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Things you realize are much better than they used to be while watching older films

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    #76
    Was Ireland really
    one of the richest countries in the world in 1921?

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      #77
      you have to remember that there was a very small number of countries in 1921, and most of them were utterly fucked by the first world war. Also there were a lot of people in ireland who were making good money out of farming, and were able to invest that money in mines and railroads throughout the empire. The problem was that we had the distribution of income that you'd expect from a society where people sat on their hands while their neighbours died of hunger. And we'd gone a full 14 years since our last famine. Things were going relatively well.

      I must try and check whether that statistic refers to the 26 counties, or the 32 county ireland, because Belfast was one of the world's fastest growing and busiest cities from about 1870 to 1920.

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        #78
        I was going to say that it isn't that surprising (presumably on a per capita basis) given that Argentina was also near the top of that table.

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          #79
          yeah, the world looked very different 100 years ago. One of the major geopolitical crises of the world at the turn of the 20th century, was the super-dreadnought arms race between, er, brazil, argentina and chile. To achieve something similar today, The gulf emirates would need to start a war on the moon.

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            #80
            That’s entirely possible.

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              #81
              Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
              you have to remember that there was a very small number of countries in 1921, and most of them were utterly fucked by the first world war. Also there were a lot of people in ireland who were making good money out of farming, and were able to invest that money in mines and railroads throughout the empire. The problem was that we had the distribution of income that you'd expect from a society where people sat on their hands while their neighbours died of hunger. And we'd gone a full 14 years since our last famine. Things were going relatively well.

              I must try and check whether that statistic refers to the 26 counties, or the 32 county ireland, because Belfast was one of the world's fastest growing and busiest cities from about 1870 to 1920.
              A bit of data would help.

              sounds as though you’re saying that there were some rich people in Ireland and Ireland hadnt fought in the Great War.

              Don’t think that’s a clincher yet

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                #82
                Sleepy Cuddles Salmond used to like to trot out the line that Scotland was the richest country in the world at the turn of the 20th century. Skilled workers were paid 10% less than they could get in England and Wales, let alone the US, but incredible amounts of money were flowing through Scotland prior to WW1 and post war protectionism smashing the old way of doing things (eg the rubber plantations of Malaysia, the rail networks of Argentina or the laying out of farm holdings in Australia were largely financed by Scottish trading houses that would be gone forever by the 1950s). I've no problem believing 32 county Ireland was one of the richest countries on earth in 1921.
                Last edited by Lang Spoon; 05-06-2021, 23:43.

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                  #83
                  Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
                  Was Ireland really
                  one of the richest countries in the world in 1921?
                  It wasn't even fully nationally autonomous then was it? It would be a bit like saying South Africa, Malaya, or Canada were one of the richest countries in the world. All, including Ireland, were part were part of the glorious Empire upon which the sun never squats.

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                    #84
                    Ireland had fought in the great war. The important bit for this comparison is that the great war hadn't happened in ireland. And while a lot of people had joined the army and died, (Particularly up north) we weren't in the same boat as France, or Germany or Russia etc. The damage caused by the war of independence and civil war was bad, but it was nothing. compared with what had happened on the continent. Ireland was about 70% as wealthy as the UK, which made it poor in comparison to the UK, but rich by comparison to virtually everyone else, because the UK was way richer than everyone else. While most of ireland had negligible industry, outside of food processing, Ireland was an insanely productive agricultural economy by the standards of the time, with a ridiculous density of transportation infrastructure to facilitate getting this food to britain as quickly and cheaply as possible. The problems with being britain's breadbasket wouldn't become fully apparent until the 60 years after independence, as this lack of industry compared to everywhere else, meant that we barely grew, and this was not the case elsewhere.

                    The key thing to remember with historical economic comparisons like this, is that 100 years ago most people everywhere essentially lived in holes in the ground, or their urban equivalent, and owned essentially nothing. Because compared to now, economies were tiny and ridiculously unproductive.

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                      #85
                      Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
                      It wasn't even fully nationally autonomous then was it? It would be a bit like saying South Africa, Malaya, or Canada were one of the richest countries in the world. All, including Ireland, were part were part of the glorious Empire upon which the sun never squats.
                      Something important happened at the end of 1921.

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                        #86
                        Yeah. I get that. But still...

