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Keep in mind that the rest of the developed worlds' infrastructure and productive capacity had been bombed to oblivion. Of course it was a boon to the American

Keep in mind that the rest of the developed worlds' infrastructure and productive capacity had been bombed to oblivion. Of course it was a boon to the American economy, despite the political situation. The US was the only place left standing that could mass-produce complex goods in conjunction with its new-found standing as the most powerful military. The world we live in now is very different - it's flattened out. A large number of nations have either matched or surpassed the US in both productivity and standard of living.

Nrsolis 11y ago
Also don't forget that the Bretton Woods Conference laid the foundation for the USA to take the lead in the post-war world financial system. Selection of the USD as the worlds reserve currency had a lot to do with our prosperity in the post-WWII years. BTW, the USA consciously saw to it that Britain was significantly weakened financially at the end of WWII for the USA to emerge unopposed.
- deleted 11y ago
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jordanb 11y ago
Trade was a very small part of the US postwar economy. The economic boom was almost entirely Americans making stuff and selling it to other Americans: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/11/19/opinion/111912krugman3/111912krugman3-blog480.jpg http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/11/19/opinion/11191...
- deleted 11y ago
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- cpursley 11y ago
  You reinforce my point. Buying products from overseas was not viable because their capacity was bombed to hell. Not many electric washing machines coming out of these places after the war: [UK] http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/world_war2/scotlands_blitz/includes/resources/images/clydebank_ruins.jpg http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/world_war2/scotl... [Japan] https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-PR-Japan/img/USA-PR-Japan-447.2.jpg https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-PR-Japan/img/USA-PR... [Germany] http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2013/12/berlin_ww2-P.jpeg http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2013/12/berlin_ww2-P.jpeg
  - jordanb 11y ago
    You're making a case against free trade then. If things were so good for so many Americans because we weren't trading with anyone, then why'd we start?
- Animats 11y ago
  Right. Ocean shipping, before containers and faxes, used to be much more expensive, much slower, required far more packing, and was far less reliable. As the graph points out, US foreign trade was under 5% of GDP in the 1950s. Much of that was raw materials, not manufactured goods. (The concept of ordering something from across an ocean and reliably getting it undamaged it is quite modern. Before containers, things had to be crated, in crates so strong they could be banged around and stacked. A packed manufactured item could weigh 5x its unpacked weight. Paperwork usually traveled with the item, and maybe it got there. Faxes helped a lot, especially across language boundaries. Purchase orders and invoices are something of a universal language; if you can read item number, quantity, price, and destination address, you can probably do the transaction.)
caseysoftware 11y ago
Yes, this. Too many people think of post-WW2 as this huge time of prosperity. And it was.. for Americans primarily. All of the formerly-industrialized nations had to be "rebooted," primarily on the back of the Americans through efforts like the Marshall Plan. And this was a good thing. The thing is that when you have ZERO competition, even a broken system looks pretty good and performs pretty well by comparison. But conditions are fundamentally different now. The industrialized nations are still industrialized. New nations have become industrialized since. People travel easier and further. Capital flows easier and faster. News and information travels the fastest of all. Copying the decisions of the 1950's 1960's without acknowledging that conditions are different is foolish at best and suicidal at worst.

Nrsolis 11y ago

Also don't forget that the Bretton Woods Conference laid the foundation for the USA to take the lead in the post-war world financial system. Selection of the USD as the worlds reserve currency had a lot to do with our prosperity in the post-WWII years. BTW, the USA consciously saw to it that Britain was significantly weakened financially at the end of WWII for the USA to emerge unopposed.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

jordanb 11y ago

Trade was a very small part of the US postwar economy. The economic boom was almost entirely Americans making stuff and selling it to other Americans: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/11/19/opinion/111912krugman3/111912krugman3-blog480.jpg http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/11/19/opinion/11191...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
cpursley 11y ago
You reinforce my point. Buying products from overseas was not viable because their capacity was bombed to hell. Not many electric washing machines coming out of these places after the war: [UK] http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/world_war2/scotlands_blitz/includes/resources/images/clydebank_ruins.jpg http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/world_war2/scotl... [Japan] https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-PR-Japan/img/USA-PR-Japan-447.2.jpg https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-PR-Japan/img/USA-PR... [Germany] http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2013/12/berlin_ww2-P.jpeg http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2013/12/berlin_ww2-P.jpeg
- jordanb 11y ago
  You're making a case against free trade then. If things were so good for so many Americans because we weren't trading with anyone, then why'd we start?
Animats 11y ago
Right. Ocean shipping, before containers and faxes, used to be much more expensive, much slower, required far more packing, and was far less reliable. As the graph points out, US foreign trade was under 5% of GDP in the 1950s. Much of that was raw materials, not manufactured goods. (The concept of ordering something from across an ocean and reliably getting it undamaged it is quite modern. Before containers, things had to be crated, in crates so strong they could be banged around and stacked. A packed manufactured item could weigh 5x its unpacked weight. Paperwork usually traveled with the item, and maybe it got there. Faxes helped a lot, especially across language boundaries. Purchase orders and invoices are something of a universal language; if you can read item number, quantity, price, and destination address, you can probably do the transaction.)

caseysoftware 11y ago

Yes, this. Too many people think of post-WW2 as this huge time of prosperity. And it was.. for Americans primarily. All of the formerly-industrialized nations had to be "rebooted," primarily on the back of the Americans through efforts like the Marshall Plan. And this was a good thing. The thing is that when you have ZERO competition, even a broken system looks pretty good and performs pretty well by comparison. But conditions are fundamentally different now. The industrialized nations are still industrialized. New nations have become industrialized since. People travel easier and further. Capital flows easier and faster. News and information travels the fastest of all. Copying the decisions of the 1950's 1960's without acknowledging that conditions are different is foolish at best and suicidal at worst.