Ruins to Riches: The Secret to Europe's Post-War Glow-Up
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- Опубліковано 9 бер 2024
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1946. Europe has 99 problems, but a dictator ain’t one! A genocida - A fasci-- a German dictator ain’t one! Booyah! Unfortunately, it still had 99 other problems. Famine, energy shortage, housing shortage, unemployment, monetary instability, trade imbalances, foreign exchange shortages, social discontent, communist subterfuge, industrial decline, things were… not great. But this is a happy episode, you know why? Because Europe fixed it. And because America saw a series of complicated inter-connected problems that primarily affected impoverished people on the other side of the world, and they invested in fixing it. With their government. [mind blown sounds]
This is a video about the Marshall Plan, where America gave Europe lots of money to rebuild after it had finished blowing itself up over… I dunno, silly reasons. For once just a good, wholesome story about what can be achieved in politics when smart people put their heads together in an honest attempt to solve 99 challenging problems.
Thank you to Keeps for sponsoring this video! Head to keeps.com/jackrackam to get a special offer
HI Jack! Big fan!
@@danielsantiagourtado3430Hola! Y muchas gracias!
@@JackRackam siempre!
99 problems, but hair loss ain't one.
Your chronology is wrong at 4:38.
German hyperinflation occurred in 1923, as a result of the French occupation of the Ruhr (where German workers went on strike and the government kept paying them).
In contrast, the Great Depression was a period of deflation, just like in the US. Demand dried up, so prices fell. In Germany, Chancellor Brüning actively pursued deflation as a way of making it easier to pay off foreign-denominated debt. This exacerbated the crisis: why spend money today, when things will be cheaper tomorrow? And we know the rest...
Ah yes, the Marshall plan, the thing we in Poland could really use, and were invited to participate in but USSR said "нет".
It was in the research for this video that I learned of the claim that not Dresden or even Hiroshima, but Warsaw was the major city most damaged by the war, getting completely levelled, what, three separate times?
Jesus... Poland just kept getting zhit on!
@JackRackam Yeah, the whole city was quite seriously damaged during the siege in September 1939, then a district in the middle of the city was completely leveled during and after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, then the same happened to most of the rest of the city in 1944 (the Warsaw Uprising).
Yeah i heard there isnt 1 building that pre dates 1939 in warsaw, at least not in it's entirety
@@jameshagan2832 The city of Rotterdam had a similar situation with being literally wiped off the map due to the German bombardment
Hoover before becoming president was famous for running a international food relife organization during WW1 that saved millions from starvation so he was actually really qualified to access food needs of Europe after WW2.
Good guy, bad president
Hoover's food program saved like 50 million Russians from dying to famine and cold. Nobody knows about it.
Herbert Hoover would be remembered far, far better if he hadn't been president during the Depression.
He was a very smart, educated, competent man, and he was very qualified. He just didn't have the decisive leadership necessary to manage the Depression, and his name got attached to the whole era.
Man was Jimmy Carter before Jimmy Carter
@@richeybaumann1755 he delt with the depression the way a wealthy man would. It's sad that Hooverville's are how we remember him.
The Germans had confiscated all the mules in Greece. So the Americans sent over 400.000 mules here. For at developing and war torn country that was significant and those mules were still talked about in the 2000s.
Ah yes USA supporting a dictatorship, how familiar
One could even say there were... 2000 of them...?
People still talked about the tractors here
Where did the ones the Germans had go?
@@kv4648dead in the eastern front i guess
The Marshall plan was also the American solution to the overproduction problem.
American factories were pumping war equipment at an incredible rate but after the war they went back to producing normal goods. But it produced WAY to much for the US only.
The Marshall plan provided an opportunity to both help European allies and get clients for American factories
Welp you addressed it just 2 minuts after I wrote that
I can’t even wrap my mind around such production levels. Imagine hearing this if I were German or Japanese, it would be so…disheartening😕
@@hollister2320zerg prodution:
@@hollister2320Pov: You Aggro the Raid Boss.
Hell yeah the ultimate win-win
Fun Fact: A catch to the Marshal Plan was that the countries that accepted the money n resources it provided had to have a Democratic government, open economy, and Free Trade. Which Stalin was not in line with. The only communist country to accept the Marshal Plan was Yugoslavia. Which Stalin also wasn't on board with. He tried to kill Tito a bunch of times and failed miserably. Over this and a bunch of other things.
Well that explains the Yugoslav dissolution and UN intervention over there.
I consider the Marshal Plan and Berlin Airlift to be the most successful peacetime operations carried out by the American government.