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                          #87
                          Here's an economic history paper that does a credible job of trying to extrapolate Irish data given the inherent data limitations

                          https://www.jstor.org/stable/2434101...n_tab_contents

                          The author concludes that Irish GDP per capita more than tripled between the Famine and the Great War and "converged on the UK average" over that period. The graphs within show sharp increases in the immediate aftermath of the war through 1921.

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                            #88
                            Kevin O'Rourke is a fine economic historian.

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                              #89
                              In a similar vein, I'm enjoying, if that's the right word, The Road To Partition, BBC's 2-part documentary on the 20th Century history of Ireland (now on i-player). We left NI in 1969, just before the Troubles really kicked off; I was aware of some of the history such as the 9 counties reduced to 6 for political reasons, but there's some fascinating detail in there (yet to watch part 2).

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                                #90
                                Thanks Berba and all-

                                How did the newly independent Free State compare to the other newly independent European countries- say Czechoslovakia or Austria? I can't imagine that it was wealthier than the Netherlands or Denmark, especially given that the North with its industry and higher wages remained in the United Kingdom.

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                                  #91
                                  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Short-Histo.../dp/0241398274

                                  I haven't read it, but I'd say this book is pretty good.

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                                    #92
                                    I remember reading an old Trust deed from the 1930s that expressly forbade investing in anything linked to Ireland or a Bolshevik state.

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                                      #93
                                      Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
                                      Thanks Berba and all-

                                      How did the newly independent Free State compare to the other newly independent European countries- say Czechoslovakia or Austria? I can't imagine that it was wealthier than the Netherlands or Denmark, especially given that the North with its industry and higher wages remained in the United Kingdom.
                                      The post hapsburg states were fucked but somewhere like the netherlands, which avoided world war I entirely, and had its small but highly lucrative empire would have been doing super well at the time.

                                      I think the lesson to draw from this is that the hand the newly independent irish state was dealt wasn't that bad, but it had problems, and they played it very badly. By 1973 things looked very different. Irish GDP per capita on us joining the EEC was apparently $2,427 per person. The UK was $3,426. Italy was $3,205. But belgium was $4900, France was $4,969 west Germany was $5040. netherlands $5,387, Denmark $6,111.

                                      Its hard to credit just how far behind everyone else the Uk had fallen by 1973
                                      Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 06-06-2021, 17:32.

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                                        #94
                                        Czechoslovakia was the most industrialised part of Austro Hungary and it thrived in the 20's so I'm not sure that it was entirely "fucked."

                                        How about Denmark ?t

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                                          #95
                                          Having industry means that you have the capacity to grow quicker, which helps explain why the Czechoslovaks had a decent 1920's, but that's the direction of journey, not the starting point. And while bohemia might have been a relatively prosperous part of the austro hungarian empire, that's not really saying as much as it would seem, and it was tacked onto a number of other regions that weren't doing so well. Hungary did not do a good job of running slovakia. There was also the unfortunate problem of Czechoslovakia having more germans than slovaks. That would lead to problems further down the line.

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                                            #96
                                            On the subject of polluted buildings getting cleaned up and looking totally different, it must have been some time in the nineties or early 2000s where lots of Cambridge buildings were suddenly scrubbed up. I was genuinely surprised to discover that they were made of creamish stone, instead of some sort of black tar substance.

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                                              #97
                                              The damsel in distress/hostage is always referred to as “the girl” by the bad guys, and some times the good guys, no matter how old she is.

                                              Actually, I don’t know if that’s changed.

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                                                #98
                                                Isn't there a rule that all kidnap victims in movies must be 16-30, conventionally attractive and female. You never hear, "Get in the car, granny."

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                                                  #99
                                                  Watching The Parallax View, another old movie I’ve never seen. The opening part is set on top of the Seattle Spaceneedle. That led me to look up when it was built because the film is from 1974 and it seems to be implying that it was new.

                                                  It was built for the 1962 Worlds Fair. As I’ve mentioned before, world’s fairs and expos don’t seem to be a big thing in the US any more. Not sure why, but it’s probably for the best that the public isn’t asked to build big towers just for thr hell of it.


                                                  Comment


                                                    Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                                    It was built for the 1962 Worlds Fair. As I’ve mentioned before, world’s fairs and expos don’t seem to be a big thing in the US any more. Not sure why, but it’s probably for the best that the public isn’t asked to build big towers just for thr hell of it.
                                                    They're likely to lose a lot of money. Expo 86, here in Vancouver, was widely criticised beforehand as an expensive conceit (as it turned out it was very successful.) However it was an exception among Worlds Fairs in the past 50 years or so.

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