Blog #7

Blog 7

Nick Mitterando

            The first reading is about the economy of World War 1. It opens with a very interesting quote saying that “The total cost of World War I to the United States (was) approximately $32 billion, or 52 percent of gross national product at the time.” This shows just how big of a financial strain a war of this scale could have on a country. The US was in a recession before the war, but it was taken out of it by a 44-month long boom. This resulted from other countries buying US goods for war. The US stayed neutral for as long as possible resulting in very good economics. We joined in 1917 and federal spending went up a ton. Many civilian manufacturers were re tooled for war efforts. Unemployment went down also. As part of the war the US tried to guide economic activity with centralized price and production controls. This ultimately didn’t help much. Another thing that was tried was the use of ratings for how urgent goods were to be produced. Unfortunately, everyone gave themselves an A rating, so this did not work either. He ends by saying how after the war there was the deprecation and many years of the government cleaning up the economy and fixing things.

            The second reading talks about DuPont’s impact from world war 1. He starts by talking about the effects of the war on advertising. He later says, “This type of advertiser—he who is always building a commercial structure, rather than making temporary sales—is one of the great steadying factors that sustain the business morale of a nation during periods of stress.” What he means by this in my opinion is someone who is building up and preparing is the one who succeeds during hard times. He later says how America has not prepared enough for war and it shows with our losses of allies and deaths. Whereas a country like Germany should have been out of the war for years but is still in due to preparing. Later he goes into Germanys use of propaganda and how it relates to advertising. He ends by saying how as a country we must prosper as a whole in order to prosper as individual advertisers. He also says how the more we build up and prepare the more ready we will be.