[JoeAltmaier]

Hm, doesn't seem to add up. Flattened countries were not buying cars - so the foreign market for US cars would actually go down post-war? As for reduced competition - how many foreign cars did America import before the war? We're talking the excess capacity of pre-WWII Germany - a depressed economy (the indirect cause of WWII) which couldn't have been much.

I'd credit an increased US appetite for goods, a huge influx of trained workers (trained by the military for war purposes) and a excess war-related manufacturing capacity turned to domestic goods with the prices reduced by volume manufacturing.

All of which could be called "because the US won".

[zucchini_head]

Yes but was the decrease in demand greater in magnitude than the increase in sales due to less competition? I'de disagree, but getting numbers on these things is very difficult since it's a long time ago. Most of what you'll get is "general ideas" that the industry was "fairly big/small".

[JoeAltmaier]

Agreed. Which puts the claim that 'decreased competition in markets from flattened economies of the losers helped American manufacturing', in an equally foggy light.

[zucchini_head]

Hmm, i've definitely heard that story about decreased competition being a factor in USA post-war prosperity, but I seem to have been misinformed, since after looking at [1], it was due to a lot of things - namely increased fertility and farmers learning how to do more economically valuable jobs - but not from them winning the war.

What's very sad is when you read a little further on about the USA economic decline after 1970 to today...

Anyway thank you for letting me know I was being a dingus!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_United...