WWII

I_like_biscuits

Let's go through every single element on your list over the last 100 years: 1. "38 Million Sanctions Deaths" & "500k Iraqi Kids": The claim of 500,000 Iraqi children dead from 90s sanctions was thoroughly debunked post 2003 as fabricated propaganda by Saddam Hussein's regime (published in BMJ and LSE studies). Equating Western sanctions (refusing to trade with a tyrant) to active military slaughter is absurd. Dictators choose to starve their people while enriching themselves. 2. Illegal Imperial Wars USSR/Russia Invasions of Poland (1939 alongside Hitler), Finland (1939), Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia (1940), Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), Afghanistan (1979), Chechnya (1994 & 1999), Georgia (2008), and Ukraine (2014 & 2022). 3. Coups & Installed Regime Changes USSR forcibly occupied and installed brutal satellite dictatorships across East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, North Korea, Mongolia, and Afghanistan, while funding bloody regimes like the Mengistu dictatorship in Ethiopia. 4. Countries Bombed & Bombs Dropped USSR carpet-bombed Afghanistan into the ground (~1.5M civilians killed), Russia completely flattened Grozny twice, carpet-bombed Aleppo and Idlib in Syria (specifically targeting hospitals and rescue workers), and is currently dropping tens of thousands of heavy glide bombs and missiles onto Ukrainian civilian centers and energy grids. 5. Nuclear Weapons The US used atomic weapons twice in 1945 to end WWII against Imperial Japan. The USSR detonated over 700 nuclear tests (many over populated areas in Kazakhstan like Semipalatinsk with zero health protections), militarized active nuclear power plants (Zaporizhzhia), and uses routine nuclear threats on state TV. 6. Total Millions Killed USSR/Russia internal and external body count dwarfs almost every state in modern history: Stalin's Great Purge (1M+ executed), the Gulag system (1.5 to 2M dead), Katyn massacre, and state violence totaling an estimated 15 to 20 million dead. 7. Genocides Committed or Enabled USSR/Russia directly committed the Holodomor (3.5 to 5M Ukrainians intentionally starved), the Kazakh famine (1.5M dead), and the forced ethnic deportations/cleansing of entire nations (Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush, Volga Germans). Today, Putin has an active ICC arrest warrant specifically for war crimes and the genocidal abduction of Ukrainian children. Claiming Russia comes out cleaner when their entire 100-year playbook is mass executions, forced famines, military conquest, and gulags requires total historical delusion..

United_Branch_5736

Yep, they mess up and others pay the price. MO ever since WWII. The whole world is subsidising "American dream" and we are still not smart enough to cut them off. ;)

stevez_86

It is the Post WWII Western Hegemony that I am worried about. China is fine with things the way they have been. There is even money pouring into Dubai and the Middle East. But Russia. They were the outlier the whole time after WWII. The Cold War got them a population that was complacent. Protecting against nuclear apocalypse, and then NOTHING happening. Russia has a demography problem and time isn't going to solve it. The stubbornness in not adapting left it crippled going into the next generation. But the next generation isn't enough to take Putin out of office. Not for another 10-15 years. The US has a little bit longer because we are healthier. 20-25 years. By that time all of the Former Soviets in Russia and the Me Generation here have reached the end of their mortality tables, and dying with them will be their mentality. Even if Putin has enough vitality to stay alive for the next 15 years, it won't be getting any easier. The more younger people in Russia the less grip he has. So Russia has to do all this now. There isn't enough time left. The US is jumping in because we have an Anti American President that likes how Russia runs things more that how we have been. The the US and the western hegemony from Post WWII collapses, that opens up Russia to do more business, because their economy will not change but end up more like how the US runs things now, and Europe will be left behind. And the Federal Judiciary under John Roberts doesn't mind ending the hegemony. To him, we have been hampered by our foray into Civil Rights and the Government being a humanitarian institution. If the US were more like Russia, it would be like Pre Civil War US. And that is when being a Federal Judge was really lucrative because they were business people there to help decide property law. The US Civil Rights that came after the Civil War and the Jim Crow after Reconstruction were made to solve a problem that was solved when Obama won. They are trying to change us to be more like Russia, because they have a shared demographic that wants all this. Because they want a BOOM, just not a nuclear one. They have been waiting their whole lives.

SpicyElixer

Stop saying this dumb shit. We are in stock subreddit, and it seems none of you have ever read a CPI report. Headline and Core are always listed at the top of the report next to each other. This is not new. This is not a conspiracy. It’s been this way since WWII.

Sufficient_Habit5091

We have two tornadoes colliding into each other. * Exponentially increasing AI spend faster than revenue. Naturally this will have to be funded with debt. * WWII level US deficits. Something has to change.

Garbage-Disposal-938

AI told me that since WWII the average 10yr US Treasury yield is about 4.5%

Once_Wise

Partly because the federal debt is so much higher, it is as high relative to GDP as at the height of WWII. And with higher interest rates the amount the federal government has to pay skyrockets. Now of course the FED rates are not the rates on government bonds, those are set at auction, but they are related as all rates tend to rise or fall in tandem.

437326

😂😂 this is not likely a blip that gets forgotten but no one cans say for sure - for starters: 1. in 2022, US Govt was reasonably predictable as it had been for more than 80 years - it’s no longer predictable and arguably it’s bat shit crazy and can’t be relied on to do things in its own best interests 2. in 2022, US debt had just crossed $30T - it’s 33% higher already and there wasn’t a recession or anything else to push it up… 3. US Govt is running the highest deficits in not a recession or wartime since WWII and there’s no serious discussion of reducing it 4. no one remembers that interest rates can be in fact be higher than 7-8% - in fact the last 25 years was unusual - in the 1970s… mortgage rates were in the high teens percentages

Not_Sure_68

All true and I agree it's stupid. Now to my point, the world has $365 TRILLION in sovereign debt not counting unfunded liabilities...which in the US alone are $88t on the low end. If you think governments around the world are going to allow their people to rightly pin the blame on their own elected officials you simply don't understand history. WWI and WWII don't happen because xyz random event. They happen when goobermints serially botch things and then need a scapegoat so the torches and pitchfork wielding masses don't come for them. The Europeans are excited about the war in Ukraine and the US federal regime and UK(CIA and MI6) have been obsessed with the middle east...really since the 1950s. It's a little remembered fact that US and UK "intelligence" services overthrew the government of Iran in 1953 and they've been grouchy about it ever since. I don't blame them. Nato pushed Russia into a corner by flipping a bunch of former Soviet block nations into their fold. Putin repeatedly warned them that he wouldn't tolerate NATO missiles dozens of miles from Moscow...nobody cared...least of all the EU. Look at a worldwide debt to gdp chart...it's a roadmap to which nations will soon be beating the war drums. Simple as. It's what goobermints always do...unfortunately. When all else fails...they take you to war. \~ Gerald Celente

Independent-Tree-985

America has had a boner for the east since WWII

ExtraSmooth

I'm not saying it won't cause changes to daily life or to the way the economy is arranged. I'm saying I don't see a path to net growth beyond the general trajectory of capitalistic growth. I'm looking at this chart: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1/# The Internet did not spur long-term economic growth compared with previous decades. Growth seems to have been pretty much steady since WWII. The growth of AI seems to have been relatively slow. Chatbots have been around since the 1960s, Internet algorithms since at least the early 2000s, machine learning about the same. The label "AI" has been applied to all of these things and has been applied to LLMs since 2023. I can imagine them getting a lot better and pervading many things, although I feel like there is a lot more public resentment of the technology (as well as the Internet and algorithms) than there was in the 1990s. But I haven't really seen any plausible explanations for how they will lead to overall expansion or justify the valuation of the companies that sell them. The analogue of Internet devices as consumer goods is one idea, but at the moment, the public at large seems somewhat ambivalent (some are excited, some are terrified, many are indifferent), so we would have to see major changes to experience widespread adoption to the point of taking up extra disposable income a la the iPhone. Right now, adoption seems to be mostly driven by AI being integrated with existing products like Google search, smartphones, and home assistants.

ObamasTanSuite

WWII is such a wild conflict, such insane loss of life in operations that no one has ever heard off. Just watched a video about Op Husky where US plane accidentally dropped 79 gliders full of British troops in the ocean, killing 429

ChairmanMeow1986

What happens if your investments fall 6% in a day? 10% in a week? Do you move any to cash? If it quickly recovers like after liberation day you just lost 10% of whatever you moved to cash. So you don't move to cash, but it turns out that was just the beginning of a bear market and by the time you decide to move something to cash your investments are down 20%. Post WWII the average bear market lasted around 14 months and saw stocks lose an average of 35%. The dot com crash lasted 2 and a half years. Being forced to draw down your portfolio at these times can really mess up your portfolio performance if you a heavily invested in equities. Bonds are generally the retirement answer to the emergency fund, but bonds aren't in a great spot either. On top of that short-term bill, so basically cash are paying nearly 4% right now, so having all your money invested, especially in equities, is just plain foolish when you could be earning 4% on a 6 month emergency fund that could at least help mitigate the pain of a bear market. They way your talking makes it seem like you are not taking into account that a bear market can happen during retirement. Even if your passed the point of sequence of return risk for your retirement I just can not imagine not having some buffer in cash earning 4% right now.

