All hail the power of the unintended consequence!
Bill Lawrence
> From: rfbegani@speakeasy.net
> To: healeys@autox.team.net
> Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2014 07:49:43 -0400
> Subject: [Healeys] British Motor Car Industry
>
> Gentlemen:
>
>
>
> In your discussion regarding the demise of BMC does not address the problem
> of economics. In actual fact, British lost WW1 and WW2 because they were
> financially exhausted after 1945 and did not recover fully until the
1980's.
> The economic assistance the USA provided the British was with war and war
> machines. For all practical purposes, it stopped after the war. In
> addition, the country turned to Labor. The Social policies of the new
> government required enormous amounts of money and none to repair the war
> torn industries and infrastructure of the country. To give you an example,
> in the 80's I was in London and tried to call my business associate in the
> suburbs from a coin box. The call would not go through so I asked the
> operator to assist. She dialed the number and I heard the click click of
> the dialing and there was an answer. It was not the correct number, but,
> it was a neighbor and she announced that this happens quite often. In turn
> she called Tony and he called me back at the hotel. When we discussed what
> happened and that I was surprised the phone system was so antiquated, he
> reminded me that they did, in fact, lose the war.
>
>
>
> The USA Marshall Plan invested billions of dollars in Europe, but, very
> little in Britain. The northern Europeans got the bulk of the monies
> because the USA needed a strong economy and war machine to hold the
> Russians. Never the less, I can tell you that in the 70's and into the
80's
> I visited steel mills in Netherlands, Belgium and France which were from
the
> era of the 20's because we did not destroy them in the war as they would be
> needed after the war. Besides their production of steel, they were need
to
> provide employment to thousands. On the other hand, the German Steel Mills
> and most of their industry were destroyed in the war and what was left, the
> Russians took away. So the economies of the northern Europe benefited from
> the Marshal Plan expanded greatly in the period after the war while
British
> Industry struggled. It is called the Economic Miracle of the 60's and
70's.
>
>
>
>
> In Southern Europe, there was also an economic upswing due to the fact that
> 10's of thousands of Italian, Southern French, Spanish and Portuguese and
> others flooded into Germany and northern Europe to work in the factories.
> They sent money home to be invested in rebuilding the infrastructure of
> their countries by buying fixing up houses and buying locally their needs.
> The trickle-down theory of economics.
>
>
>
> As most of those studying economics in Europe wrote about the German
> Economic Miracle, I wrote my Master's Thesis on the Economic Miracle of
> Northern Italy because it was indirectly supported by the Marshall Plan and
> my professor was U.S. Military Economic Advisor who after the war worked in
> Italy on these matters. He liked my choice!
>
>
>
> So goes the world.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> Bob Begani
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