Kleins 'A Call to Arms' might be the quickest. Klein describes how 1917-1918 the manufactures in the US signed contracts that specified payments on delivery of product. Little or nothing up front for cost of setting up production, retooling, ect... That was not uncommon in commercial contracts in those days. The supplier covered start up costs and was reimbursed in the delivery payments. The problem is there was as Klein described the manufacturs expected the production to run through at least 1919, & possibly into 1920. The Entente was in bad shape in 1917 & the assumption was the war would drag on through 1919. When the armistice came in November 1918 there was pressure from the voters to cease war expenses and fiscally conservative Congress responded by terminating the war contracts. A portion of the manufactorers & banks were caught with large investments in setting up production & no revenue from the canceled contracts. Klein described how twenty years later when the Roosevelt administration starts industrial mobilization & new material purchases in 1939-1940 industry was reluctant to bid as they were offered similar terms as in 1917-1918 by the War Department. Those with long memories, like Ford, were convinced they'd be burned again. Both the conservative and liberals in Congress were reluctant to consider any money up front for production start up. A second related problem was rising costs. When the British a French started signing contracts in late 1939 it reversed the stagnation & decline of material and labor costs during the Depression. When the US government started large scale offering of production contracts a year later the War Dept was tendering fixed contracts. The business managers were very aware of rapidly inflating materials and labor cost and refused fixed cost contracts for anything more than a few months. Again Congress & the buercrats in the War Dept could not get their heads around the true economics they we faced with. These two factors, the free market in materials, and some other smaller problems retarded the US industrial expansion 1940-42.
Public perception was a bit different. The memories of Profiteering war contractors were still strong. They were aware of companies that were still trying to sell the Germans and Japanese stuff. People who had rising income again were frantic to replace worn out possessions. New cars, washing machines, home repairs, were surging in demand. That last thing the public would accept in 1940 or 1941 was rationing and war economy cutting off consumer goods. If industry was making obscene profits the small businessman tradesmen, and laborers should not suffer either.
It took a couple years to sort this out. A major breakthrough was in legislation following the DoW. Roosevelt got laws enabling centralized planning, control of raw material allocations by the Federal government, and ability to dictate production priorities to industry. Essentially the US became a socialist state for three years. Roosevelt reduced the influence of the New Dealers in this and many key decision makers in the government were businessmen like Knudsen. So a socialist system run by capitalists. It worked for the short term. New blood in the War and Navy Departments helped as well and the termination of the politically based power of the old Quartermaster Corps helped. Marshal centralized Army key material decisions in the Army Support Forces and cleaned up groups like the Ordnance dept. The system of 1942-45 was not perfect, but was far better than tweak and under planned non system in the 1920s & 1930s.