The Middle East War

[lucklucky]

I am sorry but that is BS of highest order. You just have to compare with countries much more destroyed. warehouse!? distribution systems? transport system destroyed, those German Hawker Typhoon raids were terrible...!? 10 years to fix? did you think seriously about this point.

Distribution systems don't need to be fixed they just need be let free.

It is not surprising at all that 20-25 years after being destroyed Germany - and by Germany the Western part of it only -surpassed England with British obsession about economic control.

 

Oh and btw USA occupation forces tried to block price liberalization in W.Germany.

 

PS: we should probably open a topic about post war Britain.

[swerve]

Bullshit of the highest order? Bollocks!

 

We'd lived off capital through the war. No investment in anything that wasn't essential for the war effort, spending of all our foreign reserves & accumulation of massive debts (& not only to the USA: Argentina, for example, had sold us food on credit). We were having to pay back debts while trying to rebuild worn-out infrastructure, pay for still very large armed forces (occupying Germany & Austria, worried about the USSR, etc.) & import enough food, oil etc. to keep everything running. It was achieved, & by historical standards the economy grew pretty well for the next 25 years.

[Roman Alymov]

 

Its a problem of bandwidth, not socialism. That and a complete lack of currency reserves to buy such things as, bananas for example. Did you know sweet rationing didnt stop in Britain till 1953? 2 Years into Winston Churchill's second term of office.

Interesting when it comes to Russia/USSR, all economic difficulties are usually referred as results of socialism and other things West consider to be wrong, not natural reasons.

Back to US sailors arrested, why they are dressed in desert colors? It will hamper efforts to rescue men over board in case of incident.... Why not use bright colors+ reflecting patches?

[Dark_Falcon]

 

 

Its a problem of bandwidth, not socialism. That and a complete lack of currency reserves to buy such things as, bananas for example. Did you know sweet rationing didnt stop in Britain till 1953? 2 Years into Winston Churchill's second term of office.

Interesting when it comes to Russia/USSR, all economic difficulties are usually referred as results of socialism and other things West consider to be wrong, not natural reasons.

Back to US sailors arrested, why they are dressed in desert colors? It will hamper efforts to rescue men over board in case of incident.... Why not use bright colors+ reflecting patches?

 

 

Those are riverine craft and crews, of the type the US has used on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq (and may still be using there). Since the Vietnam War such crews have worn camouflage suited to the terrain in which their craft operate.

[lucklucky]

Bullshit of the highest order? Bollocks!

 

We'd lived off capital through the war. No investment in anything that wasn't essential for the war effort, spending of all our foreign reserves & accumulation of massive debts (& not only to the USA: Argentina, for example, had sold us food on credit). We were having to pay back debts while trying to rebuild worn-out infrastructure, pay for still very large armed forces (occupying Germany & Austria, worried about the USSR, etc.) & import enough food, oil etc. to keep everything running. It was achieved, & by historical standards the economy grew pretty well for the next 25 years.

 

 

Where was Italian capital? where was German capital? where was French capital? . Every one of these countries stopped rationing before England. They were all more destroyed, had more deaths, had much less moral, their industries, roads, bridges, energy production, harbors where destroyed. Any of them had much less capital, including human capital.

 

England had all advantages over everyone else in Europe. They could even have supplied whole European reconstruction and trowed it away.

Socialist economy control made everything much less efficient.

 

 

 

Interesting when it comes to Russia/USSR, all economic difficulties are usually referred as results of socialism and other things West consider to be wrong, not natural reasons.

 

It is difficult to notice natural reasons on a mismanagement of such scale. What was the natural reason that made USSR knock on the door of capitalist Agnelli?

[swerve]

 

Bullshit of the highest order? Bollocks!

 

We'd lived off capital through the war. No investment in anything that wasn't essential for the war effort, spending of all our foreign reserves & accumulation of massive debts (& not only to the USA: Argentina, for example, had sold us food on credit). We were having to pay back debts while trying to rebuild worn-out infrastructure, pay for still very large armed forces (occupying Germany & Austria, worried about the USSR, etc.) & import enough food, oil etc. to keep everything running. It was achieved, & by historical standards the economy grew pretty well for the next 25 years.

 

 

Where was Italian capital? where was German capital? where was French capital? . Every one of these countries stopped rationing before England. They were all more destroyed, had more deaths, had much less moral, their industries, roads, bridges, energy production, harbors where destroyed. Any of them had much less capital, including human capital.

