It is other peoples' wars that boost the economy if you are a producer and supplier of weaponry and other necessary items - aircraft, military vehicles, etc.

It depends..so I'd have to choose c). -- I think that the economy for some people may well be boosted (weapons producers, the military)...while the economy for others may be destroyed(the US is pumping billions into the war effort---that to me is not a boost to a country's economy).

If you look at history you will find that MAJOR war has first an negitive then positive impact. WW2 started with tough times at home when a large portion of the population was gone and the rest were working to support the effort. Resources were diverted from domestic use to the war effort. Times were tough but everyone was busy and making money. Then at the end of the war, the economy boomed when this money was avaiable and demand for goods was great. The resources were no available to produce consumer goods that wernt available during the war. As an example there were no new cars built in 1943, 1944 and 1945. What is happining now is different. I don't want to minimise Iraq, but we havent reached the point where a "Great American War Machine" is running. I don't even know if it ever could. Now the government uses a very few suppliers to build a smaller number of very expensive items to fight a war. 4.5 million for a tank, 1 million per cruse missle ect so it is more likely that many peoplle will die while everyone pays more taxes so a very few companies get rich. Just my thoughts

No, the net effect is definitely negative, and the logic is simple: - The country typically has to borrow to finance the war, this produces debt which has a long term negative effect on the economy; - It is true that the removal of soldiers from the producing economy creates a labor shortage which increases the number of jobs available (that's the positive effect). However, the soldiers are paid for activities which add no net value to the economy. So the net of this is also negative. - The weaponry and supplies expended in the war add no value to the economy: they're not things that people need like cars, food, clothes, etc. Basically they're produced and then consumed in conflict, they don't go in the "asset" column anywhere. - The destruction inflicted on the infrastructure and people is a net negative: it costs something to repair the damage, the injuries and deaths incur medical and beneficiary costs, etc. Basically, the people who benefit economically from war are the equity owners of the companies who produce the materials and supplies. But the economy as a whole suffers.

it boosts the world economy because both sides have to buy supplies and ammunitions. in our usa case, we bought bad supplies, and spent billions in cash to make people go to war with us. gasolene prices soared...someone was making millions off of oil stock.

I have heard that too... that view stems from a poor knowledge of history and is a widely discredited myth! I believe it may sometimes be the case, although it was more the case some hundred + years ago! During WW2, the United States spent massive amounts of money on defence, and some argue that this solved the problems the US had following the depression. The National Bureau of Economic Research has concluded that countries which had high military expenditure during that same war did have higher economic growth after it. However – that is not because of the war spending, it was because of the population growth that followed. The NBER find that war spending did not have anything more than absolute minimal effects on economic growth per person. Also, when look at the Iraq War of 1991 – the spending involved in that war actually helped in push the US towards the recession of the early 1990s. Since 1991, any economist worth his salt has realised that the idea that war helps the economy is a big fat myth and actually, when you look at the normal living standards of citizens, it is “unambiguously bad” (quote from economist Stiglitz) If the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are good for the economy, where is the money now? Certainly US citizens aren't seeing the benefit of all this magical free money. The American economy has been crumbling in recent rears.