Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "How did America Become a Superpower After WW2? | Animated History" video.

  1. Bullshit statement from an ignorant person. USAs economy took decades of industrial policy to create. The country had the highest standard of living in the world when World war 2 started. And Americans had a higher standard of living than Europeans already in the late 1800's- And that it thanks to protectionism that allowed the country to industrialize without getting its industries smashed to pieces from foreign competition the same way that other colonies like South America and India got their smashed by industries in their motherland. USA got rich while other colonies or former colonies didn't.
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  2.  @jarehelt  You are right. A mistake happened. I don't know why my comment ended up here. Because I was going to respond to another persons claim and not yours.
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  3. Russia won the war but at a great cost. Half their economy had been destroyed in the war. Cities had been turned into rubble. Villages had been burned. Bridges and factories had been blown up by retreating armies. Germany destroyed railway tracks as they retreated. So you can say that the western half of Russia's economy had stopped existing because of the war. Now everything left of Russia's industrial base laid east of the zone that Germany had occupied. Particular in the Ural mountains did you have much factories - because as you perhaps already know, did Russia take down many of their factories and industrial plants and transported them by rail to the east so they would not fall into German hands. So this changed the entire structure of the Soviet economy. Now the industrial base had moved from west to east. Instead of small factories, did Russia put up all big factories in a few cities. And instead of making civilian products did those factories now specialize in making military equipment - rifles, tanks and such. Now would all parts of the production process happen in one and the same town when all factories were concentrated into one place. You dug up the metals from the ground, you processed it into steel, then you turned that steel into tanks. Every part of the production process now could be done in the same town. So you could say that the cities in the Ural turned into huge military towns. The war changed Russia. The military industrial complex got a firmer grip of power in the country, because it represented a higher proportion of the economy than before. And it had won much status and prestige in the war. And people were afraid of another world war would happen again, so Russians therefore wanted a strong military. So Russia remained a militaristic society decades after the war. But this led to the civilian economy to be neglected. And the standard of living did not improve. The war had destroyed much, and Russia had much money it had to spend on repair on reparing bridges and railroads so it did not have much money over to offer everyday luxuries that we take for granted in the west. Stalin hoped that plundering east Germany and stealing all large amounts of industrial equipment in Silesia would help the Russian economy to flourish again. But this did not happen. And all he accomplished was to destroy Germany's industrial base. Russia had won the war. Its military status was great after the victory over Germany. And Russia took control over eastern Europe. But its economy remained weak. It had outproduced Germany during the war despite being a poor country, and Germany occupied all of Europe. But in all other areas was the Russian economy weak. And that is also the case today. The Russian economy today is mostly just strong in military equipment, avionics, nuclear power, space, and selling raw materials such as coal, natural gas, timber and metals. Half of Russia's GDP comes from oil production. So it is not a very diverse economy that is fragile because it depends too much on a few sectors - and particulary the price of oil.
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  4. The Conservatives are wrong about economics. But sadly can I not say that the left are correct about economics either since it push for nonsense like UBI, The Green leap forward (aka Climate Communism). And when people glorify the 1950s, I think that people do that because there was a strong sense of community (people were proud patriots and the country was not divided like today). Real wages were high. Unemployment was low. People had a positive belief in the future with all technological progress and miracle medicine. And it was a time of strong families. And technological progress helped women to have more free time - you no longer needed a person to stay home to wash clothes, make food and do the dishes as washing machines, microwaves and rapidly prepared meals entered peoples homes. So many positive things in my view. I there are many things we have to learn from the 1950's. I want modern America to be more like the 1950's. But we do not of course have to go back and do everything exactly as it was back then. We could keep our internet. And skip all bigotry against atheists and have a more pragmatic view upon marriage and divorces. People should not stay in bad relationships, and cheating on their partner or take pills against depression. Its better to break up and move on. And if women wants to work and have their own income and be less dependent on a man, then I see no problem in it. But nor do I see any problem with women want to become housewives.
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  5. It was a Great power already in the mid-1800s. But it became a super-power only at the end of World War 2
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  6. America did not believe in free trade for most of its history. It was the most protectionist country in the world by the 1800s. And it was also the fastest growing economy in the world in the 1800s. So protectionism is good. America have however switched over to free trade from the 1980s til today. And that is also a time period with outsourcing, falling real wages, the worst economic crash since the great depression, massive bailouts, over-indebted households, growing wealth inequality, and growing political division.
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