We all know something about WW II in Europe and one of the things we know was Germany was defeated. But what was life after the war ended? In the US, it was the start of an economic growth with great optimism as the economy switched from a war one to peace time. The GIs came home, started families and the government sent many to college and university and made home ownership easier with veterans housing. The government had great foresight. In Europe, where the war was centred, the story is much different. The war was a different war and much of the landscape and infrastructure was bombed and destroyed. A book about the subject is called Savage Continent by Keith Lowe published by St. Martin’s Press,NY, 2012.

After the war ended, boundaries were changed to reflect the winners and losers. An example of the book was the changing of the boundaries in Poland. The eastern side became part of the USSR and parts of Germany were given to Poland. The boundary change caused a massive migration of people on the German part – over 10 million people were moved. In can be imagined 10 million Germans moving to a country (Germany) that had just lost the war and had been bombed and destroyed; it is easy to see those 10 million people suffered. Equally on the USSR side of Poland, there was a migration of people as the USSR did not want all that came with the changing of the boundary.

The other migration of people was ethnic cleansing of countries. Before the war most countries had many religions and people of many backgrounds. After the war, the cultural diversity was much less. Many countries in Europe had an official policy to allow those who they did not want to easily leave. For many people, it was much easier to leave than tolerate life from both official government and neighbours. The official government includes access to services as well as reporting crimes against you and your family. The neighbours who before the war may have been customers or townspeople turned against them for all kinds of perceived wrongs, whether they were true or not.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, reputation is very hard to keep particularly in downturns of economic cycles, profitable stocks have found ways to do so. The lesson is that is what is made easy, people will do. If it is easy and has institutional backing, even more will do. In Europe people turned both inward and used vengeance to get back at perceived wrongs. Whether those perceived wrongs were 100 years ago or last week; many myths rose from the ashes and people reacted on them. Some had truth in them, some had very little truth; some were made up to reflect an attitude. For a profit making company, to continue on for many economic cycles it had to work through the myths and truths and make profits to pay dividends.

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