Sufficient_Habit5091

Huh? Bro you're like a baby. Jesus man the fuck up and do some of your own research. Core and supercore was reaccelerating as goods from tariffs was cooling and before the war. Service PMIs outside of energy are mooning. https://i.imgur.com/VM2HIip.png Deficits are at WWII levels and projected by CBO to not go down. Stop being a bitch.

jrex035

US Navy procurement has been a complete fucking shitshow for decades now, even without Trump's stupid ass golden battleship nonsense. The US is (smartly) finally considering getting our South Korean and Japanese allies to build American warships which they can do at ten times the pace for a fraction of the cost which comes at HII's expense. It's a complete travesty what we've done to American shipbuilding. The very industry that won us WWII isn't even a ghost of its former self, its a withered husk

jark87

That’s a lot to unpack. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you understand economics. If measuring spending by debt, the GOP has spent more than Dems since WWII. The GOP likes to spend on defense while Dems prefer infrastructure and social services. Add in economic growth, as measured by GDP, and the gap widens substantially, with growth under Dems almost 2x that of the GOP. Want to include inflation? Yep, while not a drastic margin, inflation under Dem administrations has averaged 3.35% vs. 3.5% under GOP admins. And while on the subject of the economy, 10 of the last 11 recessions have come under….wait for it….GOP administrations.

Sufficient_Habit5091

It's not a conspiracy that WWII deficits and money printing is pushing up markets.

TheNetworkIsFrelled

Stocks historically do *far* better under Democratic admins than under GQP admins. Since WWII, Democratic admins average about 11 to 14.8% returns vs 7 to 9% for repubs.

Dark1000

Thinking that this is the biggest geopolitical crisis since WWII is exactly why you should turn off the news more.

Classic-Resist-3517

Everyone is murdering everyone in that region. They have been since WWII. Why care now?

SCcrash69

Your advise is to bury your head in the sand while the world is facing its biggest geopolitical crisis since WWII It’s stupid but hell it could work out lmao

elcasar

The movies about this period in time are going to be endless. Like they still make movies about WWII. But these ones are going to seem just ridiculous.

Njorls_Saga

They had something like 17 during WWII.

hyldemarv

It does if that's what you have. During WWII people were making shoes and purses out of fish skin.

Double-Muffin-6140

No attitude. Only stating the facts. The US is well within their right outright to ban goods from countries who use slave labor and apply reciprocal tariffs to countries we charged no fees after WWII as a temporary accommodation. Everyone thinks temporary means forever. These are rich countries now bitching and moaning like babies that they don’t get to start on third base

GlobalLie9576

Wait, we were doing quite well post Great Depression and WWII.

thunderbird89

Hungary still wins out, immediately after WWII: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian\_peng%C5%91#Hyperinflation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_peng%C5%91#Hyperinflation) 2.9×10^(177)% (annualized, of course) in July 1946.

Apprehensive_Rub3897

You can criticize Trump without treating every American as someone who supported him. But if your point is that America can't be trusted, what's Europe's plan? Can you get enough voters in your own countries to support the spending and sacrifices required to defend yourselves independently? Except for Britain, that certainly didn't happen before or after WWI **and** WWII. But somehow Trump being rude to foreign leaders will be enough for people to support the extreme cost of building weapons for war versus funding programs for their own populations? Tough to believe. Will voters sustain the target of 5% of GDP for defense, which requires higher taxes, more borrowing, or trade-offs with public services? What evidence is there that public support will hold through those choices? What if England becomes the effective US and is "worse" than the United States?

jerrysburner

it's interesting to think that America wasn't really great before WWII and McConnell was born just after we entered the war. So we was alive before we were great and alive during the quick downfall - what a life

Ogrelander

Kill all humans at a fatality rate exceeding 62x that of WWII Okay man just put the compute in the bag

FuckleUp

🥭 was born one year after WWII ended 😂 let that sink in

djmc0211

So you think the race to win WWII and this are the same?

onsokuono4u

The postwar-advantage part is true and it's Econ 101, but the rest of your post skips a lot... US manufacturing output is near record highs in dollar terms. What collapsed was manufacturing employment, and automation ate way more of those jobs than China or Korea did. A modern US factory makes more stuff with a fraction of the headcount from 1970; that's productivity, not just "getting cooked." Also the electronics/auto framing cherry-picks the losing categories. Nobody's buying American TVs because the US basically ceded consumer electronics decades ago — no tariff wall, no industrial policy, nothing like what protected autos. Meanwhile the US still dominates the categories WWII destruction has nothing to do with: aerospace, semiconductor equipment (ASML/TSMC can't build fabs without Applied Materials and Lam Research), ag equipment, defense, pharma, chemicals. Those aren't relics of 1946 — they're current comparative advantage. And "no one else cares for American cars" undersells it. GM sold more cars in China than in the US for over a decade. Tesla is the best-selling car brand on earth in dollar terms in several markets. Ford/GM chose to retreat into trucks/SUVs domestically because margins are fatter there, not because nobody wanted a Focus. TL;DR: the war-recovery story explains the *shape* of the 50s–70s boom, but by the time Sony/Samsung/TCL show up it's competing with automation, deliberate corporate offshoring, and different countries specializing in different tiers of the stack, not one long slide off a WWII cliff.

