The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [160]
After the Great War, America, England, and France disarmed to a large degree and went back to civilian budgets. In America the US Army shrank dramatically, but the navy did somewhat better because nations usually avoided scrapping battleships like beer cans. Germany was stripped of its army and Austria-Hungary ceased to exist. Turkey also faced financial problems that limited its ability to rearm. In the USSR under Stalin, the Soviets began a massive rearming and rebuilding of its army. Its secret arms buildup included development of the excellent T-34 tank. During this period between 1919 and 1929 an economic boom of sorts was underway, and the nations of the world prospered. Europe could trade once more, even though Germany was on the ropes, and the USSR took itself out of international trade under their communist regime. Money was available for investing, and companies expanded to meet growing consumer demand.
From 1919 to 1933, the United States tried another experiment in abolishing evil. Just as the nation abolished slavery it would now abolish drunkenness by making sales of liquor illegal.[191] The Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, approved on January 29, 1919, prohibited the sale of alcohol in America. This forced many distilleries, bars, and transportation companies out of business or into other businesses. The law made some very expensive property valueless. Legally owned property became contraband overnight. Once again, the government did not pay for the property it made worthless. After all, the property was not seized by the government for public use. Washington DC just said it was illegal to use any property for the now illegal production of alcohol.[192] The great experiment of taming drunkenness fell flat, and in 1932 Roosevelt and the Democrats ran on a platform of overturning the Eighteenth Amendment. Roosevelt was elected in a landslide in 1932 because of the Depression, but one might wonder how many voted Democrat because it would bring back booze (Even I may have voted for that. How dumb are these Republicans anyway?).
The Great Depression 1929-1942?
Background
From 1919 to about 1929, the world economic situation seemed okay. England and France were recovering from the war, supplies of food and manufactured products were plentiful, and living standards were going up. In the USA, President Calvin Coolidge’s administration was running a financial surplus, cutting taxes dramatically, and experiencing a growth in real income per person of 2.1 percent.[193] Underneath however, things were not so rosy. The world’s economic system developed dynamic cracks that were growing and endangering the global economic system.
The Great War devastated France, destroying large swathes of land requiring millions of francs to restore. France had taken on massive war debts with England and the United States which had to be repaid, but these large debts caused devaluation of the franc making repayment difficult.[194] France was counting on Germany to pay for everything through repatriations (“Germany will pay all” the French government proclaimed); however, the expected repatriations did not show up. Germany was broke. Payments were much lower than agreed and slow in coming. The problem of German repatriations dogged the European powers throughout the 1920s. Germany could not repay England and France, and America would not cancel Allied war debts. Several conferences were held, but no real solutions to the financial problems were ever found. The 1932 Lausanne Conference, held in the middle of the Great Depression, terminated the wrangling over German repatriations by requiring one final payment from Germany. Today it is clear that Germany received more in American loans than she paid in repatriations. Never trust accountants mixing with politicians.
Britain experienced critical economic problems as