At 05:37 PM 5/6/97 -0400, Charles Edwards wrote:
>A review of Western World History reveals that in 1949 Great Britain and her
>allies were returning to a civilian economy following World War II. Germany
>was still digging out from the devastation inflicted by British night
>bombing and the almost constant daylight bombing of the U.S. Army Eighth Air
>Force. Although there was much devastation in Britain after the war,
>Germany's industrial centers were virtually bomb craters. In order to
>produce anything, Germany needed to start over. So did Japan, but that's
>another story. To get Germany going, the U.S. developed the Marshall Plan,
>named after U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall. Life and history
>are full of unintended consequences. Accordingly, one could ask:
>Did the Marshall Plan inflict commercial defeat on the British auto industry?
>
>
Oh boy! Well. the Marshall plan was conceived to stop the spread of
communism after the war. Eastern Europe was falling to the Soviets, and the
idea of rebuilding Germany to keep it out of Soviet hands was the best
foreign policy plan ever out of American foreign policy, and there hasn't
been many gems. Anyhow, in my humble opinion the resurgences of western
Europe was the single main factor in the fall of the Soviet Bloc, despite
recent American Presidents statements to the contrary. It just took 50 years!
To blame the decline of the British Motor Industry on General Marshall is
really reaching. Not only was the trade union movement an anchor, there
were some really great decisions made by management along the way that
really helped.
Ah life is so complex, and yet we seek simple answers and simple scape
goats for very difficult and sometimes impossible to explain events. Was
the decision to abandon the MG in America, made by trade unions?
Mike
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