"I suspect that if USA never joined the war, it would actually be better off today economically, since WW2 would have proceeded regardless." Let me emphaticall

"I suspect that if USA never joined the war, it would actually be better off today economically, since WW2 would have proceeded regardless." Let me emphatically state that I am very much against waging war. With that out of the way, I must point out that the position the United States carved out for itself at the conclusion of WWII was such that it enjoyed absolutely unprecedented levels of autonomy and control over, basically, the entire world. It's really quite unbelievable how much of the worlds political and economic institutions were aligned directly with the interests of the US. Without question the economic benefits of that alignment are far and away beyond any possible position we could have had after not participating.