Ah, but there was an abortive attempt on th spending as things got dismantled and the economy was going back to shit.

Yeah, a lot of that is explained by an industrial economy having to switch back from military production to consumer goods. Plus, dumping a few hundred thousand GIs on the labor market is going do depress wages at first. That's just going to hurt for a little while, there's not much that can be done about it.

The problem with this is that you think every piece of demand is necessary demand. That's why economies expand and contract, that ebb and flow.

No. I don't think that. But I do think there is enough necessary demand to do the trick.

well, it's the same concept in my mind - if the economy is being cramped by the stimulative spending, it's making things worse. That may be entirely semantic.

I look at it as the price you pay for avoiding catastrophe. The valley is filled in with the peaks. The law of misery conservation, if you will.