Direct spending on Vietnam starts to ramp up in the mid-60s and draws down in the mid-70s. Inflation, however, goes through a major shock in the early 70s and another one in the early 80s. None of this seems to match any kind of cause and effect we would expect. Further, the real cost of Vietnam was born decades later, as those veterans draw on benefits such as the VA hospital system. (Which, BTW, is expected to start happening about now with the veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq; healthcare costs are a veteran issue.)
And then we have another big increase in military spending during the Reagan years, but no particular increase in inflation is seen. Not even if there’s some argument that it’d be delayed by a decade. Not like it had been in the 70s, anyway.
Oil costs are the main reason for these shocks. “Printing money” is a naive libertarian approach to inflation which largely serves people who use money to make money (i.e., billionaires) as opposed to people who use their labor to make money. I was just lamenting earlier today how leftists around here have started to absorb libertarian narratives on inflation, and it’s not a good thing.
None of the timeline matches up with increases in inflation.
https://media.nationalpriorities.org/uploads/military_spending_since_1940_fy_2024_large.png
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Fig-1.jpg
Direct spending on Vietnam starts to ramp up in the mid-60s and draws down in the mid-70s. Inflation, however, goes through a major shock in the early 70s and another one in the early 80s. None of this seems to match any kind of cause and effect we would expect. Further, the real cost of Vietnam was born decades later, as those veterans draw on benefits such as the VA hospital system. (Which, BTW, is expected to start happening about now with the veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq; healthcare costs are a veteran issue.)
And then we have another big increase in military spending during the Reagan years, but no particular increase in inflation is seen. Not even if there’s some argument that it’d be delayed by a decade. Not like it had been in the 70s, anyway.
Oil costs are the main reason for these shocks. “Printing money” is a naive libertarian approach to inflation which largely serves people who use money to make money (i.e., billionaires) as opposed to people who use their labor to make money. I was just lamenting earlier today how leftists around here have started to absorb libertarian narratives on inflation, and it’s not a good thing.