this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
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2 North American 4 You

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A nation of extremes (sh.itjust.works)
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[–] mkwt@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

We got rich after the war because everyone else was rubble and we still had factories.

This is it. Most of the wealth* of a nation is real estate (and residential real estate is a very large fraction). Money, including gold or the like, is a very small portion of wealth. Europe's wealth was literally burned to the ground and blown to smithereens. North America, on the other hand, kept all the wealth it had. So it became wealthier by comparison.

*I'm talking about wealth here, not income.