If I read thisright, “Over the course of the war 85 million Americans purchased bonds totaling approximately $185.7 billion.” which means the government borrowed money from the people in the US to at least partially fund WWII (I’m not sure how much WWII really cost the US).
I don’t believe there have been war bond campaigns since WWII, although Savings Bonds are available for purchase. So for the Korean and Vietnam Conflicts, and all of the “police actions/wars” since, the government has funded those directly out of the US Treasury by borrowing money from (selling bonds to) foreign countries and other investors.
So why don’t we have war bonds today to help fund our adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why give countries like China the privilege of making a profit from our military incursions? If the general population won’t monetarily support a war doesn’t that tell us something?
War bonds aren’t any different from ordinary bonds and treasury securities that have always been sold and which continue to be sold today. The US public is still the largest holder of US debt, though China comes in close at number 2 or 3.
If you would like to loan money to the government, you can do so right over the interwebs. Sign up for an account at Treasury Direct and go nuts.
War bonds were really no different from Savings Bonds and after the war they were treated as such. I cashed in one from my grandmother for my college tuition. It was clearly listed as a war bond, but the bank went to the Savings Bond list of rates and paid me that value.
I suspect that calling them “war bonds” helped tap into Americans’ patriotism, desire to support the overseas troops, and belief that we were fighting a just, necessary war against evil forces (war bonds were just one of many programs created to tap into those mindsets, and involve civilians in the war effort). While all of those factors probably come into play to a certain extent, among some people, today, I doubt that those views are nearly as widely-held today as they were in the 1940s.
My father has told me that my grandfather bought war bonds out of his paycheck every week during WWII because there was intense social pressure to do so – his employer, an auto insurance company, apparently strongly encouraged all of its employees to buy bonds, and had a program in which employees could have money automatically deducted from their checks to buy bonds (and those who didn’t got a lot of pressure to conform). My grandfather apparently then would only hold onto the bonds for the minimum amount of time (6 months?), and then cash them in.
I guess my real question is why doesn’t the government push Savings or War Bonds like they used to. Why not continue to tap into patriotism? If someone wasn’t savvy they might not know they can buy these bonds and that it would keep us from borrowing so much money from abroad… which is perceived by many as a bad thing
Because, as I noted above, the level of patriotism, and desire to support the war in Afghanistan, in the U.S. today is likely far, far lower than the comparable level of support among Americans for WWII back in the 1940s.
Plus, there’s no real need to push them. For instance, I-bonds current have a zero rate of return. That is, they will return at the rate of inflation (plus you’ll even lose a bit versus inflation due to taxes! Lucky you!)
If they needed more investors, they could either raise rates or promote bonds more, but apparently they have no shortage of investors cause of the low rates. (Man, I wish I had invested more in I-Bonds when they were returning 3% versus inflation. I have a couple thousand $ of those and I am NEVER letting them go until they mature!)
After 9/11 (I think it was within weeks), the government began to issue Patriot Bonds to try to tap in to that sense of national unity after the attacks. It was not a particularly successful marketing strategy. They are still being sold, but nobody cares. After all, it is just a savings bond with the words “Patriot Bond” on it. Literally.
War bonds and meat rationing were a method of repressing consumption, to free up resources for the war effort. The Korean, Vietnamese and Iraqi conflicts were not total wars like WWII was. Heck, President Bush the Elder discouraged people from making sacrifices during Desert Storm I, as he didn’t want to hinder the fragile recovery.