I've seen these arguments turned on their head. From the perspective of a cynical elite, war solves many of these problems. * Angry populace? Give them a fresh

I've seen these arguments turned on their head. From the perspective of a cynical elite, war solves many of these problems. * Angry populace? Give them a fresh target for the anger and a fresh rationalization for their suffering. * Small business apocalypse? Re-tooling for war creates an abundance of new opportunity. * Loads of debt? Use war as an excuse to default. It is uniquely positioned to rationalize default while minimally impacting credit worthiness going forward. * Trust issues in savings and real estate? War bonds are totally different! * Spare men? Send them to die in war. It's the historical solution to the problem. My inability to assign likelihoods to these bags of problems really demonstrates how little I know about national policy. Then again, wars have historically caught many experts flat-footed, so perhaps nobody else knows very much either.