By Larry Bolinger
My lengthy research on “How Political Acts Lead a Country into a Recession/Depression” gives arguments on different acts having several consequences. The comprehensive research is in Volume III of “Politics: Last Act of Defiance.” Major corporations’ actions can create changes in economic development, and so can political leaders’ actions. Many researchers have tried arguing able to predict economic trends based on business trends or business trends based on economic trends, but my arguments is focuses more on political leaders creating change by unethical means. With a theory of utilizing militarism to create an industrial war revolution in war profiteering schemes. The government profits from war to improve economic development to make up for taking actions on poorly custructed decision.
In the 1920s 30s depression, the Rockefellers and JP Morgan created monopolies. During the 2020 pandemic, there was a monopoly created by the 4 largest meat-packing plants in the USA that more than tripled the price of meat during a time of distress. In the 2025 Recession, President Trump hired Elon Musk as a special government employee tasked with eliminating government waste, fraud, and abuse. Musk is the wealthiest person in the world who owns SpaceX, Tesla, PayPal, and many other companies. Musk fired more than 600,000 federal workers. But created more demands for Tesla and SpaceX, creating more of a monopoly on electric run vehicles and space exploration. That is something that the government under Trump could dump hundreds of billions of dollars into.
Profiteering could be done by forced demand for electric vehicles and space exploration. War profiteering could be done by selling weapons to India in their attacks on Pakistan, Israel in their war against Pakistan, aiding Rebels in Syria, aiding Ukraine, and/or Russia in their conflict. In war, there will always be someone who has the task of rebuilding. This may create jobs, but some countries or many countries will bear the expense of rebuilding. The trillions in damages to Ukraine could create economic disaster for the countries paying for the rebuild if managed poorly. It will also create significant wealth for the banking industry and for the wealthiest. Bank loans will go through the roof, but fast loan expansions has created several depressions.
“Unemployment, overproduction, and low standards of living would be permanent, except when war destroyed enough goods to justify a temporary spurt of production.” (Burns, 1949) An odd statement, but it gives something to think about. A government could simply invest in communities rather than war to force an increase in production. In many eras of development, war forced change, forced investment, forced tax increases, and forced industrial revolutions. The dispersion of war pushes an acceptance of the people to put more of their income in taxes and self-sacrifice to help the government in a show of Nationalism, which would not be there if they or their country were not under distress. Make the claim that it is all for the safety of our defense, and a government could add vass amount of money into their military. After a war, the need for production decreases, the job market decreases, and unemployment increases. A massive loss of work affects the economy due to individual loss of income, loss of taxes, loss of ability to pay mortgages and vehicle loans, which results in increased bankruptcies and foreclosures. Responsible governance would be able to change the workload to something other than war-related so that there would not be a significant loss of jobs. War has brought countries out of depressions, but it is always short-lived, as they go right back into a depression shortly afterwards. Unless they keep warring and always invest in wars, trading soldiers for dollars. A never-ending war will continue to place a high demand for military weapons, accompanied by high taxes. In 2025, there is war between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Pakistan, the US and Venezuela, and the US border control and the dehumanizing and removal of immigrants, the US and Nigeria. And a threat of US vs Cuba, Colombia, and Greenland (which is a NATO ally). There is no wonder why there is a proposal of a 1.5 trillion dollar military budget for 2026.
In a capitalist society, the wealthy are protected through bailouts and do not have to pay taxes. If they get into financial trouble, they get a government bailout or forgiveness of loans, while if a mid-sized business or homeowner falls behind, they lose their business, home, and assets. The banking system for the middle class and poor is designed to compound the debt to force foreclosure and bankruptcy. Through several depressions, when large corporations fail, it creates a tax burden on the working class and the poor. The working class and poor suffer through over-taxation to help keep the wealthy in power. Is it overtaxation to help the government or to help the wealthy? This could give arguments for Marx’s Social Class inequality theory.
The 2025/2026 USA conflict with Venezuela might fit well in the research on economic development and problems with isolationism and war profiteering. War has been used to help get countries out of a recession or depression, which creates a war industrial revolution, expands that business, but when the war is over, you have a decrease in production, a decrease in business, loss of jobs, and loss of workforce due to the loss of lives. The economy dives right back into a depression. For ill-equipped leaders, it creates desperation to look for the next war to fix an economic disaster. The tariff wars and war mongering has distance the USA from its allies and most of the world. USA allies, even NATO allies, are turning their backs on the USA. Forcing high tariffs and mocking world leaders has decreased support from those allies, creating isolationism. In this conflict, you have general war profiteering as well as confiscating several oil tankers, which will create significant losses to Venezuela and the countries that rely on that oil, while at the same time, it will help the USA decrease its oil prices, giving a upsurge in the oil/gas industry. Gas prices decrease in the US. Is it by good governance or bad? That would be determined at the polls. One should not have to create a war or steal products in what I would call good governance. However, it has been done several times in US history. So, it leaves two options: we learn and don’t repeat our mistakes, or we learn and repeat the mistakes, believing this is how the system is supposed to work. Creating high tariffs, instability in international relations to force isolationism, and war profiteering have been done before and have failed many times. Any type of stability by implementing such acts is short-lived. (Bolinger, Politics: Last Act of Defiance Volume I and III, 2026)
Larry Bolinger has a Bachelor of Science Degree and a Master’s in Public Administration. 20 years of experience in politics, Author of “Politics: Last Act of Defiance volume I and II. Volume III TBA.