Historical Perspective on our American wars
 

Interesting perspective.

Total US deaths during WW1 = 116,516
Total US deaths during WW2 = 405,399
Total US deaths for both wars = 521,915

US total costs of WW2 alone in 2019 dollars = $4.1 trillion.

Did we win the war and recover from that enormous national debt? You betcha.
How? We made the necessary sacrifices and came together with unity as a nation.

We're at war with COVID-19
The total US deaths from COVID-19 = 523,000 to date. That already exceeds WW2.
Will we win the war? Will our national debt be unsurmountable?
Only if we don't make the necessary sacrifices, and come together with unity as a nation.

Apples and oranges. Sophistry. Soft.


Stir the pot first quote.

The civil war in the US had over 600,00 deaths.

The Covid deaths are inflated. (I have a relative counted inaccurately) and that can't be the only one. I recall some issues with counting votes in certain states inaccurately. The Media lies 99.9% of the time so how does anyone know true numbers. How many people die from Cancer and Heart Disease or regular flu. How about people that die from OLD AGE. Why did you not mention them?

The National Debt will never be payed down. The government always spends more than it receives "always" just look at any spending curves. That is why interest rate is ZERO. Interest would make the National Debt increase to amounts where we would need outer space numbers to describe.

Just watch what gets spent this year compared to what is taken in.

Just wait for the war on fossil fuels. You have not seen anything yet.

Good news is we are retired and live in The Villages in the state of Florida. Otherwise, kumbaya (oops).

IMO The comparison skew IMO all the world wars majority didn’t have choice and we’re young. So most likely 99.% wouldn’t died if they didn’t have to go to war.

Not that I’m down playing Covid, but the fact is IMO lots would of died anyway of other illnesses COVID was the last straw. That don’t make it better, just you can not compare the two. Both were awful and IMO unnecessary.

A different perspective, worldwide so far, Covid has claimed about 2.6 million people. WW1 and WW2 claimed between 110 - 125 million people worldwide. Then consider during WW2 the entire world population was approx. 2.6 billion while the population today is approx. 7.9 billion. Covid deaths will likely be a pimple compared to the devastation and deaths of World Wars.

I don't understand the comments about sacrifice and unity of our nation. Covid is a worldwide problem and I can't believe, or don't want to believe, that somehow the USA will be less capable of recovering than any other country.

Break out your wallet. Times are a lot different.
No personal resolve.

Strange......in 2008, our debt soared with the depression and actions taken to get out of that.......in 2016, for whatever reason...tax cuts...we entered unchartered territory for debt.

Difference to me is, suddenly in the last few years, we decided that debt was good. Any sane conversations on this forum, where debt was raised as an issue, was dismissed.

We find ourselves in territory now that we must give help to fellow Americans and business’s and while we thought we had reached the ultimate in plateaus’s we will exceed even that.

In my opinion, we have spent the last years putting our economy in perilious waters.

To top it off, those with money get richer, and the income disparity is at all time highs.

All predicted but the journey out is fraught with serious hurdles, and will require cooperation within our society, which we Americans are not prepared to give.

1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus) | Pandemic Influenza (Flu) | CDC.

The 1918 pandemic is a better example. WWI or other violent worldwide overthrows of governments not so much.

The Face of Battle - Wikipedia

Read some of John Keegan's excellent books on what combat is like for soldiers, sailors and the like. John Keegan - Wikipedia

Some of our front line workers fighting against the Corona Virus have it quite bad as well but that is quite different when they were burning down towns and bombing cities in WWII. And partially in WWI.

It's excess deaths that should be looked at - take the average death rate and look at the number of extra deaths that occurred - many attributed to Covid already had severe pre-existing conditions , Covid just finished them off maybe a few months earlier ...they would have gone anyway.
How many absolutely healthy with no pre-existing have died from Covid ?? No reports on that number !!

:bigbow:

Good numbers ... how about you incorporate the fact that over 80% of the Covid deaths were people over 65? WWII killed off our men at the start of their productive lives. No comparison. Sorry.

Not that this has anything to do with wars but since we're talking money....

There are about 330,000,000 people in the US (330 million)

Population Clock

And....although I'm not entirely sure if I'm reading this right...it looks like the US has spent 1.9 trillion so far

USAspending.gov

Now....when you take 1.9 trillion dollars and you divide by 330 million people...what do you figure you get? Maybe....a thousand per person or two thousand or something, right?

Nope, it's almost $6,000 per person!

But hey, maybe I read the chart wrong...over here it says we've spent 4 trillion (as of last spring)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...lout-spending/

so now we go 4 trillion dollars divided into 330 million people and we get a whopping $12,000 per person

But wait, there's more! There are 330 million people in the US but they all didn't get checks from the government....I certainly haven't gotten a penny. Now...I tried to figure out how many "rich people" we have in the US who make over $75K/year but I just couldn't figure it out, sorry.

But we've spent something over $12,000 per head in the US with another massive spending bill on the way. It's not wars that will end the US, it's our own government.

Debt: Non-Political. Japan has adopted deficit spending to the point where D/GDP is somewhere around 250% ... and their society has not come to a halt. Are you absolutely certain that the future is one where debt is the issue? Our national debt tripled between 1980 - 1988 ($900b to $2.72t), doubled from 2000-2008 ($5.7tyo 10.7t) and again 2008-2016 (to 19.6t) ... never mind 2016 to 2020 ... we stand at around $28t and $30 trillion by the end of this year. GDP = $22t (-ish). No where close to Japan. Are we re-writing the book with interest rates so low?