Quote:
Originally Posted by tabs
Here is the reality that the nay sayers among others of America forget. The last 63 years of American history is an aberation of history. World War 2 changed everything. The WHOLE industrial world was damaged if not destroyed with the exception of the USA. The USA was the biggest and ONLY unscratched industrial nation on earth. As such EVERYBODY had to buy our capital good to rebuild themselves. America became the wealthiest nation on earth, wages and standard of living went through the roof. By the 1960's that all began to change as other nations weere able to reconstitute themselves and offer themselves as competition. The American standard of living HAD to retreat in order to remain comepetative.
Some place in there we began to believe our own hype..that we as America could have guns and butter without paying for the consequences.
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Interesting insight. There were some coutries that were largely unscathed in Europe by WW2 as well. Sweeden and Switzerland. They did not ramp up industrial war efforts like we did though.
The country that has historically been a dominant world power through recorded history is China, I think they will come back in spades now that they have largely recovered from a century of conflict.