Pontiff of pulchitrude

In addition to all the other criticism of Krugman's latest screed on the post WWII recovery, I would like to add that perhaps some of the reasons that the U.S. did so well in the immediate post-war years was that we had bombed to rubble the cities of two of our main competitors, the UK was virtually bankrupt, and the rest of the industrialized world was either on the verge of starvation (ever hear of the Marshall Plan?) or was now behind the Iron Curtain (and Uncle Joe was very big on autarky). Thus for about ten or fifteen years, the U.S. enjoyed an enormous economic advantage over all other competitors. Unless we want to gratuitously nuke China, big chunks of the rest of Asia, and the EU, there is no evidence that we will be able to repeat that performance.