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[mainiac]

Pretty much dead wrong.  Both the number of employed males and females increased in Germany from 1932-1939.  Investments were made in modernization of pretty much every sector but agriculture.  Surely you have heard of autobahns and volkswagons.  Although military spending did grow significantly, the civilian economy was higher in any regard you could possibly think of.

The Nazis economic record wasn't ideal of course.  They failed to adopt best practices along Fordist lines in their heavy industries.  They failed to consolidate and mechanize farms (they were planning to simply move farmers into the "lebensraum" after the war) and both of these really bit them in the ass.  There was a growing debt burden but it was a manageable one given the economic growth that happened at the same time.

[Lord Shonus]

And the only reason any of that was possible was because shortly before Hitler came to power, the German government managed to bully the Allied Powers into not taking the vast quantities of steel, gold, and other valuables (totalling 200,000,000,000 (that's two hundred billion) gold marks), or 5,000,000,000 USD(1920)) that Germany was required by the Treaty of Versailles. This happened in 1932, Hitler took over in 1933.

For that matter, nearly all the improvements to the "civilian economy" in that period was really military spending. The autobahn was a logistic officer's dream come true, and the primary reason behind the Volkswagen was to build up the infrastructure needed to build automobiles, which was the same infrastructure needed to arm the Luftwaffe and Wermacht once Germany admitted that they had such things.

[mainiac]

For that matter, nearly all the improvements to the "civilian economy" in that period was really military spending.

Which doesn't change the vastly improved standard of living one whit.

And the only reason any of that was possible was because shortly before Hitler came to power, the German government managed to bully the Allied Powers into not taking the vast quantities of steel, gold, and other valuables (totalling 200,000,000,000 (that's two hundred billion) gold marks), or 5,000,000,000 USD(1920)) that Germany was required by the Treaty of Versailles. This happened in 1932, Hitler took over in 1933.

I would question your choice of words with "only reason" and would further inquire how this in the slightest undermines the fact that the economy did pretty damn well for six years.  Most economies that aren't paying reparations dont perform as well.

[Lord Shonus]

I would question your choice of words with "only reason" and would further inquire how this in the slightest undermines the fact that the economy did pretty damn well for six years.  Most economies that aren't paying reparations dont perform as well.

Most countries that aren't paying reparations haven't spent the last two decades having their banks wiped out and currency completely destroyed -killing the entire economy- because everything of real value in the country was being sent across the border. When you're at the bottom (compare the skyrocketing West German or Japanese economies after WWII, or the South Korean one after the Korean War), ,you're given a huge influx of cash (the boost from the end of reparations is estimated to be between eight and twelve times as great as that given by the Marshall Plan), and there's huge amounts of stuff being built so Hitler could have his war, the economy's going to boom

[mainiac]

Germany outperformed economies that were both richer and poorer then it.  Explaining it as reversion is a bad explanation.  If it were simple reversion then we would see Romania or Italy with numbers like Germany as well.  We would see Germany catching up with France and Britain, not passing them in terms of per capita productivity.  And it's not an explanation we need to refer to seeing as we have good explanations.  The employment and capital investment numbers alone provide a good explanation.

[GreatJustice]

Damn it, now I have to dig through my old posts. Anyway,

Which doesn't change the vastly improved standard of living one whit.

There was no "vastly improved standard of living". After adjusting for the former welfare recipients that were being paid less than what they received before for work, government incentives for women not to work (indeed, the female proportion of the workforce dropped steadily from 1932 to 1937, and only rose as Germany's industry became entirely geared towards military production), wages being fixed, government incentives for businesses to not invest in labour saving machinery, and rationing, German living standards were if anything worse just as war began compared to when Hitler took power.

I would question your choice of words with "only reason" and would further inquire how this in the slightest undermines the fact that the economy did pretty damn well for six years.  Most economies that aren't paying reparations dont perform as well.

Government control over the economy coupled with heavy investment into infrastructure or industry will do a great job of making GDP rise, unemployment fall, etc but these statistics will have little to no relation with improvements in living standards or actual economic performance. Soviet economic policy under Stalin was even more successful than German economic policy under Hitler by nearly all measures, yet I don't see you claiming that the Five Year Plan was a great period of economic improvement.

