The Wasting of Britain's Marshall Aid | Hacker News Reader

The Wasting of Britain's Marshall Aid

bbc.co.uk

45 pointsvinnyglennon16 comments

When British people go to other countries that got wrecked in the war, like Japan or Germany, they will sometimes look around them and comment "How did they do it? How did they build and keep all this manufacturing capacity? Why do they have this awesome infrastructure that we don't? What did they do differently?"

For Germany, this article provides the answer. For Japan, it's a little different, of course, but the principle of judiciously using post-war investment holds for Japan too.

This should be more common knowledge and hopefully it will stop the rumors like "Germany was flattened so they could start from a blank slate". This obviously holds no water as this advantage would have been entirely eroded within 10-20 years as new technologies came in anyway.

The UK squandered Marshall Aid. The UK squandered North Sea oil revenue. The UK ripped up and threw away an advantageous membership of the world's largest free trade bloc.

The UK has an unenviable track record in this area.

Well, causality is hard to establish here. Note, post north sea oil the UK had an economic boom that saw it move ahead of both Italy and France on many measures. The UK did not use Marshall aid for industrial investment, but it did build a welfare state, and did eventually pay off its debts of 200% gdp.

I do agree to some extent, but when you look at the sovereign wealth fund that Norway has that still generates huge amounts of revenue and then look at what the UK has left... it does seem like the word "squander" is appropriate.

Well - currently the UK has the City of London, which makes much more money than the Norwegian fund. Now, you could argue that The City will be swept away by global forces and brexit - this is possible, and you could argue that The City was here before north sea oil, and you would have a point. On the other hand I would say that the flood of money through London from north sea oil played a significant role in providing capital for speculation and investment and without that The City might have lost out to Paris or Frankfurt in the 1980's and 90's.

> Well - currently the UK has the City of London

As a UK citizen I'm not sure that's such a good thing for the average Brit.

Doesn't have to be, people just want numbers on the paper showing how great everything is, until you move further north / west of the city to see the reality of the other 90%

Yup, agree. I think we need the long term view to decide, and I think that we need a big range of perspectives to decide. Unfortunately the people who get the money from it tend to have the loudest voice. Even quite a lot of those might reflect that their lives would be better spent doing other things than standing on the tube or arguing about spreadsheets.

YOou could have the City AND a sovereign wealth fund. It's not like they are mutually exclusive choices.

The rise of the City was more to do with loosened regulations, privatization and the leveraging of historical factors like trade links and banking presence globally than anything else AFAIK

A fund generated via sale of a commodity the use of which according to consensus will bring about global catastrophe.

I currently live in London and the first thing that came to mind is, so this is why the entire city feels so run down outside a few rich spots.

And yet you are still there...

Your point being?

Likely - everyone seems to love to bash the UK, especially following Brexit, and yet it continues to be an attractive place to live for many, thus giving the lie somewhat to those that would run it down. My feelings are that the antipathy towards the UK reveal more about the haters than the hated.

"yet it continues to be an attractive place to live for many"

That is the exact opposite of what the average Brit wants. And that is the attitude which brings itself "hate". This is also a very London/SE England centric view of how they view the state of the union to be in, that everywhere must be like London because London is so great and prosperous.

Very true. Except blaming others when their own elected officials made this happen over and over and over over decades is the issue I have with this.

You weren't here in the 80s I guess...London (all parts) has come a long long way.

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