Why did the FEARED post-war economic depression never materialize?
I’ll assume in this question you are referring to World War II, as the fear of a depression was greatest after that conflict. Since it was the war itself, and all the industrial spending on war material, and the massive employment in the military itself that brought us out of the Depression at last, fear that we would slide backwards after it was normal. But during the war, almost everyone who wanted to work did work, and long hours at that. There was a shortage of labor so wages rose, at the same time as there was widespread rationing of consumer goods. So people were earning much more money, but had much less to spend it on. So people saved it. They built nice little nest eggs. Then, once the war ended, so did the rationing, and people began to spend their savings accounts on houses, cars and new consumer goods. This kept the factories humming along producing domestic products instead of war material. Inflation came back as demand was greater than supply. The feared depression never
