recession to Nazism (I think, although it’s a curiously convenient analogy) his point is that sometimes big government spending programs can accomplish something. However, unfortunately for Stephen, his argument is ridiculous because even had Germany or Japan won it still would have a been a victory for big government. When big governments go to war, should you really be surprised a big government won? I’ve never heard of a government waging war against the market.

Not to mention all the other differences, like forcing people to ration consumer products in support of increased production. At the war’s conclusion American standard of living would rise dramatically because it was suppressed artificially. The new manufacturing base would flood the world with inexpensive and high quality products, despite paying workers more than any other nation, because the new factories were the most productive in the world. Today, rather than limiting consumption the government is subsidizing consumption with tax rebates and other stimulus plans at the expense of production by absorbing all the legitimate savings and diverting capital away from productive private industry towards unproductive failing companies, which is the exact opposite of FDR’s World War 2 policy.

Oops.