3 ms·

10 years plus all that post-war american aid

by satao 5y ago

hnbad 5y ago
I hate to be that guy, but the Marshall Plan only lasted 4 years and primarily benefited the UK, France and Germany (in that order) among other European nations. Its effect was estimated to be an increase in GDP growth of less than 0.5%. The US contributed the equivalent of $200 billion over the course of those four years. Note that they didn't simply dump money in Europe, the amount refers to goods and services (including shipping those goods to Europe and shipping exports back to the US). The US effectively provided European governments with goods that those governments could then sell to local companies. In Germany this was done under the presumption that the revenue would later have to be repaid to the US, though the share to be repaid was later drastically cut by the US. The biggest reason Germany benefited more from the Marshall plan than other European countries is that they expected having to repay it fully and thus were able to pay off the loans that were part of the Marshall Plan decades before other countries. But even so the overall effect has been overstated in the past and is not considered to be crucial to the economic development of Germany or Europe in general after WW2. Most of the "aid" after the Marshall Plan ended (because the US got involved in the Korean War and thus not interested in extending the program) went towards building European militaries and suppressing communism. While I think it's an exaggeration, there's some truth to modern critics of the plan saying that it mostly served for the US to get rid of excess production (as the US government paid its local companies in US dollars the treasury generated as part of the Plan) and stabilizing its currency (because the goods were then bought by European companies in their local currency from their own governments rather than in US dollars from the US companies directly) while also combatting the potential for a rise of communism and unifying Western Europe as an ally to the US in the Cold War.

10 years plus all that post-war american aid

by satao 5y ago

10 years plus all that post-war american aid

I hate to be that guy, but the Marshall Plan only lasted 4 years and primarily benefited the UK, France and Germany (in that order) among other European nations. Its effect was estimated to be an increase in GDP growth of less than 0.5%. The US contributed the equivalent of $200 billion over the course of those four years. Note that they didn't simply dump money in Europe, the amount refers to goods and services (including shipping those goods to Europe and shipping exports back to the US). The US effectively provided European governments with goods that those governments could then sell to local companies. In Germany this was done under the presumption that the revenue would later have to be repaid to the US, though the share to be repaid was later drastically cut by the US. The biggest reason Germany benefited more from the Marshall plan than other European countries is that they expected having to repay it fully and thus were able to pay off the loans that were part of the Marshall Plan decades before other countries. But even so the overall effect has been overstated in the past and is not considered to be crucial to the economic development of Germany or Europe in general after WW2. Most of the "aid" after the Marshall Plan ended (because the US got involved in the Korean War and thus not interested in extending the program) went towards building European militaries and suppressing communism. While I think it's an exaggeration, there's some truth to modern critics of the plan saying that it mostly served for the US to get rid of excess production (as the US government paid its local companies in US dollars the treasury generated as part of the Plan) and stabilizing its currency (because the goods were then bought by European companies in their local currency from their own governments rather than in US dollars from the US companies directly) while also combatting the potential for a rise of communism and unifying Western Europe as an ally to the US in the Cold War.