 

England had all advantages over everyone else in Europe. They could even have supplied whole European reconstruction and trowed it away.

Socialist economy control made everything much less efficient.

 

 

 

They all grew more of their own food than we did, especially France, so didn't have to export or starve to quite the same extent. They also had governments (especially in Germany, under foreign supervision) which were willing to accept a much higher level of suffering among the population than in the UK.

 

Don't imagine that the earlier end to rationing reflected generally more laissez-faire economic management, though. Focusing on rationing is misleading. A high level of state ownership of industry, transport, & power & direction of privately-owned business was the norm in W. Europe then.

Edited January 13, 2016 by swerve

[Colin]

I always said that Landrover survived everything senior British car industry management could throw at it.

[Mr King]

 

 

Its a problem of bandwidth, not socialism. That and a complete lack of currency reserves to buy such things as, bananas for example. Did you know sweet rationing didnt stop in Britain till 1953? 2 Years into Winston Churchill's second term of office.

Interesting when it comes to Russia/USSR, all economic difficulties are usually referred as results of socialism and other things West consider to be wrong, not natural reasons.

Back to US sailors arrested, why they are dressed in desert colors? It will hamper efforts to rescue men over board in case of incident.... Why not use bright colors+ reflecting patches?

 

Hey no worries there. Those guys are in the hands of the folks our fearless leader has worked tirelessly to ensure will be armed with nukes. I love the part where they put the one female in the bunch in Islamic garb.

[Simon Tan]

Just a headscarf. When in Rome. They got some nice looking rice and ghormeh sabzi. They deemed confused but you just eat from the floor. They could have provided a table cloth or floor cloth but likely did not have such niceties on Farsi Island. They were served nicer food than the garrison.

[lucklucky]

swerve @ They all grew more of their own food than we did, especially France, so didn't have to export or starve to quite the same extent. They also had governments (especially in Germany, under foreign supervision) which were willing to accept a much higher level of suffering among the population than in the UK.

 

 

English farms were not affected by war like France, Italy or Germany. British factories were much better making possible to export. Trade.

Edit. btw England producers were trashing food in the can because it was over production.

 

swerve@Don't imagine that the earlier end to rationing reflected generally more laissez-faire economic management, though. Focusing on rationing is misleading.

 

 

I don't imagine, i have no illusion about the grand bargain that was made in WW2: Conservatives get Armed Forces and war conduct while Economy is given to Labour.

Edit: i only focused in Rationing because it is even a higher degree of control over freedom.

 

 

@ SG The British had a number of responsibilities postwar many other countries didnt have. It still had an empire to defend, it was fighting on behalf of the UN in Korea, it was embarking on an atomic bomb project (which the French didnt do till rather later) and had been utterly crippled by the winter of 1947. It had to replace a very considerable degree of its shipping (very important in an era when we had no land links or ability to bring much in by air). Then it had to rebuild its transport links (Canal rail and road which were getting rather worn out even before the war) and on top of that had to replace something like 2 million bomb damaged homes in the UK, a large proportion in the London area alone, and maintain and update the worlds second largest naval fleet. And thats before you consider the effort we put into the Berlin airlift, which in the early stages 50 percent of flights were handed by the British themselves!

 

 

Compared to Germany, Italy and France destruction? Compared to millions of internal migrations in those countries? compared to civil war in Italy?

 

And how much more Marshall Plan money England got than Germany?

 

 

@SG I seem to recall in Italy they were in such dire straits the Americans tolerated the rise of Black Market economies because they were unable to cope with demand. Which to an extent worked, but would appear to at least be part of the reason of the postwar rise of the Mafia. Not to mention the place very nearly going communist as a result.

 

 

So black market after all feeds people...seems it was not necessary rationing.

Italy got a Communist threat because they were one of the main combatants against Nazis, like in Greece or France. Only in absurdistan can be said that black market build up communists.

Edited January 14, 2016 by lucklucky

[swerve]

Black markets fed those with money while the poor went hungry. We had an idea of social justice, & any politician wanting re-election had to make sure there was no starvation. Without rationing there would have been starvation among the poor in 1947, at least. In the UK we lacked the large self-sufficient rural populations of Italy, France, & to a lesser extent Germany, & the relatively recent movement of much of their urban populations from the countryside & their resulting surviving links with the countryside. It'd have been worse for us.

No British farmers destroyed 'overproduced' food in the post-war years. That came much later, long after rationing was abolished. It was highly illegal under the state controls in place while rationing was still in force.