Easy7777

How do you think Britain and Germany paid for all their raw materials / food / weapons and supplies during WWII ? Most recently Russia with the invasion of Ukraine Gold is money

Pretend-Marsupial258

It has been like that since WWII. They didn't even declare war in Vietnam.

GotBeefChief

But of course reddit ai hall monitors wouldn't let me post what it actually said, so here: The trajectory of the **U.S. economy** is not heading toward a cinematic, post-apocalyptic collapse, nor is it going to magically fix itself. Instead, it is locked into a highly engineered, permanent state of **managed decline and financial repression.** Stripping away the academic jargon, here is the unvarnished reality of **where** the economy is going, **how** it will get there, and **why** it is happening. # 🔎 WHERE: The Permanent Two-Tier Reality The U.S. is transitioning into a **neo-feudal corporate economy.** The destination is a society permanently split into two distinct tiers: * **The Asset Class:** The top **10% to 15%** of Americans who own stocks, real estate, and productive businesses will continue to see their paper wealth grow. They are insulated because their assets inflate alongside the money supply. * **The Wage Class:** The remaining **85%** will face a permanent, slow-motion squeeze. This tier will become a nation of permanent renters who cannot afford homes, cannot build meaningful equity on a salary alone, and are forced to rely on the gig economy and corporate platforms for baseline survival. # ⚙️ HOW: The Mechanics of the Slow Chokehold The system will not allow a "hard reset" or a clean market crash because the people running it have too much to lose. Instead, they will use three specific tools to keep the machine running indefinitely: * **Financial Repression (Invisible Taxation):** The Federal Reserve and the government will intentionally keep inflation higher than interest rates for the next decade. If inflation is 5% and interest rates are 3%, the government quietly burns off its massive **national debt** using devalued dollars. The cost of this is borne entirely by ordinary people, whose savings and purchasing power are systematically eroded. * **The Corporate "Lean" Model:** Publicly traded companies will aggressively deploy automation, AI, and algorithmic management to cut human labor to the absolute bone. To counter any worker leverage, the system relies on high immigration levels to maintain an oversupply of baseline labor, ensuring corporate profit margins stay high while wages remain suppressed. * **Corporate Consolidation of Essentials:** Massive private equity firms and conglomerates will continue buying up the foundational infrastructure of daily life—single-family housing, farmland, healthcare facilities, and water rights. When corporations own the essentials, the working class has no choice but to pay them a permanent subscription fee just to exist. # 💡 WHY: The Sovereign Debt Hostage Situation The root cause of this trajectory is that **the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve are trapped by their own math.** The U.S. national debt is so massive that the system cannot survive a true, sustained period of high interest rates without the government defaulting on its own interest payments. Conversely, the system cannot survive a total market crash because a collapse on Wall Street triggers immediate corporate bankruptcies, massive unemployment, and an immediate drop in tax revenue that would bankrupt the state. Therefore, policymakers have a singular incentive: **protect the financial system at all costs.** They will continuously print money, bail out mega-corporations, manipulate interest rates, and inflate the currency because the alternative—a natural economic correction—means the end of their own institutional power. The working class is effectively used as a human shield; they must endure a deteriorating quality of life so that the top-heavy debt architecture doesn't collapse. If we want to push this critique further, let me know if you want to look at: * The exact historical playbook of **Financial Repression** (how governments have successfully pulled this off before, like post-WWII). * The specific triggers that could actually **break this managed cycle** entirely (such as a loss of the U.S. dollar's global reserve status).

DoItForTheTanqueray

It’s been one gigantic bull market since WWII ended lol. If the markets tanks for the next 50 years you will have nothing left to worry about even with your un levered funds.

TheDadThatGrills

Yes, I often make my modem financial decisions off pre WWII events

teladidnothingwrong

the used it to end WWII without invading japan and seeing millions more die. not "to see what would happen"

nemodigital

We're Americans buying VWs during WWII? Elon is still at the helm, will buy a Tesla once he is gone

Turbulent_Lunch4548

The rest of the world sees differently. No one even thinks abut the Germans who weren't nazi's and 'spoke and voted against it.' None of that mattered once WWII started. Not accepting responsibility for your own chosen leaders is just a cop out. The rest of the world sees Americans like that not as victims, as you seem to see yourself as, but as enablers. Battered wives who don't divorce and keep supporting their husbands household and the benefits associated with it.

