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No The united states has a long and storied history

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of throwing money at problems And in the wake of

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world war two there were a lot of problems for

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us to throw money at Uh come to think of

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it maybe we should find the less costly habit What

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do you think But old habits die hard and europe

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was a problem It had been destroyed by the war

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which was totes an issue of concern for the u

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s but the obliteration of roads railroads factories businesses homes

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yada yada yada wasn't all we were worried about We

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were also worried about the european economy See germany had

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spent most of the nineteen thirties feverishly preparing for war

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by the time the war actually started prepping for the

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conflict was the only thing the german economy knew how

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to do And everybody knows it's a bad idea Tto

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limit oneself to a single skill set like all the

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eggs in one basket thing So after the war we

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wanted help the germans figure out how to course correct

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economically But wait there's more There was also an economic

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imbalance between europe's cities and it's countryside Europe's cities weren't

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producing any goods because one of the city's had all

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been turned to rubble there were no factories no machines

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There were no resource is really to speak of And

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because cities weren't producing goods and services to buy and

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sell people living in the country also weren't producing goods

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and services to buy and sell you know like uh

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what is called Oh yeah food In short we were

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pretty sure that everybody in europe was about to starve

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to death Enter george marshall marshall was an american soldier

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who'd served in various parts of the world before becoming

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an army chief of staff in nineteen thirty nine He

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was the person responsible for injecting the u s military

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with steroids so it could actually put up a fight

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against the axis powers and is the u s secretary

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of state In nineteen forty seven he was the person

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who said we'd give europe the money it needed to

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get back on her feet Well the u s wrote

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a thirteen billion dollars check under the aegis is of

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the marshall plan And while the plan may not have

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had us much of a hand in the revitalization of

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the european economy as we'd like to think it did

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it did lay the foundation that allowed europe to come

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back swing it by pushing the continent away from strict

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economic controls on the other side of the world japan

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was obviously in much the same situation as germany it

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had to say science ara to an economy focused on

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military production and konnichi wa tio not having enough food

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to go around and like our japanese there what do

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you think the u s spent the first couple of

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years after the war reforming japanese politics and ignoring the

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country's economic problems But then we totally freaked out as

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communism started to spread like a fungus across the world

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a red red fungus as people fear it fear it

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now what if the japanese decided to join forces with

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uncle joe who unfortunately us inge band we're saved by

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the korean war Yes we don't make this up people

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Not only was the country suddenly awash and raw materials

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but it also became the primary supply depot for u

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n soldiers But what about china Well normally we like

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to spare countries feelings but we're going to be blunt

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The country was a disaster after twenty years of war

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Now j dong's communists in chiang kai shek's nationalist were

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still cat fighting over who got to be in charge

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And the national currency was worthless Which is why people

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really liked it when the communists gave out ration coupons

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for food and clothing George marshall yep that george marshall

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tried to get mao and chang to settle their differences

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in nineteen forty six but no dice Those two had

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been hating on each other far too long Well the

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truman administration took a long hard look at the situation

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in china It was way more interested in rebuilding europe

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then and mucking about in east asia It didn't particularly

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think that the chinese communists were any kind of threat

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to the u s o and it knew that chiang

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kai shek was both a loser and a here So

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rather like elsa in the movie frozen us Let it

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go Just let it go Let it you know like

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that In hindsight this probably wasn't the best idea right

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Because unlike elsa chang wasn't full of remorse self loathing

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and ice powers that are never really explained she could

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Create life like what's up with that were just glossing

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over that disney Okay then you've been a disney china 00:04:28.663 --> [endTime] And what do you think

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