Comment by rawgabbit

Sorry no. France was a wreck of itself after WWI having lost an entire generation of its young men. Germany was even worse off. The US was the economic engine of the world after WWI. Despite the fact the US regulatory institutions was in its infancy. The FED at that time had no teeth. It was only after FDR became president and the continuous bank runs that the FDIC and Glass Steagall (which has been repealed) and modern banking regulations were put in effect. When the US stock market bubble popped and plunged the US into depression, it was the hard money policies such as the Smoot Hawley tariffs and Hoover’s economic hands off policies that made everything worse.