[Uchikoma]

I've skipped it because it was redundant to the point I think, "The European nations had all but exhausted their foreign exchange reserves during the war" means they had no money to buy from US companies, so the US gave Europeans money so they could buy from the US which I said with "to create a market for US companies that"

I might have misunderstood your "America poured in money during the Marshall plan to build up Europe;".

I took it as the purpose was to build up Europe for Europeans, where my reply was to build up Europe to create a market for US companies.

[eshvk]

My whole statement was meant to point out that Europeans are also to blame for not taking responsibility for their own affairs; there are no free lunches anywhere. Taking all that money and using America's army has definitely contributed to economic growth in Europe. The cost of that is you have situations like what is happening now. My whole statement was designed to point the outrage that the OP had was misplaced.

[Uchikoma]

"definitely contributed to economic growth in Europe."

Yes it has, estimated to be 0.5pp in the GDP of the countries affected in 1948-1951.