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Comment by jmclnx | Hacker News Reader

First the meaning of "war" needs to be defined. FWIW, in the US, only Congress can declare war. IIRC, that really has not happened since Korea.

Also since WW2, none of these countries posed a real danger to the US Public, plus people in the US are not invested. Compare what the public in the US had to do in WW2 compared to these "wars".

If the life style of the Average US person is affected like in WW2, then you can bet these "wars" would never happen. Just look at what a slight raise in US Gas Prices cause. If gas prices did not go up, people in the US would not care at all what Trump is doing to Iran.

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> First the meaning of "war" needs to be defined. FWIW, in the US, only Congress can declare war.

The Korean War was not approved by congress. And I don't see the point of bringing semantics into it. Are you saying that the Vietnam War, to take one, was not a war because there was no formal declaration of war?

I was not sure about Korea, but I am sure your are correct.

For Vietnam, yes, if you look back the Vietnam War was officially called a "Police Action".

The politicians back then knew it was not a "real war" because war was not declared, so they came up with a new name. Since then, the politicians do not even pretend to follow the law.

This "definition of war" reasoning is circular. It's not that these are not wars because Congress didn't declare them, it's that they are wars that are being waged illegally, at odds with the Constitution.

A mobilisation such as what we saw in WWII is unthinkable because it'd crash markets. That's one reason.

That has nothing to do with it. Congress should still have to declare an operation like what is happening in Iran.

How would a future president ever be motivated to give power back to Congress I wonder? A coup by congress?

as the term rule of law suggest the legislative branch has the power to make the rules

I really hope that next time they do their job vetting nominations for the judicial branch.

IMO most of these appointments should be done by congress itself, the only reason they are done by the executive is because the role of president was a created on the template of the role of king.

except that without a "prime minister" now there is no separation between the "king" and the fulcrum of political power.

The last time a mobilisation happened was the Vietnam War and it almost tore America apart. The Pentagon learned their lesson.

So, it will be quagmires from now on.

The stock market did great during WW2, though.

Of course this time its not dominated by industrial conglomerates which can retool their factories to manufacture military equipment.

The DJIA was more or less flat during WW2. Not sure where you've read that it was "great". During the middle of the war it was down 35-40%.

It was certainly not flat. There was a lot of volatility.

> Not sure where you've read that it was

Well.. I looked at the charts. The bottom was few months after Pearl Harbor and pretty much straight up after that. It certainly did much better after US joined than while it was staying out..

I should have been clearer. From September 1939 - May 1945 (when Germany surrendered), the stock market barely changed:

   September 1939: DJIA was 152.54
   May 1945: DJIA was 168.30

A ~10% increase over almost 6 years is way below average and well below inflation for that time period.

> The bottom was few months after Pearl Harbor and pretty much straight up after that

I mean, you've now picked the bottom of the market as your starting point (and not the start of WW2), so by definition it goes up after that.

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