Republican Party on the war economy and currency debasement (1952)

They claim prosperity but the appearance of economic health is created by war expenditures, waste and extravagance, planned emergencies, and war crises. They have debauched our money by cutting in half the purchasing power of our dollar.

We shall always measure our foreign commitments so that they can be borne without endangering the economic health or sound finances of the United States. Stalin said that 'the moment for the decisive blow' would be when the free nations were isolated and were in a state of 'practical bankruptcy.' We shall not allow ourselves to be isolated and economically strangled, and we shall not let ourselves go bankrupt.

~ From the Republican platform of 1952.

Robert Higgs on government meddling in the economy during WWI

By the time of the armistice, the government had taken over the ocean-shipping, railroad, telephone, and telegraph industries; commandeered hundreds of manufacturing plants; entered into massive enterprises on its own account in such varied departments as shipbuilding, wheat trading, and building construction; undertaken to lend huge sums to business directly or indirectly and to regulate the private issuance of securities; established official priorities for the use of transportation facilities, food, fuel, and many raw materials; fixed the prices of dozens of important commodities; intervened in hundreds of labor disputes; and conscripted millions of men for service in the armed forces.

~ Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan