# Massive human deaths-- good or bad for the economy?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massive-human-deaths-good-or-bad-for-the-economy/622492>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [May 20, 2012, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massive-human-deaths-good-or-bad-for-the-economy/622492 "2012-05-20T03:49:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massive-human-deaths-good-or-bad-for-the-economy/622492/21 "2012-05-20T17:38:16Z")

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> [@Boyo\_Jim](#):
>
> But it’s hard to do a comparison with either war because there was so much destruction. There wouldn’t have to be any reconstruction. There wouldn’t have to be such an enormous amount of resources going to war material.
> 
> OTOH, a war economy without a war’s destruction made the US into the superpower it is today. And our war casualties were probably the lightest among the big players.

Well Germany lost 6.5 million (WWII)-yet, the German economy boomed, from 1948-1980.  
Why was France’s loss a cause of economic depression, and Germany’s the cause of huge growth?

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**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2012, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massive-human-deaths-good-or-bad-for-the-economy/622492/22 "2012-05-20T20:09:29Z")

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> [@ralph124c](#):
>
> Well Germany lost 6.5 million (WWII)-yet, the German economy boomed, from 1948-1980.  
> Why was France’s loss a cause of economic depression, and Germany’s the cause of huge growth?

Germany rebounded from WW1, reparations, the Depression, and the Nazi command economy back to the level it would naturally be expected to have. Meanwhile France lost it’s colonial empire and flirted with varying degrees of socialism/communism that (West) Germany didn’t.

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**Author:** ![ducati](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2012, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/massive-human-deaths-good-or-bad-for-the-economy/622492/23 "2012-05-22T01:55:06Z")

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OTOH, Jonestown hasn’t had much success since their “troubles”. 😃

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