 

You seem to have an idea of British post-WW2 economic history based on a few alarmist headlines.

 

There was no party political carve-up of the economy to Labour & the conduct of the war to the Tories during WW2. That's a fantasy. The country was largely run by committees with every party represented. The running of the economy & the conduct of the war were closely intertwined, e.g. look at the wartime Ministry of Aircraft Production - run by a conservative personal friend of Winston Churchill, who later moved to be head of the Combined Raw Materials Board. The minister of agriculture right through the war was a Conservative. Not much Labour economic control there! Other economic ministries were parcelled out between the parties, with the deputies often being of a different party from the minister.

 

Farms weren't bombed. French farms weren't destroyed by the war. They carried on much as before. Fuel shortages, but that affected them less than it would have done in the UK because they were less mechanised. Much the same in Germany & Italy. Germany was starving after the war. Should we have said "OK, let's put up with some starvation & scrap our food policies"? Come off it!

[DB]

Not sure how this devolved into a discussion about how badly the UK managed its economy in and immediately after the second world war, but a couple of comparisons may be helpful.

 

Defence spending as a percentage of GDP as a rough measure of the impact of the war on the economy has some value, I think, although it may underestimate this due to not really showing what the resultant debt is, or the additional impact on the overall size of GDP, then one can see (from here and here) the relative amount spent by the UK and the US.

 

In summary - the UK's economy became heavily committed to military spending from approximately 1940, peaking in 1945 and tailing off back to something close to pre-war levels in 1947. Whereas the US committed in 1942, peaked in 1945 and drew down immediately after, but also returning to pre-war levels in 1947.

 

The UK peak was above 50% of GDP. For the US this was a little above 40%.

 

Neither of these levels of spending is sustainable long term, but it is reasonable to conclude that the economic damage done by the additional 10-15% spend by the UK would have a larger post-war impact.

 

I am unable to find equivalent chart data for Germany, possibly because I don't know what to look for using the German language.

 

An additional item of interest is to compare total government spending as a percentage of GDP post-war for the UK and the US. One might be tempted to infer that government intervention in the economy - by administering a larger fraction of GDP - was detrimental to the economy overall, but that might be a bit of a stretch without significant analysis.

[Colin]

Just a headscarf. When in Rome. They got some nice looking rice and ghormeh sabzi. They deemed confused but you just eat from the floor. They could have provided a table cloth or floor cloth but likely did not have such niceties on Farsi Island. They were served nicer food than the garrison.

 

 

What made me wonder is that both the US and the Iranian boats appeared to equally armed, I know the Iranians have some sort of Rocket launchers, but I suspect they don't work that well. I am surprised that the USN did not go to action stations and suggest that the Iranians stand off till they are able to get underway. Unless the Iranian had a bigger gunboat there offscreen.

[lucklucky]

Black markets fed those with money while the poor went hungry. We had an idea of social justice, & any politician wanting re-election had to make sure there was no starvation. Without rationing there would have been starvation among the poor in 1947, at least. In the UK we lacked the large self-sufficient rural populations of Italy, France, & to a lesser extent Germany, & the relatively recent movement of much of their urban populations from the countryside & their resulting surviving links with the countryside. It'd have been worse for us.

No British farmers destroyed 'overproduced' food in the post-war years. That came much later, long after rationing was abolished. It was highly illegal under the state controls in place while rationing was still in force.

 

You seem to have an idea of British post-WW2 economic history based on a few alarmist headlines.

 

There was no party political carve-up of the economy to Labour & the conduct of the war to the Tories during WW2. That's a fantasy. The country was largely run by committees with every party represented. The running of the economy & the conduct of the war were closely intertwined, e.g. look at the wartime Ministry of Aircraft Production - run by a conservative personal friend of Winston Churchill, who later moved to be head of the Combined Raw Materials Board. The minister of agriculture right through the war was a Conservative. Not much Labour economic control there! Other economic ministries were parcelled out between the parties, with the deputies often being of a different party from the minister.

 

Farms weren't bombed. French farms weren't destroyed by the war. They carried on much as before. Fuel shortages, but that affected them less than it would have done in the UK because they were less mechanised. Much the same in Germany & Italy. Germany was starving after the war. Should we have said "OK, let's put up with some starvation & scrap our food policies"? Come off it!

 

Black markets are what feed poor people all over the world, it where they can sell what they produce with real prices.

 

This guy says his family was forced to destroy milk http://www.bruceonpolitics.com/2015/02/17/attlee-starved-british-people/ i am sure there are many more cases if the production was managed like with milk.