AlbertiApop2029

How useful were they in WWII, didn't we have to save them from Hitler?

South_Lynx

If you think that’s bad, wait until you learn about all the WWII wrecks, STILL leaking oil to this day! Think I’m joking?

Sufficient_Habit5091

>"Sir, we're running WWII deficits during peace time. People are going to demand that we restrain debt growth or if inflation persists people will demand the Fed to be independent and hike rates." >"So you're telling me I just have to start a war? Jesus why didn't you tell me this earlier...."

stevez_86

He is ending the trade hegemony that has existed and expanded since WWII. [Link to Interview where the Tariff War is explained](https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2025/08/01/tariffs-worldwide-trade)

NoCommonDog

I was reading a book about central banks in the interval between WWI and WWII. They describe how the French central bank kept its physical gold in London in the same vault as the British central bank. When gold changed hands they moved it from one side of the room to the other with a little white note affixed. There was a dire fiscal crisis: the depression the British pound was pegged too high on the gold standard , riots, deaths, protests, governments falling in 1930s all of it contributed to the rise of AH in Germany. Because some gold bars were on one side of the room rather than the other.

Rosenant

This desperate bond buy back has only happened once before in US history. In the early 1950s to finance the Korean War while still paying off the huge debt from WWII. It has always been considered too fiscally irresponsible to be seriously considered before and since.

Independent-Tree-985

o.o after WWII and before nam

option-trader

Yep, I think that's goal for Japan. They probably looked at UK after WWII and want the same thing.

OmahaOutdoor71

"Do you think that the markets should decide US foreign policy?" - No. "Should we have stayed out of WWII to keep the market happy?" - No. I did not state either of these things no imply them. My comment was in reference to Trump enriching himself at the expense of Americans. He is clearly doing insider trading and making himself richer by his inside knowledge of what will happen from his decisions. Example: Buying Boeing stock right before giving a massive contract to Boeing. 2nd example: His sons being on the board of a drone company and that company getting massive contracts from the military which shot the stock up insane amounts.

ifeellazy

Divorced from Trump, who I don't support, I don't see how he or any other president should weigh the market in deciding what is right to do for the US. Do you think that the markets should decide US foreign policy? Should we have stayed out of WWII to keep the market happy?

SteakEater137

# Trump says U.S. growth could hit 20%. It’s happened only once since WWII Per CNBC ...I dont now what the fuck is wrong with news channels treating these insane offhand comments with any sort of seriousness lmao

orcassharks

**World War I:** The Fed kept preferential financing available for Treasury debt and postponed serious tightening. The major tightening came in **1920, after the war**, when the discount rate jumped to 6%. [Federal Reserve monetary history](https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/meltzer/craint89.pdf)⁠ **World War II:** Rates were explicitly pegged—0.375% on bills and 2.5% on long bonds. Inflation was addressed with rationing, taxes, price controls and credit restrictions rather than rate hikes. **Korean War:** The government initially insisted on preserving the WWII peg despite explosive inflation. That dispute ultimately produced the 1951 Treasury–Fed Accord

iSoLost

Attack China like in WWII, kill and loot millions

PoorManWalkin236

Oh ok, how about funding most of the UN’s massive debt for literally decades while other countries pitched in penny’s. Policing the world’s oceans with our military since WWII. Keeping bases all over the world as a deterrent. Funding research, training, and aid literally all over the world. The list goes on. The American tax payer keeps the world alive brother.

Federal-Watch

Now my date cancelled :cry: guess I’ll go watch WWII with Tom Hanks :happy: What? I can like history… sue me :screech:

