> ...which contrasts with the slightly more laisse-faire economic approach in the US.
Nah, the USA hasn't been laissez-faire in money for a long time. Interest rates artificially low, lending based on political regulations, high ranking employees of major banks moving back and forth between government posts and high paying jobs at the major banks... nah, American currency/banks/Federal Reserve are incredibly government-managed and corrupt. Fiat currency + legal tender laws + direct election of Senate leading to short term thinking + deficit spending is legal and tolerated... well, that winds up somewhere, but it doesn't wind up laissez-faire.
Rest of the comment is good - what's interesting to me is that Japan got very little reconstruction money. Europe had the Marshall Plan go into effect, Japan had very little reconstruction money. It's a testament to the will and work ethic of the Japanese people how fast they rebuilt the economy and started prospering.
That said, I'm 100% with the rest of your comment aside from the idea that the American money/currency is run hands-off, very good comment. For anyone more curious, googling any of the terms in your comment would bring back some interesting results. I always thought it was fascinating that Germans were terrified of inflation and Americans were terrified of deflation, largely because of historical experiences in the years between WWI and WWII.
Here's a link if you would like to read more about the Tiger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_I#Combat_examples
"Nah, the USA hasn't been laissez-faire in money for a long time. " - I only meant more laisse faire in comparison to Europe, and in a historical sense. I should've been more specific. Note I said slightly more laissez-faire ;-) It's moving further and further in the opposite direction now of course, with the crash of 2008 and ensuring economic upheaval, Obama administration's economic approach vs, Bushs' , Greenspan gone, TARP, bank bailouts etc.
Another interesting European policy decision arising out of the ashes of WWII is the European attitude to privacy of the individual, which is quite different to the American model. The European Data Protection Directive is interesting, in that specific protections are laid in place, versus the American approach which "relies on a combination of legislation, regulation, and self-regulation, rather than overarching governmental regulations" - Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive
It goes onto explain that because individual's personal information was used by Nazi Germany to put people on cattle cars and ship them to concentration camps, Europe was always going to be more concerned about personal privacy than America, which had never gone through such a horrific experience. How could they possibly understand such an attitude, having never lived through the Holocaust? Fascinating stuff, in my opinion.
It's just a law that says the government can't process the data in certain ways, they still have the data though, and could start mining it by changing the law, or ignoring it.
If they actually cared they wouldn't be gathering this data in the first place. The U.S. (officially) keeps a lot less data on its citizens than the average European country, but that's been changing in the recent decades since the FBI, NSA and others were founded.
I wouldn't exactly characterize the last 6-8 decades as "recent".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation...
Please have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan#Expenditures
Germany received less than half what the UK received from the Marshall Plan [1], and of course still had to pay reparations and some plans to dismantle German industry were also carried out.
Also from the same page: "Former U.S. Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank Alan Greenspan gives most credit to Ludwig Erhard for Europe's economic recovery. Greenspan writes in his memoir The Age of Turbulence that Erhard's economic policies were the most important aspect of postwar Western Europe recovery, far outweighing the contributions of the Marshall Plan. He states that it was Erhard's reductions in economic regulations that permitted Germany's miraculous recovery, and that these policies also contributed to the recoveries of many other European countries. Japan's recovery is also used as a counter-example, since it experienced rapid growth without any aid whatsoever. Its recovery is attributed to traditional economic stimuli, such as increases in investment, fueled by a high savings rate and low taxes. Japan saw a large infusion of US investment during the Korean war."
Ludwig Erhard is still known and popular today.
[1] And we know how badly UK industry up until Iron Lady.
Japanese manufacturing concepts of kaizen (continuous improvement) and muda (waste), among others, were copied by the rest of the world. The Japanese got the concepts in the first place from American manufacturing processes during WWII, used to rush Sherman tanks and other mass produced military hardware into production.
Sticking with the Axis powers post-WWII, Germany now produces it cars like it produced it's WWII tanks - big, powerful and expensive. The Tiger tank, for example, was a fearsome machine for it's time - one German tank ace in a Tiger laid waste to over two dozen vehicles in a single afternoon. It's 88mm main cannon could easily kill inferior American Shermans at over a mile away.
It's interesting to note how well Germany's economy fared after WWII also. To this day, the German economy is managed by keeping inflation under 2-3% (if I remember correctly). This is as a result of the rampant inflation in the Weimar Republic - conditions that lead to Hitler's rise to power. Germany today dominates the ECB (European Central Bank) so that mindset is at the forefront Europe-wide also, which contrasts with the slightly more laisse-faire economic approach in the US.
Very funny how things work out, indeed. Also it's fascinating for the historical reasons for the way policy, culture and attitudes are today.