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Politics : THE WHITE HOUSE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: goldworldnet who wrote (6965)	8/6/2007 6:33:09 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 25737

"I think the US had an advantage in the industrial revolution over Europe with everything being new." Yes. Post Civil War. "Of course WWI and WWII got rid of a lot of old stuff in Europe." EXACTLY. After WW II much of European infrastructure, factories, etc., lay in ruins. (Continental America of course was spared the impact of bombing....) Germany spent their Marshall Plan monies rebuilding their commercial infrastructure (all new factories, Autoban, etc.) and gained a big commercial edge on their competitors. Great Britain's money mostly went to pay down the DISASTROUS amount of foreign debt that had been left to them by financing their 'Global Empire' with borrowed money for far too long, the hubris of their many foreign adventures, interventions and wars... all this meant that Germany FAR SURPASSED Great Britain during the post-war period. France, too, had the opportunity to use Marshall Plan money to rebuild it's commercial infrastructure (like Germany did), but she suffered (like the British) from the aftereffects of her OWN grandiose and vainglorious dreams of global empire. France (instead of rebuilding her infrastructure with Marshall Plan money like Germany did), spent most of her foreign aid trying to pay for her Colonial Wars in Vietnam and Algeria --- until the last of her Empire was lost as well... and the treasury emptied. There would seem to be MUCH for the United States to learn from these lessons.... There is ALWAYS another up-and-coming competitor out there (today's commercial challenges mostly come from Asia), willing to take advantage of us when we are foolish and wasteful and imprudent... and dreams of 'global empire' always have a COST....