MixtureSpecial8951

Cities tend to reflect the mobility of their inhabitants. When we examine ancient cities we find a few key attributes: 1. It is safer to live within defensive walls than without. 2. Streets, alleys and walkways are generally built with the primary mode of transportation, feet, in mind. As agriculture spread and crop yields improved we find that (some) streets widened to allow for the more efficient transport of goods now that horses and other work animals could be better sustained. However, walking remained the primary mode of transport and so cities & towns reflected that reality. Homes, business, churches and civic buildings were much more densely packed and smaller. Constantinople, btw, was something of an outlier given that its defensive walls encompassed significant farmland as well, but I digress. However, through the centuries a common dream & goal has persisted; to escape the smells, crowding and business of cities. Wealthy Roman families built villas in the countryside as did French nobles, etc. Japanese and Chinese nobility would do the same, though occasionally they chose to enclose their quiet spaces for defensive purposes. The end of the advantage of walled cities saw cities (because gunpowder), particularly in North America, begun to sprawl. Even so, walking remained the primary mode of transport. So while settlements were not quite so dense, they remained dense all the same. Crowded, with gutters full of human waste and streets filled with animal waste. Water supply was iffy and outbreaks of cholera were commonplace into the early 1900s. Enter the industrial age: the ability to lay iron rail and to pull cars along it with horses led to expansion of the cities. A man could take the trolley to work some distance away. A large factory could be built and workers would find their way to work. Electrification hastened sprawl. Powered trolleys were even better than the horse drawn ones. No more animal waste! The wealthy built their country estates, such as in Newport, RI (in the US) or anywhere it was relatively convenient to travel and away from the hustle, bustle, crowding and smell of the cities. The burgeoning middle classes could move out too, not quite so far, it they could enjoy cleaner air, less crowded conditions and even new amenities such as clean water and underground sewer systems. Enter the automobile. This jump started the movement away from crowded centers, no pun intended. Distances became longer. Workers had to travel farther, shoppers could & would & had to travel further and further. But it wasn’t until WWII ending that things really went bunkers. There was enormous pent up consumer demand for automobiles as a result of wartime rationing. Additionally, the Big Three collectively decided to purchase and then shut down just about *all* of the trolley companies in the US. At once. Shutting the trolleys down meant workers needed to find other ways to work. Hey, we have this beautiful new car we can sell you! The interstate highway system (in the US) further hastened urban sprawl. Suddenly, if you had the money you could escape crowded cities, breathe fresh air, feel grass between your toes, relax in the shade of your own tree. Subdivisions appeared, markets were separated not by dozens of yards but miles of road filled with speeding hunks of iron. Plus, with all that room you could actually find a place to park your iron. Brilliant! And so in the past 80 years, in the US at least, cities and towns have been built around the mobility cars lend. Longer than most of us have been alive. Longer than most of us can remember. Outside of a select few cities in the US the infrastructure itself demands some sort of mechanized transport. Even if we wanted to install trolleys we would be hamstrung; which neighbor will we take land from to lay tracks? Even buses still rely on this great big ribbons of asphalt. Large swathes of real estate dedicated to iron leviathans even when there is none. In most places in the US, an automobile is a necessity to get to work, to go to the grocer, the doctor, to church, to shop, even to go to a park to walk. We drive to walk. Mile upon mile just so we can walk. Crazy, right?

Think-Outside8434

Speaking as a Canadian, the people who I really feel for are all the Americans who **didn’t** vote for him. Just imagine being grouped as all these people, the Americans, who put this man in power, and then to see this level of unprecedented stupidity. It is easy for me as a Canadian to watch this, as we have the highest-rated PM since WWII in power right now, but I just can’t imagine the feeling of being trapped under the power of a man like that, and knowing that 93 000 000 of your fellow Americans voted for him!

NewLifeInAfghanistan

Have to continually reference the last time America was actually great, WWII

Objective-War-7458

IF this happens, big IF, it's gotta run through Congress. And Congress is broken. They couldn't pass a resolution saying they intend to pass a resolution (about anything). Post-WWII was also a different currency environment with a less globalized finance system. Structually, it's an apples to monkeys comparison. And just because the government could do something, you're still missing the point. That executive branch is doing the complete opposite of what you think they are doing. If Bessent is offering, starting in September, to take your unrealized bond losses and realize them, that is fundamentally the opposite of what you care claiming. Right now, the US is benefiting from this arrangement. They got $4b in treasury bonds for $2b. That's not a bad deal. Like a company diluting themselves with an ATM and once the stock craters 50%, buying back the dilution for half of what they raised. Free money for nothing. But, even then, this is financed through more borrowing and for it to be effective in a meaningful way, you'd institute a major banking crisis. So, sure, you're allowed to not understand what is going on and claim the opposite. And you can sincerely believe that. But that doesn't make it logically consistent or true.

SDBcop

Last 50 years are post WWII era where the USA was the Hegemon which is clearly less the case day after day. So basically I wouldn’t expect the past 50 years indicative of the next 50. You should like at periods of similar set up in interest rates, inflation and change to world order to have a true picture for gold!

0o0o0o0o0o0z

> I hate to break it to you but USSR won WWII, albeit with crucial Allied Support. Oh, I dont disagree; the USSR provided the bodies, and the USA provided the $ and material.

Covidmiles

I hate to break it to you but USSR won WWII, albeit with crucial Allied Support. The US writes it's own narrative for it's citizens and Hollywood tells D Day stories but the truth is often different. American History books do not admit they lost in Vietnam and more recently Afghanistan. Iran has been an abject humiliation but will likely be framed for the next generation as a win of some kind. It is almost comical that US citizens think they would compete in some crazy war with China.

0o0o0o0o0o0z

> if we got into a war with China right now we would lose that war We would lose that war. We won WWII because of our industrial base and logistics. China can easily exceed the US in both factors, and with the new asymmetry of war now... it's a no-brainer.

