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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