This article is a great article in my opinion. First it explains why people think that war is good for the economy. The World War II was right after the Great Depression. People think that the war brought about the end of the great depression. Then the article explains why this is not true by using The Broken Window Fallacy. The Broken Window Fallacy is as follows: A vandal throws a brick through the window of a shop. The window costs $250 so the shop keeper has to spend that money there by stimulating the economy in some peoples" eyes. The logic of the Broken Window Fallacy states that the $250 that the shop keeper had to spend on the window replacing it could have gone toward a new set of gold clubs. Instead of the shop keeper have $250 and a window, now he only has a window. No golf clubs and a window. So it ends up hurting the shop keeper, and since the shop keeper is part of a community it hurts the community as a whole. So in the short run the war will hurt the economy of the United States and their allies. It goes without saying that flattening most of Iraq to rubble will decimate the economy of that country. Hawks are hoping that by ridding Iraq of Saddam, a democratic pro-business leader can come in and improve the economy of that country in the long run. The economy of the United States could improve in the long run due to the war for a couple of reasons: .
1) The Oil in Iraq, which even if that is not the sole purpose we went to war, the US oil companies will have better access to oil making the price go down stimulating the economy. 2) Stability and Economic Growth in the Middle East which will mean that the United States can spend less money on military and more money in our economy at home thereby stimulating the economy at home. The author of this article then says that he does not see these factors outweighing the short term costs of a war in Iraq. In short term the economy will decline due to the war as shown by the Broken Window Fallacy.