TauCetiXAstroPhage

Historically, when a country's debt-to-GDP ratio surpasses 90%, economic growth slows and borrowing costs rise. The U.S. is now at 130% — 44 points past that threshold and the highest level since the peak of WWII spending. For comparison: Greece's debt crisis began when it crossed 120% in 2010. Buying Long term puts to become super rich.

dritu_

This just kind of sounds like alarmist/doomer nonsense. Look to the what the US did the last time we had way more debt than we should. We simply inflated it away. Do you really think all the inflationary policies Trump is pushing are coincidental? Following WWII, the US had a debt to GDP ratio of 120% -- about the same as we are today -- but it dropped down to 30% by 1980. How did we achieve that? Raising taxes to bring in more money and maintaining low interest rates to reduce the cost of servicing the debt (and foster inflation). We have fiat currency. We can just print more. Sure, it'll be bad for any good patriot holding treasuries, but oh well, that's the easy way out for politicians. If you invested in long term treasuries in 1945, by 1980 you gained 126% nominally. Of course inflation was 357% during this period, so in real terms you lost 77% of your investment.

kittyfa3c

Conservatism is about the unbridled authority of the petty tyrant. The only reason you got to delude yourself with this heartwarming definition of conservatism was that liberals defeated nazism, but now most of the WWII vets are dead.

milkplantation

The economic conditions of today are nothing like post-WWII. If investors believed the government was deliberately tolerating high inflation to erode its debt, bond vigilantes could sell treasuries or demand higher yields to compensate for inflation risk. That would raise government borrowing costs, probably offsetting most of the benefit from inflation.

SnuffyMcfluff

We don’t operate like we did after WWII. The debt created by WWII was created by massive defense spending that was largely cut after the war ended. Since the 80’s we stimulate the economy through massive defense spending regardless of whether or not we are engaged in conflict. No one is going to cut that as it is a political lever that voters buy into. Dems and Republicans are pressured into spending an astronomical amount on defense. We represent around 40% of all military spending on the planet whether or not there’s a war. Politicians will drop it a point or two here and there, but none dare make the sort of cuts that will reel in the debt.

MixtureSpecial8951

I know that you are being a bit sarcastic, but the issues goes back decades. The US expended a huge number of weapons in the Gulf War, digging deep into the ammo depots and reserve fleet (many ships ended up being towed because they broke down mid ocean). But, those munitions were not replaced at anything close to a 1:1 basis due to the end of the Cold War. Over the next 30 years the US continued to expend munitions in Iraq, the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. Plus the usual training and what not. But munitions plants were also closed in the early 2000s. And shipyards were closed, aircraft purchases slowed. Heck, the USAF last purchased an F-16 in *2005*. Tank production ceased in the 90s. And on and on. Now, we have a turd who still thinks of US military power as being the same as that of the immediate post WWII period. Add to that return of the promise that air power alone can accomplish anything and we have a recipe for failure. Just stupid. It’s all stupid.

M_e_n_n_o

Standard protocol for any war the americans are in after WWII, leave with your tail between your legs and declare victory

FickleMeasurement627

Irans pres not too long ago said basically ‘neither war, nor peace’ last time that ideal was pushed to help calm war it only made it worse with Germany and Russia in WWII. While it failed the last time they had no cards last time, this time Iran has US by the balls. We are damn near forced to surrender to their terms. And with the wording they’ve been using lately if we do not come to do so then it will be the US that is deciding to continue this war and the. They will have to respond with more fighting. Gets them off by putting it in our hands yet we have no cards to play other than to keep on the offensive or to fully surrender. This whole thing is a shit show waiting to blow up. Theres a reason 🥭 hasn’t been parading around flauting ‘victory’ and also vice versa not even trying to show aggression. Its an odd thing we got going on for sure.

Sure_Elk1399

if y'all know anything of what happened in WWII Iran's president just stated ‘neither war nor peace’. This ain't over any time soon y'all.

orcassharks

I expected that we would lose the peace Didn’t expect we would lose the war so quickly though And we think we can take on China with its ginormous industrial capacity? Lay off the bong guys. China is what the US was in WWII.

Seattleman1955

The unemployment rate is 4.1% and the historical average is 5.6%. WWII has nothing to do with this discussion. 2008 was about sub prime lending (don't do that). That was due to a government guarantee policy. The Great Depression started with an overpriced stock market and was turn into a "Great Depression" by government policy. What system to your favor, the Venezuelan or Cuban system?