 

It was the war that established the "Social State" in Britain, that was the "Deal" . England was almost 2/3 as rich as the French, 30 years later and without being invaded by the enemy.

 

France was severely disrupted by war, with its fields as tank and infantry battlefields needing to be cleaned of explosives, villages destroyed many farm animals killed, lack of manpower, ruble etc etc. Nevertheless they ended rationing in 1949, Germany with even several fold more destruction and even more shortages of everything stopped rationing just one year later. Instead England increased rationing.

 

Many in the Labour wanted to continue rationing indefinitely because that was their socialist ideology of people control. A self fulfilling and punishing prophecy that in other less mild parts of the world might have ended in full starvation.

Edited January 15, 2016 by lucklucky

[glenn239]

 

What made me wonder is that both the US and the Iranian boats appeared to equally armed, I know the Iranians have some sort of Rocket launchers, but I suspect they don't work that well. I am surprised that the USN did not go to action stations and suggest that the Iranians standoff till they are able to get underway. Unless the Iranian had a bigger gunboat there off screen.

 

 

 

They'll have had orders to comply in case that happened, I bet. CNN is whining that everything was filmed but fuck that – the Iranians filmed everything to cover their assess .

[Corinthian]

With the unchecked invasion wholesale migration of so-called MidEast refugees to Europe, I reckon Europe will be the new Middle East, hence the thread drift on European stuff in this thread titled Middle East War.

 

 

[lucklucky]

Well i said some posts back that we could transfer this to FFZ but had no reply from my adversaries.

[DB]

Escalation risked a bunch of dead people and a colossal shit-storm. the right thing was done. Nobody died, no war was declared and the politics tidied it all up. Nothing more to say or do.

 

Really guys, sometimes it's not a nail, and the solution isn't a bloody hammer.

[richard g]

Re post war Europe, wasn't one of the advantages a ruined country had was the complete replacement of it's wrecked infrastructure with new, more efficient infrastructure? While, for example, British car factories, practices and tooling were obsolete and worn out, Germany and Japan both benefited from US assistance both materially and otherwise which made them more efficient and productive.

 

Looks like we can blame all the problems on the US, again

Edited January 27, 2016 by richard g

[Colin]

Escalation risked a bunch of dead people and a colossal shit-storm. the right thing was done. Nobody died, no war was declared and the politics tidied it all up. Nothing more to say or do.

 

Really guys, sometimes it's not a nail, and the solution isn't a bloody hammer.

Except that being to passive also leads to later greater shitstorm. The Iranians will believe they can do what they want, may end up doing something to far over the line and then a whole whack dies in a short time and things are very tense for a long time. A bit of gun waving and rude gestures and "fuck off mates" would have also worked and the Iranians would now they can't be bullied.

[Simon Tan]

I'm looking forward to Team Tehran undercutting the crap out of Saudi with gas and oil pipelines to the Mediterranean. In their fear of the Shia ascendance, Team Sunni have given it life and form with militaries and militias aligned with the will of the Supreme Leader and his most able Hand, Qassem Soleimani. Team Tehran will find plenty of funding from the Chinese who see no future in the Gulf, which remains US dominated.

Edited January 28, 2016 by Simon Tan

[Nobu]

Japan has lifted sanctions against Iran and will be a player in the Iranian oil and gas market. Bilateral trade will jump--from the $11 billion/year now to probably around $30 billion by the end of the decade.

 

The Iranian market is an ideal fit for Japanese exportables, such as bullet technology. Intercity distances in Iran look especially promising.

[JasonJ]

Japan has lifted sanctions against Iran and will be a player in the Iranian oil and gas market. Bilateral trade will jump--from the $11 billion/year now to probably around $30 billion by the end of the decade.

 

The Iranian market is an ideal fit for Japanese exportables, such as bullet technology. Intercity distances in Iran look especially promising.

It's all part of the play with the Iranian deal. Once the US decides to snap back on the sanctions, Japan will comply. Japan has mine clearing practice with the British in the Persian gulf later this year.

[lucklucky]

Lebanon on the brink?

 

Saudis, Koweit, Bahrain all say their nationals should leave the country. UEA pulling diplomats. Saudis cut 4$B help to Lebanon. I guess they finally understand they have been supplying Heezbolah.

[Simon Tan]

Well...the Christians are aligning with the Shia and the Sunnis are being pushed to resist the fall of the last domino. Oh...how stupid to be aligned to team Sunni. Ohcwell.