a bit of politics and history?

[jester]

[QUOTE=I think the huge shot to our power and prosperity is that after World War II, most of the major nations were blown up to one degree or another except for the U.S. and it took them time to rebuild, anywhere from 20 to 50+ years and they are on a perch equal to us more or less. Add into the fact we lost a lot of our manufacturing jobs and you see what we have today.

Chuck M.

Chuck M.[/QUOTE]

Chuck I thought that once too, but and this is what was explained to me why our steel and auto industry took a backseat to those of Germany and Japan in the 60s.

We chugged along after WWII untouched by the war. I mean really, the only devestation was our Territories like Hawaii and that was localised mostly to Pearl, Hickam and Kaneohe, Guam, Wake and The Philipines.

But think about this. Japan and Germany were devestated, their industry destroyed.

And through recovery efforts like the Marshall Plan many of those countries were rebuilt with brand new equipment and tools of industry. Short term, it was also good for the United States as we were supplying these items. But long term bad, because we were using old technology and machinery etc, and supplied these rebuilt economies with much more modern tools of industry and thus, they were able to out produce us in those specific areas or at least become competition. Just something to think about.