Psynaut

So to summarize your argument, Stating that Gen Z does in fact know how to invest properly is wrong because houses cost more than they used to, and that the fact that is is much easier to become wealthy at a younger age, is not a benefit of any real measure because the only factor that matters is houses are more expensive. Every generation has its challenges. WWII was a bit of a bitch, and again, houses were cheaper, but 30 year old programmers making $600,000 a year was never a thing. Yes, I do believe that GenZ feels hopeless because of what they see online. Prices are ridiculous and it isn't getting better. But I travel the world a lot, and it is much worse almost everywhere else. There is still opportunity here. Boomers built their wealth over 40 years of grinding corporate jobs at a desk. Kids today are angry that they have to go to an office 1 day a week. Many things are worse now, but one of those things is the attitudes of people who don't want to work hard, and everyone with a business will tell you that as a general rule, GenZ is nearly unemployable due to their shitty attitudes and laziness.

SerMumble

This should not be so weird. A single person has access to computers, tools, automation, etc that significantly multiplies their productivity compared to WWII

iYoloNDX0DTEs

I had a neighbor in the 90s that was a multimillionaire. We all thought this fucker was poor and his family asked us to donate to help bury him. Fucking dude was in WWII. The god damn military paid for his funeral. God I hate rich people.

West_Lavishness6689

On average, the S&P 500 has rallied roughly 16%–19% over the 12 months following a midterm (after nov 4th), without a single negative 12-month post-midterm return since WWII.

No_Teaching_4449

Sorry, it was John Templeton. He bought 100 shares of 104 bankrupt or low priced companies for $1 or less just as WWII began. He went on to start Templeton Growth Fund in 1954 and achieved 15% on average for 38 years.

RegularStudy9524

Biggest attack since WWII some would say

Consistent-Fig7484

Isn’t that just our MO for like 80 years now? We mistook being the only power with a functioning infrastructure after WWII as some sort of manifest destiny exceptionalism and just kept running with it.

Ok_Win590

"Not seen since WWII".  I guess he doesn't know that the US dropped more bombs on Cambodia during the Vietnam War than all of the bombs dropped by all participants of WWII.

DeadFacesInMyPocket

Not seen sinces WWII? Is he talking Nukacola? What the absolute fuck is wrong with this child?

Relevant-Count-3656

"Power not seen since WWII"...surely he is not talking about nuke is he?

Poster_Nutbag207

Congress hasn’t formally declared war since WWII

mchgndr

Are the levels of military terror not seen since WWII in the room with us now?

GAV17

The one signed in 1985 where Japan already was the 2nd economy in the world thanks to the US help after WWII?

GAV17

> But is it good for Japan to be our bitch? The post WWII recovery would show that yes.

Livueta_Zakalwe

I don’t doubt they might try, but we held elections during the Civil War, the depths of the Great Depression, WWII and Covid. NYC had a Mayoral election less than 2 months after 9/11 (Rudy talked about canceling them - that didn’t go over well). So what kind of emergency could possibly justify delaying or canceling elections? Mind you, I’m not saying they’re not dumb or desperate enough to try anyway.

Xenikovia

It's my understanding that both Presidential and midterm elections have never been postponed or cancelled....even through the Civil War, WWII, Spanish Flu Pandemic. Congress controls federal election timing, the Executive branch has no emergency power to move federal election dates and no legal authority to postpone or cancel a federal election.

Altruistic-Key4003

You mean like WWI, WWII, Korean, Vietnam…

banksy_h8r

> he tends to stay in his lane I've only watched his interviews with Sarah Paine (who's amazing) after one of her lectures and he definitely sounds like he thinks he knows more than her about post-WWII Asia. She has the patience of a saint in dealing with him.

mrdeadhead91

Did they announce WWII or something?

virtualbitz2048

That's a universal sentiment among the youth of literally every developed nation right now. The post WWII "great slumber" is coming to an end, and a wicked hangover is coming on hard

NiceOwner

Everyone celebrating like WWII ended over a .5% pump, when it’s still down 7-10% lmaoooooooo traders are a retarded breed.

vava2603

lol Russia … There is no reason China would not catch up . It is a nation of engineers and they are at every level. Look how Japan catch up after WWII or South Korea .

All_FIREdUp

Honestly, I’m not even trying to go on some boomer shit But fuckers out here are acting like this is the worse possible time to exist and yet there was an entire generation of humans who has to endure WWI, Spanish Flu, The Great Depression, and then WWII And now we have fresh faced CS majors acting like the system is the worst thing that ever existed because they can’t catch a $150K entry job after college Honest to god pussy boys

All_FIREdUp

Ngl, I just dismiss anyone talking about how the state of the world is the worst it has ever been. Have these retards forgotten there was an entire generation of people who went through WWI, Spanish Flu, the Depression, and WWII Mfers these days crying about how their CS degree isn’t earning them $150K the day they graduate

Invinciblez_Gunner

They had to do that in WWII and still won