[Playergamer]

It may or may not have been mentioned, but Ted Cruz is basically supported by all of the Republican congress. That...doesn't actually help much in elections, though.

Also, I just like Rubio. He's charismatic, and everyone hates him for the water thing.

[smjjames]

It may or may not have been mentioned, but Ted Cruz is basically supported by all of the Republican congress. That...doesn't actually help much in elections, though.

Also, I just like Rubio. He's charismatic, and everyone hates him for the water thing.

'Water thing'? What are you talking about?

[Lord Shonus]

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/marco-rubios-water-bottle-moment

Rubio was noticably uncomposed when giving a response speech to the State of The Union address, pausing mid-speech to drink from a water bottle. This is very bad for the image of the Statesman that a politician needs to succeed - one must be confident in what he has to say while giving the impression that it is God's Own Truth, and such behavior indicates a lack of both confidence and honesty.

[mainiac]

yet I don't see you claiming that the Five Year Plan was a great period of economic improvement.

...are you telling me you are unaware that the five year plan was a period of rapid economic growth?

[Lord Shonus]

yet I don't see you claiming that the Five Year Plan was a great period of economic improvement.

...are you telling me you are unaware that the five year plan was a period of rapid economic growth?

It was a period of rapid economic growth because the Russian Empire was very nearly at the "medieval serfdom" economic level, and the Soviet Union's Five Year Plans amounted to a forced Industrial Revolution. What caused the growth was the industrialization, which would have caused essentially the same growth no matter how it was induced. Notably, the first Five Year Plan, while it succeeded in the industrialization effort and the forced agricultuiral collectivization, had the side effect of causing the worst famine in recorded history, killing millions via starvation. Both the Second and Third  Five Year Plans failed at their goals despite a fairly impressive 10-12 percent industrialization rate, almost half as high a growth as that experienced by England in the Industrial Revolution.

[Playergamer]

Not the worst in recorded history. The Great Leap Forward was much worse, by most estimates.

[Lord Shonus]

Not the worst in recorded history. The Great Leap Forward was much worse, by most estimates.

The sources I've read cite the Soviet famine as worst, but they may be factoring in that it was caused purely for political reasons - China's famine was worsened by a series of natural disasters (although ideological idiocy didn't help there, as the locust plague was caused by the massacre of swallows).

Death estimates for the Chinese famine, ranging from a "mere" 20 million (the Chinese government claims 15, but they're sort of the textbook of lying liars that lie) to as high as 45. Meanwhile, the Soviet one claimed between 6 and 20 million died, with the caveat that many records were "missing" when the USSR released them in the last days of the Cold War. Based on this, the Chinese one appears to be worse, unless the death tolls in the Ukraine and Kazakhstan were greatly underreported.

Incidentally, the Great Leap Forward, unlike the Five Year Plans, proved to be an unmitigated failure at producing any economic boost - the economic cost was far greater than the gain.

[mainiac]

It was a period of rapid economic growth because the Russian Empire was very nearly at the "medieval serfdom" economic level, and the Soviet Union's Five Year Plans amounted to a forced Industrial Revolution. What caused the growth was the industrialization, which would have caused essentially the same growth no matter how it was induced.

So you agree with me then?

[Lord Shonus]

It was a period of rapid economic growth because the Russian Empire was very nearly at the "medieval serfdom" economic level, and the Soviet Union's Five Year Plans amounted to a forced Industrial Revolution. What caused the growth was the industrialization, which would have caused essentially the same growth no matter how it was induced.

So you agree with me then?

No. The Five Year Plan did result in some successes in industralization, and had great industrial growth in absolute terms, but in relative terms it was one of the slowest industrialization rates ever, only hitting around 10% annual growth while most industrializations progressed at $20-$40 without killing millions of their own people. IT was successful only in the sense that dumping a few gallons of pennies on a homeless man succeeds in helping him out - he's technically better off once he picks them all up, but there's much more efficient and much less painful methods of doing so.