Also the United States at its best.
Neither could’ve happened without Manifest Destiny and it’s accompanying land purchase policies.
A historical event ending on a genuinely positive high note for (mostly) everyone is honestly rarer than a albino unicorn. It must be truly appreciated
Personally, I think the real moral of the story is that history CAN occasionally be wholesome and uplifting, but only if everyone involved has recently been shellshocked by the most brutal conflict of known history up to that point. Also, the wholesome/uplifting thing certainly isn't guaranteed, either.
Painful but yes
It's like someone finally accepting help on their deathbed.
The Marshall Plan is honestly one of the best pieces of foreign policy ever for all reasons you listed, Jack. Thank you for covering this topic!
1932 was not the time when people used wheelbarrows of cash. That was in 1923 during the hyperinflation.
He was referring to post WWII stories about how the Reichsmark wasn't worth the paper it was printed on and was more useful as kindling to keep warm or as wallpaper. These were likely anecdotal but the value tanked so fast that a barter system emerged. You're right that the hyperinflation of 1923 was infinitely worse.
My Aunt is Lebanese and the country's currency is effectively worthless right now, having lost almost 90% of its value, due to Covid, the 2020 Port explosion, decades of govt corruption, the refugee crisis brought on by the Syrian Civil War and recently, a cholera epidemic. When I was visiting in 2016, the rate had been $1 USD to £1500 Lebanese for decades but now it's $1 to £100K+ and on the black market, a gallon of gas costs £1.5 million. My Aunt's family is lucky that they just have holiday homes there but most people have fallen into poverty and it's gotten to the point where the only way to get money from your bank account is via armed bank robbery. A string of them happened last yr, with ppl just wanting their own money
A very nice new segment!
One little hiccup for me was the insinuation that hyperinflation in Germany continued until 1932 - it was in fact over by 1925, and the Weimar Republic's economy did generally fine after that - not so fine during the Great Depression, of course, but still way better than around 1923, when wheelbarrows of money were a thing. Hyperinflation and harsh reparation payments to the allies, however, left a scar, which the Nazis leveraged to come to power. Even as things were getting better (apparently), the Nazis persuaded a lot of people they weren't, and rode the coattails of resentment into kind of victory (topping out at 44% of the Reichstag seats in the last free elections), in a pretty extreme case of "who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?" One of the Nazi myths that still lingers today.
Yup, that was my bad! My brain put Germany's bad times in the inter-war period together with the world's bad times in the depression and since it was sort of a tangential to the main idea, I didn't examine that line closely enough
@@JackRackamIf it makes you feel better I am pretty sure that's how it is still though in my country's highschool history books - hyperinflation just before the Nazi rise to power.
Today I learned that Hoover was not the best president, but he was awesome at everything else.
He was the best in terms of dealing with financial issues, but for some reason the worse on handling the country during the Depression era, funnily enough
@@SiPakRubah He didn't want to increase government spending.
Hoover did actually increase HEAVILY government spending, increased the government heavily, and tied the government deeper into the economy, just not to the degrees FDR did. Government spending at all points worsened the great depression. Meanwhile FDR and his pro spending policies single handedly according to most sources doubled the great depression. You can't spend your way out of economic worthlessness you have to re-add value, not subtract value to improve the economy of a nation or region. Hoover's issue is he was always too involved and in economics that is the consistent nail in the coffin.@@SamAronow
@@dragooons176government spending to get out of economic troubles does add value. A lot of the precursors to the national highway system (one of the most important pieces of american economic infrastructure) that came in the 50s had it's roots in FDR's policies. FDR was playing the long game.
He brought down the average temporarily, increased the low point to tolerable, and made sure the future would be more bright.
And indeed the economics of FDR held pretty steady up until the 70s and 80s, with the occasional dip up or down. The New Deal model did great.
Then Reagan came in with Neoliberal (Aka cut spending, cut taxes) economics and it's been the name of game since and national debts have ballooned while quality of life has gone down in nigh every country which followed the model. Even mainstream modern Democrats follow the neoliberal model of economics, they are just on the less severe side.
Ah right, I'm sorry you are right government spending does add value, that is why wars are these super profitable things that pay for themselves and sees only massive economic growth. And who could forget that only government spending can create and manage road networks and that trade may only follow those specific road networks. As for FDR how could I forget as well that making the great depression WORSE and then delaying it's recovery until several years after WWII with the 1950's economic "boom" being the finalized crawl out of the great depression, wasn't any of that, it was actually just FDR making things better and that continued hyper poverty and suffering was just actually an improvement.
