What happened after WW II is an interesting book by Tom Bower called the Paperclip Conspiracy, published by Michael Joseph Ltd. London, UK, 1987. The war is over and as in tradition, the winners divide the riches of the defeated land. For generations, the rulers would go to war against a opponent who had gold in the hills, to pay for the debts back at home and to expand the empire. WW II was a little different in that the method to the war, was who had the better machines? If you are a movie fan and think about Braveheart – Mel Gibson’s movie about Scotland, the people were motivated by passion for their lands, once they withstood the arrows (new improvement at that time) much of the battle was hand to hand. At the end of the “working” day everyone went back to camp, pick up the dead and wounded to try again the next day till someone lost. If you think about the Terminator movies – there is a line in the movie where one of the scientist says to the effect ” we found the arm of the terminator and learned vast amounts from it, so technology could do more for man.”  According to Mr. Bower, Germany had spent and was spending vast money on research and development and all their tanks, planes and rockets were years ahead of the British and US. For a other reasons, Germany lost the war, but had it gone longer, maybe a different result would have been the outcome. The vast amounts of research and development by Germany’s scientists was a treasure trove of information. Not surprising, after the War was ended, the leaders of US, Russia and England being focused on winning the war, were not that interested in the research and development; but there were agencies and private companies that could see how advanced the Germans were. The Paperclip Conspiracy is about those that did see and moved the files, the machines. and the people out of Germany to work in the agency and companies in US, England, France  and Russia.

One of the ethical concerns about war is the scientists, some maybe ardent supporters of the government in charge; some are just looking for ways to improve things, some are aware of conditions around them, some are not. How do you tell? if the development is further ahead than your own scientists have given you, much of the information is in the person’s brain, therefore you need the person even though before the end of the war they were the opposition. Given the scientists wish to continue to develop their ideas, do you want them on your side? In the book there are examples of after WW II, one of the reasons for the rise of Russia and the Cold War was the decision by the Russian government to spend great amounts of money on arming their country using German technology which they acquired. In addition, some of the key people who helped the US put a man on the moon were Germans scientists.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, as a profitable company, the company has the ability to do takeovers to improve its position in the market as well as to expand and diversity its reach to continue to be profitable. More and more takeovers are about gaining brain power or ideas, people come with baggage? some you can live with, some you do not want but want their ideas? what should the company do? 99% of large companies have skeletons in their closet, it is extremely hard not to. Every large organization can do a great deal of good, as well as some of its products are used for harm, it is part and parcel of the organization. How the company handles it, is called its public reputation.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions