The capitalists are circling over Ukraine | Hacker News Reader

The capitalists are circling over Ukraine

unherd.com

Post-war Europe is a result of the Marshall Plan. In today’s dollars, the Plan invested close to $130 billion in Europe to help rebuild infrastructure, restore production, and generally support economic development. It’s arguable that Europe would not have recovered to become the economic engine it is today without the Plan. [0]

War is bad. Some might think war is all about money, and I would not disagree with that sentiment. But money will be required to rebuild Ukraine after this war, and that money will come as win-win for Ukraine and for investors/contractors. Without this aid, Ukraine will be left in ruin and will negatively impact the rest of Europe.

[0] https://www.piie.com/commentary/testimonies/lessons-past-ukr...

> Post-war Europe is a result of the Marshall Plan. In today’s dollars, the Plan invested close to $130 billion in Europe to help rebuild infrastructure, restore production, and generally support economic development.

To "rebuild", is not the right word, the intention was to build the EU and open up the market and borders for US goods, including military bases to further push away the Soviets

There was a lot of US propaganda during that time

Some interesting links:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworl...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYVhn5_ADUA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Commun...

> To "rebuild", is not the right word, the intention was to build the EU and open up the market and borders for US goods, including military bases to further push away the Soviets

...And that was a bad thing? Look at what countries subsumed by the Soviets had to go through, and Russia is no better. You can quibble about the specific motivations, but the result of US involvement has been a stable, rich Western Europe and a rapidly improving Eastern and Central Europe.

> ...And that was a bad thing?

I never said it was a good or a bad thing, I'm just trying to be correct and not just rehash the propaganda

> Look at what countries subsumed by the Soviets had to go through, and Russia is no better.

I do not deny it, you just have to talk to Polish people to understand what they had to go through, it's not pretty..

> You can quibble about the specific motivations, but the result of US involvement has been a stable, rich Western Europe and a rapidly improving Eastern and Central Europe.

I agree with you, the overall result is a net positive for everyone involved

More so for the US

If you want to attack ultra free market disaster capitalism, it might be better to point out that it was exactly that which led to Putin's Oligarchic Russia and therefore the Ukraine Invasion.

My impression was the unherd.com was big on capitalism. No?

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