I'm seeing you are sticking to the FDR dry humping trend to an extreme so I'm gonna cut out the sarcasm and ask that you either stop drinking bleach and perhaps read a little bit on economics are it is legitimately useful for everyone to have a basic grasp of basic economics: Or in the event you are dishonest, just stop being such, pretending to be stupid doesn't legitimately do you any good even if it is part of some long con act that involves creating a wider known persona of total ignorance of the world.@@joendeo1890
Yet another case of “Wow, when we don’t constantly try and sabotage each other we can actually really improve things for everyone”
This is the most shattering thing to ever happen, Herbert Hoover being a good guy damn
And it wasn't the first time! He also led a massive humanitarian effort in Europe after WW1 (and later in Russia) as head of the American Relief Administration.
Hoover's responsibility for either the Stock Market Crash of 1929 or the Great Depression following it are greatly exaggerated by historiography. He was always a good guy, just not much of a President. Carter was the same way, by way of recent Presidents.
The thing about Hoover is that he was always a good guy. His failure as a president came from good intentions and an attempt to stop the Depression as it was happening.
@@RickJaeger His tariffs and failure to intervene were mistakes, but those came from good places.
It is fairly reasonable to say that if not for the crash, Hoover would have been remembered as a pretty great president
8:12 boy when you gray scale that image it really becomes clear that europe neede a flag rework
Is it bad that I can still clearly identify each of the 16 flags there? Like, I know what you mean, but 5 have completely independent designs, 4 have the Nordic Cross, 3 are horizontal tricolors and 4 are vertical ones. Yes, there's some confusion for example in Netherlands and Luxemburg, but it doesn't take that much knowledge to identify each one
Family lore time. My grandpa and all the guys made fun of Marshal mad hardcore before he was in the army. Then he became legendary. Was a funny story my grandpa told if true.
Hold up! You mean to tell me politicians banded together to form an actual tangible plan to achieve a particular goal that acknowledges the interacting systems between nations and the economy. Could never be seen in the modern day🙃
The more I learn about Hoover, the more I think he’s like Carter, (except his views on Chinese people) amazing person, not as amazing as President
I was really expecting a turn around at the end, say, talking about Debt, Inequality, Monopoly, but no, a wholesome ending!
Around 7:30 on the video you have an image of British Trade Unionist / Politician Ernie Bevin - a truely forgotten giant of British Politics
He was brought into the war effort by Churchill to run British War production, as a Trade Union leader the workers would do anything for him, he was probably the most powerful man in Britain - he could dictate what job any civillian Male or Unmarried female could do
After the War Churchill wanted him to join up and run the country - Bevin a Socialist wouldn't - Churchill lost power before Japan was defeated -
He drew up the consitituation for West Germany - when no one else was interested (partly because Britain could not afford to feed the Germans in their zone)
He was rabidly anti-Soviet, and fundamental in the setting up of Nato - and building a British Atomic Bomb
He pushed through the Marshall plan on the European side - having had a really bad time 1945-48 when the US stopped financing Britain, demanded the loans back and almost bankrupted the country
I get the feeling you're gonna get A LOT of use out of that dancing Stalin as you do more 20th century history
at 8:00 is that an intentional joke calling the czechoslovakian delegate yugoslavia? if so, hilarious, if not intentional, still funny.
Its actually 7:54
Hoover helping push the marshall plan gotta be one of the best redemption stories we’ve ever heard
Mistake in the history part: "Buying bread with wheelbarrows of cash" wasn't 1932 but 1923 - the hyperinflation was an entirely different economic crisis where Germany willingly ran into a DEflation instead of INflation to prove that Versailles was too harsh.
Results were also disastrous and ended up with Hitler on the helm but it's still important not to mix this up.
Hoover’s role here is not surprising. Prior to his presidency he was well regarded for the humanitarian work that he did post-WWI.
Gotta say, when all the details are laid out the number of problems it tackled all at once through clever planning and implementation makes it seem utterly graceful, economically. It's a genuine shame more countries didn't (or, better to say, weren't allowed) get involved - who knows how much better off the eastern bloc countries might have theoretically been today?
I'm officially a fan of the british and french foreign ministers' little muppet dance. We need to see more of that!
Love that new moving animation
Yeah, quite an improvement!
looks like Monty Python animations!
1932 is not the wheelbarrows-of-cash era in Germany--that would be in the eraly 20s, primarily 1923. But I always hate being the guy who watches yet another amazing video and yet somehow only focuses on the one thing that isn't completely accurate.
