Where is the US economy headed?

@Ceili,

No, it wasn't, but we're talking about why the US was late in getting involved in Europe's war.

From About.com:

Quote:

The End of the Great Depression

To many at the time, President Roosevelt was a hero. They believed that he cared deeply for the common man and that he was doing his best to end the Great Depression. Looking back, however, it is uncertain as to how much Roosevelt's New Deal programs helped to end the Great Depression. By all accounts, the New Deal programs eased the hardships of the Great Depression; however, the U.S. economy was still extremely bad by the end of the 1930s.

The major turn-around for the U.S. economy occurred after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the entrance of the United States into World War II. Once the U.S. was involved in the war, both people and industry became essential to the war effort. Weapons, artillery, ships, and airplanes were needed quickly. Men were trained to become soldiers and the women were kept on the homefront to keep the factories going. Food needed to be grown for both the homefront and to send overseas.

It was ultimately the entrance of the U.S. into World War II that ended the Great Depression in the United States.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn, yes, I can be sharp. I have, however, had to deal with Gob and Hawk's opinions over the years. I realize that it's hard not to be patriotic and see the US in a wonderful light. 6
I made a comment that as a child/teen I lived with the fear that we would be bombed or live with the fallout from the cold war. I don't think it was unreasonable.
They brought up the war, not me. In fact I wasn't even eluding to that war. I don't think there's a person in the world who doesn't appreciate the American involvement in the war, but it shouldn't be at the expense of the men, women and children who died beforehand or beside them fighting for the very same cause. I doubt anyone thinks their nation won the war singlehandedly, aside from Americans. It gets old.
It's not just here. I hear it all the time.

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@cicerone imposter,

That's a sound justification for Iraq ci.

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@spendius,

Where do you get "sound?" We got involved in WWII when Japan attacked our country. Iraq did not do anything against our security. GW Bush's claim about Iraq's WMDs were non-existent.

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@Ceili,

Ceili wrote:

I don't think anyone resents the USA joining the war or when they did.

And yet this little spat arose in part from just such a remark by you.

Ceili wrote:

I think what people resent is that after you joined and the war was over, it was the idea that it was solely the US that saved the day. This is a fairly common mantra repeated ad nauseam.

I agree that would be annoying, but no one here (to my knowledge) has made such a foolish claim. I suppose each of the various national participants has its own self-centric view of the experience - that is just human nature. I'll agree that we tend to be rather loud about our excursions in that area, and our media probably add to that impression. However the history speaks for itself, and Britain's role in WWII was truly exemplary.

WWI was, in my opinion, a far different matter. It was a purely European conflict fought only for the dominance of Empire. There was no basis in my view for us to prefer one side to the other and no historical bond (as Finn has noted) to tie us to either side. Indeed throughout most of the 20th century the largest single ethnic group in this country was German, and the second Irish. Not a lot of natural sympathy for the British Empire in those groups of immigrants - and that was indeed a serious factor then and right through 1941. I believe the world would have been better off if we had stayed out of that war.

The disastrous and pointless war that started in 1914 set the stage for the conflicts that, in part, still dominate the ensuing century - from the Bolshevic revolution in Russia, to the disintegration of the Habsburg Empire, the deliberate destruction of the Ottoman Empire by Britain, France and Russia (to expand their own respective empires), the disingenuous promises of the British to both the Hashemite Arabs and European Zionists for the land of Palestine, and the rise of Hitler in Germany. These are simply salient historical facts. To suppose they didn't influence American attitudes and perceptions during the years leading up to WWII is simply contrary to the historical record. Saying so does not make one an Anglophobe. That the world is still struggling with some of the consequences of that disastrous (and unnecessary) war is evident in the news reports every day.

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@Ceili,

Quote:

I doubt anyone thinks their nation won the war singlehandedly, aside from Americans. It gets old.It's not just here. I hear it all the time.

An Americans get very very tired of hearing so must anti-Americanism from our neighbors from the North.

A perfect country unlike the big ugly brute south of them.

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What happen to my last post why was it removed?

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@reasoning logic,

Is the Us going to fall like Rome?

This video is relevant because it is this type of thinking that has allot to do with the outcome of the Us economy!

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@reasoning logic,

The Man is on to you RL...be aware, and watch your back.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

First of all Finn, thanks for the peace making efforts, but I find it's impossible to have any sort of debate with him without constant low level sniping. Talking to him brings out the worst in me, Nietzsche said something about flies and the market place, and that's how I feel about him. Suffice it to say I won't mention him again.

Quote:

What I'm trying to understand is why any Brits might resent the fact that we were relatively late to the party.

If prior to WWII there were occassions when the UK dropped everything and came running to help us or (like it did with Iraq) joined us on day one in an effort to conquer, then I can understand why there might be a sense of faithlessness if not betrayal.

