War Economy
Post date: Nov 16, 2010 12:0:23 AM
The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki marked the end of one war and the beginning of another: the cold war. The cold war may not have generated a lot of casualties, but it was nonetheless the longest and costliest war America has ever fought. War was unquestionably good for business – so good that in 1946 the president of General Electric went so far as to call for a 'permanent war economy.' he more or less got his wish. Throughout the 1950s,America spent more on defense than it did on anything else – indeed, almost as much as it did on all things together. By 1960, military spending accounted for 49.7 percent of the federal budget – more than the combined national budgets of Britain, France, West Germany, and Italy. Even America's foreign aid was overwhelmingly military. Of the $50 billion that America distributed in aid in the 1950s, 90 percent was for military purposes (p300-1).
Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States.
New York: Perennial, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2001. ISBN 0380713810.