Quote from piezoe:
I'd like you to rethink the statement, "...peace simply does not pay." It seems all the hard evidence suggests that it does pay, and pay very well. (I don't think you'll find much poverty in Switzerland, except among the Turkish street sweepers the Swiss import to do their dirty work.) On the other hand there is a plethora of evidence showing that a war economy can not be sustained except by great sacrifice, and will not produce a sustainable and healthy economy in the long run. For example, past borrowing from the U.S. social security system to pay for wars now threatens the soundness of the system, because there is no money, other than that which is newly created out of nothing, to repay the system. (The problem with medicare is of an entirely different nature not related to that of social security and wars. Thus I find it bothersome that these two problems are often incorrectly conflated.)
It is true that U.S. recessions have often ended in involvement in yet another war, and this is a likely genesis of the false idea that wars breed economic prosperity. Of course, that idea is utter nonsense. But it is not nonsensical to recognize that the profits of the military industrial complex require a high level of fear. The most effective weapon in their lobbyists' arsenal is fear, and they are at the same time chief exponents of the absurd idea that wars breed economic prosperity!