I could easily be wrong, but I don't think there is evidence that the US was always of a mind to go after Hitler, but intentionally held back on the slight chance that the Brits could handle him alone, or hoping that the Brits would weaken him before we joined in.

I think that America's (late)entry into the war is not so much resented as mentioned when barely literate idiots like Bill go on about saving our arses. There's also some resentment about the way some of your countrymen tend to air brush our contribution out of history, and exaggerate their own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-571_(film)

Let's not forget how things ended, prior to the war we had an empire, afterwards all we had was our reputation, the country was bankrupt, and rationing was worse than during the war itself. All our war time debts were paid back to America, and we didn't finish paying them off until Blair's period in office.

America's economy was given a huge boost by the war, there was no real bomb damage, and it emerged post war as a super power. Germany was given loads of money by America, had its economy boosted, and helped to become an economic power house. There was a Greek commentator on the radio yesterday, talking about supposed Greek profligacy and German sound finance. He said Germany's whole economy was founded on writing off debt, that during WW2 they took Greece's gold reserves, which at today's prices would be worth 95 Billion (Sorry, I can't remember what exactly, but it's either Sterling, Euros or US dollars, a tidy sum in any event.) There's no chance of Germany paying this back because there would be a huge precedent there.

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@izzythepush,

Quote:

war is not so much resented as mentioned when barely literate idiots like Bill go on about saving our arses.

LOL we did save your white rear ends but it would seems we did not then kiss your asses afterward and wave your war debt to us away.

Shame on us..................... Drunk

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@izzythepush,

Oh talk about waving war debts away it was your government and France who set up the conditions that allow Hitler to come to power with your very very harsh WW1 peace conditions that the US try to keep you from imposing.

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@BillRM,

On the sauce already Bill, that figures. I see you were quite prepared to kiss the German's arses, but going by the sort of pornography you're into, I hardly find that surprising.

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@izzythepush,

Quote:

I see you were quite prepared to kiss the German's arses,

No after WW2 we should had done what you fools did after WW1........

Footnote I can remember one of you English Bloke in a pub telling me and others Americans that now that you had just joined the EU you would be in charge of it it within a year of two.

I smile at the man and ask him what the hell West Germany would be doing as you are taking over the EU.

I can remember being very happy that I had a lot of fellow Americans with me at the time.

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@izzythepush,

It is generally accepted izzy that the peace conditions after WW1 were asking for trouble applying them to a nation as proud and as populous and as advanced as Germany. Woodrow Wilson's "fourteen points" were defeated by the British and the French and Republican opposition in the US. He had only won the presidency by a narrow margin so Republican opposition had to be taken into account. As it has to be today.

I have a really Machiavellian theory about it but I'm not putting it on here.

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@BillRM,

Quote:

No after WW2 we should had done what you fools did after WW1........

There was a plan to do it. Had the following winter been a severe one it might well have been activated. The Russians were for dismembering the country and getting into a state where it could never attack them again. Not ever. Which is a fair measure of the sacrifices Russia had made while the speak-easy business was in full swing elsewhere.

A proper shortage of fuel and Germany would have had none.

But it was a mild winter. Germany was supplied. Just.

I don't know though. It's a conceit to think one does know. A conceit is a claim to have conceptualised something. A world war or a little daisy in the lawn. I scoff at such things.

Only destiny will show whether the plan adopted was worthwhile.

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@spendius,

Quote:

There was a plan to do it. Had the following winter been a severe one it might well have been activated. The Russians were for dismembering the country and getting into a state where it could never attack them again

It I remember correctly this plan was code name the Carthage solution and if Speer had obey Hitler orders in the last few weeks of the war we would not had even been the ones to put the plan into play.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

A proper shortage of fuel and Germany would have had none.

But it was a mild winter. Germany was supplied. Just.

Germany wasn't allowed to produce fuel until at least 1947 (Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067). But in 1947, conditions were worth than in the previous years.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

I have a really Machiavellian theory about it but I'm not putting it on here.

It's always good to have one of those. I doubt if you can find anybody who will say that WW1 was at all 'good' or justified anywhere. I really don't know where to start, other than saying that it was the point that 19th Century Imperialistic politics was proven to be a failure.

Also I'm horrified that Bill was able to find a pub that was actually prepared to serve him alcohol, and that any Englishman who would sit down and share a drink with Bill, has to be a right ******* idiot who is guaranteed to talk out of his arse.

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@izzythepush,

Quote:

that any Englishman who would sit down and share a drink with Bill, has to be a right ******* idiot who is guaranteed to talk out of his arse.

In other word a normal Englishman drinking in a pub. Very Happy

1 Reply

Where is the US economy headed?

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