Comments by "Piccalilli Pit" (@piccalillipit9211) on "" video.

IM OLD ENOUGH to remember the news reports of "Britain, the sick man of Europe"
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"The rumours of my collapse have been greatly exaggerated" Mark E. U. Twain
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@LyricalDJ - In the mid to late 1970's. It was due to the fact that the rest of Europe was doing better than the UK economically. But... It was a bit disingenuous. The UK had been utterly destroyed economically by WW2, we had massive debts to the USA [the USA SOLD help in WW2, it did the GIVE help so much], the industrial heartlands of the country had been bombed to bits. But unlike Germany and to a lesser degree France and Italy - the UK did not get any [FREE*] aid money for reconstruction from the USA under the Marshall Plan and other lesser-known plans. Add to this the end of revenue from the British Empire that had kept the UK very prosperous. The labour union problems that existed but are massively over played by the right wing Thatcherite revisionists who like to blame them for EVERYTHING that was wrong with the country - just as Thatcher did. So by 1975 mainland Europe was leaving the UK behind economically. * The USA had gouged almost the entire UK gold reserve and then lent the UK £21 billion to fight the war, so the "aid" was not really aid, the USA extracted about £30 billion out of the UK over the course of the war. The USA had NO intention of joining the war, only to profit from the war. This history has been very heavily whitewashed by both the USA and the UK. For a long time the USA would only accept gold in payment for goods as they believed £GBP would be worthless when the Germans wone the war - which they were perfectly happy with. This changed when Churchill drafted a law saying that everyone in the country had to give up their wedding rings to pay the Americans for arms, after that the USA allowed us to buy things on debt - at high-interest rates.
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@sigiriya5149 - CRITICAL. The bigger the land mass the better the deal - why do you think everyone wants a trade deal with the people of Antarctica..??? But they keep holding out those Antarcticans...
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@context2150 Ill see if I can find some. I have them somewhere. The figures for the us "aid" situation are incredibly complex and very misleading. If you read the diary of Sir John Rupert Colville who was the principle private secretary to Churchill in WW2 [I think its called "Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries, 1939-1955"] he paints a ver very grim picture of the USA. And Churchill was effectively complicit in the cover up of how bad the USA were. The USA had no intention of joining the war, only profiting off it. The aid they gave was basically loans at very high interest rates, the extent of the gouging the USA were doing was not revealed to the British public as it would be very bad for morale - there was a point where the gold reserves were SO LOW that Churchill was about to issue a decree that everyone in the country had to give up their wedding rings and gold jewellery to pay for the arms and food from the USA - cos at that time the USA didn't believe we would win, so would ONLY accept payment in gold...!!! So the true situation regarding any aid from the USA is incredibly blurred and the USA have since gone to very great lengths to whitewash it to look like better people. Quote "On 31 December 2006, Britain made a final payment of about $83m (£45.5m) and thereby discharged the last of its war loans from the US. By the end of World War II Britain had amassed an immense debt of £21 billion."
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@sigiriya5149 - If you look at my other longer comment I explain that its nothing like as simple as this... The USA had gouged almost the entire UK gold reserve and then lent the UK £21 billion to fight the war, so the "aid" was not really aid, the USA extracted about £30 billion out of the UK over the course of the war
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@babybear5001 "Mates trying to keep their oil leaking British bikes on the road" My dad switched from a British bike [that would be worth a fortune now] to a Honda CB125. Yet he never lost the habit of riding with a back pack of tools and spares like spark plugs and coils and HT leads to the day he stopped riding the bike. So used was he to his British bikes breaking down in the middle of nowhere...
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@huskytail - Well it was not that hardest hit by a very long way. A VERY long way. But it was utterly gouged into effective bankruptcy by the USA and left with 50 YEARS of debts that it had to pay.
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@alanwatson7560 - This was the point I was trying - and apparently failing LOL - to get across. The USA never REALLY gave any "aid" to the UK, it emptied the BOE gold reserves and then gave massive loans that cripled the economy for decades to come.
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@YouD0ntSay - That will be those world-leading engineering companies... I remember the very first time I drove across Germany. I entered from France and BAM the roads were suddenly FULL of HGV's, raw materials coming IN from the outside and cars and SUV's and other goods going OUT of Germany. I have never seen so much manufacturing trade happening. That was about 2008.
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The Legend of Spitfire Hunter - I knew you would chime in with some rubbish. The US for £3 billion in "aid" but had £21 billion in DEBT - so how is that AID...??? And anyway the main reason for the state of the UK was the loss of free money from the Empire - the UK extracted £45 TRILLION [in today's money] from India ALONE... So sorry Spittie - the loss of EMPIRE - which you become so much - was the main reason for the "poor man of Europe" status and not the Labour Government. The 2nd biggest reason was bankruptcy from WW2 and the massive debt to the USA. YOU loved Thatcher, didn't you??? Go on admit it. You used to get all excited over her Spitting Image puppet where she bashed the Vegetables with her handbag...
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@Nickbaldeagle02 - I aqm just reading a book called "the fourth turning" that points this out - cycles within cycles, catastrophe every 80 years, lesser catastrophe every 40 years, recession ever 20 years...
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@context2150 - Mine is only the interpretation from the books I have read. But they tend to agree that the situation is complex and murky and the USA were nothing like as generous as they like to make out.