Funny timing as just yesterday, a Wikipedia rabbit hole brought me to the Marshall Plan article. I'm a Medieval historian but have been doing a lot of WWII reading lately, just for fun
Somehow, turkey got Marshall plan aide despite not even being in the war until February 1945 and even then barely did anything
My grandfather was so greatfull for the Marshall plan, I see it as one of America's greatest deeds. To some extent we are still owe the US one. It saved so many lives in my country and made us quite a large economy.
Man all the animation is so smooth, been rewatching your old vids so it’s good to see the improvement over time
Funds of the Marshal Plan are in use today, still. Used for subsidized private and infrastructure programms, with low interest rates.
I'm sure that no longer having to manage expensive overseas colonial empires full of people who didn't want to be under colonial rule helped a lot in europes recovery over the decades.
It's much more efficient to use economic debt traps/loan sharking.
Are you gonna do Adenauer or not?
Hoover right man for the task. I am schocked that he isn't more appreciated.
Marshall aid was also a fun leverage to stop recolonization. When The Netherlands tried to retake Indonesia aftet WW2 and it turned into a war for independancre on their side, more and more money and supplies were pumped into that effort. Because the US didn't like the look of funding conquest at that time they threatend to cut off the Netherlands from the Marshall aid unless they recognized Indonesian independance.
Why Netherlands wanted to conquer Indonesia back anyway? Didn't they realised being forcibly put under foreign power is bad by that time ?
It's pretty easy to rationalize when you've beeb subjugated by the Nazis, i.e. some of the worst people ever to be subjugated by. "Yeah, I'm subjugating people, but I'm not King Leopold here. C'mon. It's fine." See?
@@shivanshna7618Indonesia had a large amount of dutch investments, and both economies heavily depended on each other
5:45 Who is that guy flipping shit because that was easily one of the funniest things this channel has ever produced
Love the new animations!
Stating my Sundays with Jack rackham video. Now I knows it’s gonna be good day
7:56 not Yugoslavia but Czechoslovakia (in the picture represented by Foreign Minister J. Masaryk, son of the first Czechoslovak president T. G. Masaryk.)
The animation in this one is delightful
Your animation in this one is so good! I normally just love listening to the bits but this was a visual treat :)
Herbert Hoover doing his best work 15 years after being President, and his worst while being president. Crazy change apparently
You have no idea how happy I am that you covered the Marshal Plan! It was and still is living proof that mixed economic models work over pure economic orthodoxy.
You clearly like history... But your YT name implies you like uncivilized barbarian government style... How TF is that possible, to like history but to also like s*cialism? Like I'm just curious, do you actually ignore some parts of history? Or are you one of them far leftists that think only certain white people can do communism correctly? Or are you actually making fun of it, the only appropriate thing out of the 3?
OMG the system actually used it's brains WTF
The characters are so good in this one. Love them flailing their arms around.
Always a good day when you post!
As soon as I subscribe you upload. Beautiful.
The production value on these recently have been through the roof.
love this animation style man
This was phenomenal
If only we could find a way to cooperate like this now😢
Second time I’ve caught this super early, love the videos
Thanks!
@@JackRackamyou're the Best 😊😊😊❤❤❤
The animation is delightful
Love your videos 😊 never been this early before 🎉
Your tie in this video is mesmerizing.
It is a great tie!
yeah the more I hear about Hoover's post Presidential career, he doesn't seem all that bad. if anything his problem was he was the wrong president in place at the wrong time.
im getting alot of early 2000's Jib-Jab vibes from the full-body animation, i like this very much!
Slight correction: German hyperinflation took place in the early 1920s, not the height of the depression
To illustrate how bad it was in germany. We had a housing shortage as well as a labour shortage and a general manpower shortage. I mean everyone knows why, but still thats kind of a strange scenario to be in.
7:55 That is not Yugoslavia
Idk if that mistake is intentional or on accident but one I can say for sure is Yugoslavia actually fell out with the Soviets despite also being communist
Big fan of your work! Keep going! Pablo Escobar Please
Im honeslty shocked herbert hoover did anything positive at all
Now that was different. But maybe we also need videos on Franco and Salazar.
well , this was wholesomr
Animation was 10/10 this Video
The animations on this one are top notch! Using a new program? or are you just that good :)
It is amazing that we were able to rebuild half a Europe and within the span of a decade maybe even more, and we couldn’t do the same thing with Iraq and Afghanistan
Thing is, you didn't rebuild Europe, the europeans did. And that is not meant as a negative (in fact I am still thankful for the Marshall Plan, it was likely the best post-war policy any victor implemented ever). What you did is, to create the conditions for the populations of formerly industrialized societys to rebuild said industry (conditions: money, machines, trading partners, stable governments and curencies, you watched the video yourself). But the know-how itself was still there. That is the reason the Marshall Plan worked so exceptional well in Germany, because there was a lot of industry to rebuild.
