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U.S. History 1877-Present 6: WWI and the U.S. Economy 58 Views
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Description:
War. What's it good for? Well, the economy for starters. Today, we'll learn about how WWI got us roaring all through the 1920s.
Transcript
- 00:00
sweetie didn't ok sure there are lots of terrible things about what like massive [Explosions going off on a battlefield]
- 00:09
amounts of death until the suffering and of course the lingering resentment that
- 00:13
tend to fuel other words in the future but look at on the bright side war can [Someone running away with a packet of Twinkies]
- 00:17
sometimes be great for the economy so somehow the bright side buildings little
- 00:21
darts in any way a lot of people know that World War two is what snapped the [Guy holding money explodes]
Full Transcript
- 00:24
us out of the Great Depression but World War one also gave America a serious shot
- 00:29
in the arm the prosperous Roaring Twenties would never have roar it if the
- 00:33
US hadn't made Bank on the business of war during ww1 well how does this work [Two guns on a pile of money]
- 00:38
exactly well things started popping before America even officially entered
- 00:42
the war since Europe was already buying more goods from us yeah we were supposed [America selling arms to Europe]
- 00:47
to be neutral but why not make a buck or two on the whole thing right King well
- 00:52
this sets things up nicely for when the u.s. officially charged into the war in [Soldiers charging]
- 00:56
1917 because the kinds of factories and whatnot needed were already there and
- 01:01
ready to be expanded and who was the main customer of all these bomb-making
- 01:06
gun assembling in all things war crafting factories well the US
- 01:10
government of course what can we say Uncle Sam has always had a thing for gun
- 01:14
well 1917 saw a massive onslaught of federal spending that spurred the [Money flying from the Capitol]
- 01:18
economy to new height but where did the government get all this cash well mostly
- 01:22
attacked the crap out of his people the war Revenue Act of 1917 taxed what they
- 01:27
called excess profit but basically if a business venture was doing well well [Lots of people at a lemonade stand]
- 01:32
then it got punished by yes being taxed a lot Washington also seriously jacked
- 01:37
up the income tax rate on the wealthy well the tax rate on income way back
- 01:41
then over $50,000 soared from 1.5 percent in nineteen thirteen to fifteen [Eagle flies past]
- 01:46
to over eighteen percent in nineteen eighteen where the people get in tax
- 01:50
super happy about all this no but anybody who complained could be [Guy wearing a tuxedo holding money looks unhappy]
- 01:55
seen as anti-american which was actually punishable by law so yeah they just paid
- 01:59
their taxes and shut up well all this factor was going on Treasury Secretary [Guy is put behind bars]
- 02:03
William Gibbs McAdoo oh really that was his
- 02:06
Secretariat McAdoo's was zipping around the country selling war bonds to the
- 02:10
people even getting Hollywood stars and the Boy Scouts to help fire up people's [McAdoo with an arm full of war bonds]
- 02:14
patriotic spirit okay people got excited about the Boy
- 02:17
Scouts back then it was a thing well of course it wasn't just patriot and the
- 02:21
kept people from flipping out about all the money they were forking over to the [Guy wearing an outfit covered in the US flag holding money]
- 02:24
government most of this money was getting funneled into factories that
- 02:27
were giving people jobs well the needs of the American and [Money being chucked into a funnel on a factory]
- 02:30
Allied militaries kept the economy booming add to that the fact that so
- 02:34
many men were off at war and unemployment was seriously low all this
- 02:38
was a real game-changer for the u.s. following the war Europe got pretty [Someone slam dunking a basketball]
- 02:42
banged up while no battles were ever fought on US soil [Plasters on Europe]
- 02:45
well this meant that instead of spending money rebuilding the country after the
- 02:49
war America could spend money expanding its financial and manufacturing empire
- 02:54
so in a lot of ways World War one was responsible for making the US and [Explosions going off next to soldiers]
- 02:58
official superpower and here we thought the US had just gotten bitten by a
- 03:02
radioactive spider or something [Spider crawling round]
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