Oh jeez.
I can't believe I have to draw a picture.
|.................|....................................
|......................|................|
WWI.......Stock Market.................
New Deal...........WWII......Cold War
*................crashes
Now. The bolded part (also known as the time between the first New Deal legislation and the second World War) is the time period to which G.Adams is referring when talking about the relative success of economic improvement. The New Deal was in play, but the economy was still not recovering as well as the others G.Adams mentioned. Then the Second World War started. The War gave the U.S. economy a huge shot in the arm, largely due to the creation of new markets and products: war tech. The continued success of the American economy after the war was over can be largely attributed to the fact that the country did not, per se, leave the state of war. The Cold War continued to create a demand for those industries that had so helped the wartime economy, and that continued to help the general economy. War tech also created a lot of spinoff technologies that could be used in the civilian sector, further cementing a stable position for the U.S. in the world economy of the twentieth century. The full effectiveness of the New Deal cannot be satisfactorily measured since the economy was resurrected by other means before we could see what would happen had things taken their original course.
History lesson over.
Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. -- Song 8:6