And that is also the reason something similar failed in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was simply to little industry to rebuild, to little know-how to work with on a country-wide scale.
As Random alluded to the Marchall plan worked because it was a system that ultimately left the countries of Europe to rebuild themselves.
By contrast Afghanistan and Iraq was America trying to shove a square peg in a round hole by actively trying to turn both countries into mini USAs, disregarding there past cultures and political structures.
Great bideo!
222nd when 31k. The second video I've seen that went into what it actually involved and first to explain it more fully
"a million dead in stalingrad!"
tbf, that's a good argument
This is some marco eco level shit you fucking dream of doing in a multiple paradox game, and this happened in real life.
I got a pitch, The Life and Times of Georges Méliès!😊
I got 99 problems but a lack of Jack Rackham's videos ain't one
Is a good day today 😌✨
This was a great video! Dang i always thought of it as just the USA giving money but man it did so much more 😅
I own that tie.
GERMANY 🗣️ MUST 🗣️ NOT 🗣️ RISE 🗣️ AGAIN!!! 🗣️
Truman, marshall, and hoover were really the MVP for revitalising western europe. Also shouts out to Luxembourg
So I feel like you're being a bit unfair to Truman over the appointment of Hoover to lead the rebuilding of Europe post-war. Hoover was actually an extremely logical choice (even though he absolutely flubbed the depression at home). Post WWI Hoover actually had a lot of success in providing relief in Europe, even after the American government stopped funding the effort. A presidency isn't a presidents whole life, think of Carter who threw himself into extrapolitical democracy & diplomacy not to mention his humanitarian work; also Taft, the man was the chief justice of the supreme court after occupying the Whitehouse & also served longer in that role. Truman made a good choice here, even though what we remember of Hoover is the Hooverville's of his presidency.
I didn't mean to imply Hoover was a poor choice, merely that I hadn't expected to see him come up on two occasions in the research for this video
@@JackRackam I appreciate that. Hoover is an absolutely fascinating figure who _almost_ feels like he Forest Gumped his way through the first half of the 20th century.
WOW!
John Maynard Keynes: Tries to convince America to give Europe a crapton of money
America: Laughs.
*Keynes Dies
America: So anyway here's the Marshall plan.
Swiss be like:
We didn't get invaded and actually had many dealing with hitler, but who does like free money?
*KING CRIMSON!!!* 1:58
The Marshall Plan is one of the best foreign policy decisions in history. The world would be better if only American leaders had applied the same wisdom in recent conflicts.
EDIT: The hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic and the Great Depression happened separately. It was a good video; I just wanted to point that out.
yeah, wonder why they didn't do this in Middle East
@@budakbaongsiahGreed, ideology, and pure ignorance.
@@nathanseper8738
Also a Republican controlled congress
@@nathanseper8738Ironically, people are baffled that Hirohito wasnt as punished as most thought he should have been. But if he was, he would have been Saddam Hussein before Saddam Hussein. And Japan would have been Iraq before Iraq.
Really enjoyed this video. Did not have the understanding of the Marshall plan as I do now. In school it was just help for Europe so communism can’t seed itself.
Americans nowadays: "Be grateful, we own you, you are eternally indebted to us, we saved you out the good of our hearts" Americans back then: "35mio people starving sounds good to you...yeah sounds good, that'll show them" * Germany about to turn communist, America: "God damn it we need to do something after all"
I agree, if my hairline is lost, then thats it for democracy
wtf i was just itching to learn about the marshall plan today
Really missed an opportunity to have Franco dancing a Flamenco
Outta nowhere its Herbert Hoover with sound economic policy and Humanitarianism!
The Marshall Plan: What America could do for Europe and Japan but not Iraq or Afghanistan.
Afghanistan and Iraq were a lot lot more corrupt
Do you have any book recommendations for this subject?
Stalin deciding not to back the French communists post ww2 also single handedly prevented France from going communist.
0:10 *A* dictator isnt 1, its like... 3
It’s always nice to remember that on occasion that government actually has some intelligent people working for the betterment of the people. Unfortunately most of the time the people in power aren’t much different than the average idiot you know who lives down the street, they just have more power. Its something you realize as you get older, most people aren’t too bright, whether they’re famous, political or both or just some random dude you see everyday selling donuts and coffee to you in the morning.
Cant wait for the Tito episode