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@peterbrown1012 - AND we gave them FREE intellectual property on computers, that they used to dominate the computer industry for decades. On Jet engines that they used to dominate the aviation industry for decades. On Radar, they used to dominate the arms industry for decades. And then Hollywood, and to a lesser degree the UK film industry and the UK press, whitewashed all this gouging and portrayed the Americans as the great saviours of WW2 generously helping out. The bit that sticks in my mind from the books "The Downing Street Diaries" is that the Americans would NOT accept £GDP in payment cos they expected the UK to lose and Germany to win so they wanted gold... They were 100% OK with Germany winning, all they were concerned about was getting paid. But even now you have millions of Brits who 100% believe the Americans were philanthropic saviours in WW2. EVEN the Marshal plan money to Germany ETC - part of the deal was they HAD to buy the stuff for reconstruction from America in $$$. SO the $5 billion in aid was effectively just a $5 billion gift to the US economy from the US government. As you can tell I am very animated by this. But when you reed first hand accounts of the time, people were on their knees desperate and the Americans just kept asking for more money and more money - well above the reasonable price for anything we were buying. The civil servants at the time hated the Americans as much as they hated Germany. OH - Incidentally the Americans were selling arms to the Germans as well until they joined the war.
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THE OTHER PROBLEM I FORGOT TO MENTION - the rest of Europe had the "advantage" that there was NO industry left, it all had to be bought new and started again. The UK has 50 or 100 year old legacy machinery that it tried desperately to hang onto cos it could not afford to replace it, this ultimately led to the UK being terribly uncompetitive in the new world.
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@LyricalDJ - Its ok. If you read the comment I just posted - its a bit of a hidden / whitewashed over history.
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@ulfosterberg9116 - OK - Im going to edit my comment cos about 5 people have said the same thing: If you look at my other longer comment I explain that its nothing like as simple as this... The USA had gouged almost the entire UK gold reserve and then lent the UK £21 billion to fight the war, so the "aid" was not really aid, the USA extracted about £30 billion out of the UK over the course of the war
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@i_am_m3384 - Please see my other comments - It noting like as simple as that, and has been very whitewashed to make the USA look less, well - evil.
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@context2150 - Im dyslexic AF - Ill edit it thank you.
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@sigiriya5149 - You know I am being sarcastic right? The native population of Antarctica is zero.
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@martinschmidt9878 - That is a remarkably apt synopsis...
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@hawkanonymous2610 - EXACTLY - It looks good on paper "UK got 28% of the Marshal Plan money" but that's not really that case. The UK got [from memory $3 billion] of credit added to its national war debt and the deal was you spent it with America. So in effect, the US economy was given $3 billion gift from the British and the US treasury was owed $3 billion + interest from the UK... Its nothing like as nice and pally and straight forwards as it sounds.
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@Flugzeug101 ""special relationship" sound like the two worst enemies" is a JOKE - it always has been. Its a fantasy to tell the British public to make them feel special. In the first 2 years of the war the USA insisted that all arms and food bought by the UK be paid for in GOLD. Why? Cos the USA was of the belief that the UK would lose, Germany would win and £GBP would be worthless. The USA were quite happy for Germany to win, they just wanted to make sure their war profiteering was not for nothing and be left with a worthless pile of £GBP. The USA had NO INTENTION of saving its little "special relationship friend" at all. Now - for some reason, this entire discussion has got onto the subject of the USA bankrupting the UK when actually I gave 3 or 4 reasons the UK was the poor man or Europe - and the main one is THE LOSS OF EMPIRE. The UK was an economy used to getting billion £ every year for nothing from the Empire and all of a sudden it didn't. That was at the top of the list. The war debt to the USA next Labour problems in there as well And the other one I did not mention - the rest of Europe had the "advantage" that there was NO industry left, it all had to be bought new and started again. The UK has 50 or 100 year old legacy machinery that it tried desperately to hang onto cos it could not afford to replace it, this ultimately led to the UK being terribly uncompetitive in the new world
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@rocketsurgeon2135 "What is doubly pathetic is how the UK opted to be its lapdog" This is the bit I never understood. It was obvious to everyone in the civil service and in government that the USA was incredibly ruthless about looking out for No1 and they would not lift a finger to help without first negotiating a very good deal for themselves in return that help. Why did we collectively and politically agree to be their lapdogs. Why was the gouging and war profiteering entirely airbrushed out and replaced with this notion of the USA as the great saviour of Britain. My guess is the USSR and communism... Better to hail the capitalist heroes and saviours and LOVE the USA than to let people know that the capitalist's heroes behaved EXACTLY like capitalists and bled the UK dry, then gave it debt in order to keep bleeding it dry and maybe not mention that the evil communists lost 27 million people whist we were literally arguing about the terms of the arms deals...
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@notfooled. - WOW - that is a staggeringly Anglocentric view of the world - kinda missing out the 27 million Russian's who died or the millions of people from the British colonies who fought to KEEP Britain "Standing Alone"
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@martinhambleton5076 - WOW this is one weird assed threat I have created. YESTERDAY I was getting abused for supporting Britains role in the war and after it - TODAY I am a traitor deliberately downplaying Britains role in the war... Im guessing that tomorrow I will be compared to Hitler as we must be approaching that point now the thread has got to 260+ comments. Just goes to show you that NO position is maintainable on the internet given enough comments... You are guaranteed to be accused of contradictory offences as a thread gets longer. Maybe I will delete the entire thread as it has clearly passed the point where it is getting silly...
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@2mallyb - Please re-read my comment.
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@cyborgbadger1015 - OH are your fee fee's hurt that brexit is a total disaster??? Boo Hoo - £2 BILLION in lost food exports in 6 months - £4 BILLION in the first year... IKEA stores mission 1000 separate product lines... You are right, my tiny brain knew Brexit would be a disaster, but I never imagined anything on this scale. This is a total catastrophe. School kids about to go hungry...
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