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A comment on Apple's cash hoard swells to $246B. Parent comment

Re:Apple's cash hoard swells to $246B by paulmd on Sunday April 16, 2017 @12:15AM (#14124286)
The dirty secret that many people don't want to acknowledge is that government spending can create economic activity (as opposed to just moving it around).

The roaring economy of the 50s was the result of massive government intervention during World War II - literal central planning in many cases - as well as numerous social and public-work programmes (GI Bill, National Interstate Highway construction, etc) funded by intense taxation on upper brackets (95% tax rate).

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Re:Apple's cash hoard swells to $246B by jimmywanger on Sunday April 16, 2017 @02:25AM (#14124647)
> The roaring economy of the 50s...

That's a huge oversimplification. It helped that Europe and Asia were devastated by the war, and our gearing up industry for war led to huge dividends for us because we still had factories and raw materials which remained intact.

And evidence on the new deal is equivocal [0]. It didn't seem to have much impact until the war.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123353276749137485

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