Talk:Permanent war economy

A fact from Permanent war economy appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 7 February 2006. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the theory of the permanent arms economy is a Marxist theory to explain the long economic boom after World War II?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2006/February.

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Untitled

There are several gramatical errors here e.g. 'an own...' I wonder who thought this deserved to be "Did you know?" and why?

Those numbers can't be right.

The numbers about percent of GDP spent by the United States for military just don't sound right. How could it have fallen from 16% to 2%?! There were cuts in the 90s but not like that. I don't have numbers of my own so I'll just leave it alone. Otherwise very interesting article.

Glen

The numbers are from a graph of Harman (2003). According to this there was a peak in military spending as a share of GDP at about 16% in the early 50s, another one at 10% in the late 60s (Vietnam war) and finally one of about 5% in the early 80s (Reagan). Then this number dropped to below 2% 1997, the end-year of the graph. In real US-dollars (1992-US-dollars) spending used to be with ups and downs at around 260 bn. US-dollars per year. Alex1011 10:43, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Economist, February 11th, 2006: "Total discretionary defence spending": from 3 % GDP 2001 to 4 % 2005. (300 bn. $ to 500 bn. $) Alex1011 14:37, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is much more money now. Meaning that 15% then would only be a quarter of 2% now.

-G

Would it be more accurate and/or additionally informative to have defense spending as percentage of discretionary spending in the budget...I think it would give another perspective since the GDP measure appears to be misleading. Junior 03:24, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Footnotes

I don't want to mark this as unreferenced... but not marking specific areas of books is problematic as it does not allow us to verify this article easily. gren グレン 09:57, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Erwin or Edward?

Someone else inserted this in the main text; I'm moving it to here:

Actually, as the entries in Wikipedia on the two men make clear, Eisenhower's Secretary of Defense and Chairman of General Motors, Charles E. (Erwin)Wilson was not the same as Roosevelt's War Production Board vice Chairman and Chairman of General Electric, Charles E.(Edward) Wilson. It was the latter who made the argument for a permanent war economy (although he did not use the term) in a speech to the Twenty Fifth Anniversary Dinner of the Army Ordnance Association on January 19, 1944 which was printed in Vol XXVI,No. 143 of Army Ordnance.

Anyone know which CEW it actually was? James Haughton (talk) 04:02, 25 February 2009 (UTC) It was "Electric Charlie" -- Charles Edward Wilson, CEO of General Electric who advocated the permanent war economy.[reply]

War creates the most jobs

Could this phrase be added at the end of the last sentence in paragraph 2: "The term refers to the economic component.....are manifest as a permanently subsidised industry because it creates the most jobs." ? Stars4change (talk) 17:11, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's impossible for most people to survive without getting a wage job that makes them "do evil" to get their wage income, like making weapons, join military, automobiles, tobacco, & almost everything. Stars4change (talk) 17:04, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]