A) What you don't consider a stimulus, is exactly what a stimulus always is... and always will be with the polticians in charge.  Austerity can't be done correctly, but neither can stimulus, the big difference is that failed austerity still somewhat lowers the debt, while failed stimulus increases it.

B)  The only way to grow an economy is to create products people demand and create value in the economy.  This can't happen through stimulus... espeically not through the kind of stimulus provided, at best stimulus can pull foward demand... and companies have to be stupid enough to follow through on it.

C)  It's got less to do with nationality and more to do with economics.  Government spending is useless to measuring the economy, because it's not a part of the economy.   The things you listed without a doubt should in no way count.

If they are useful, their effects will show up... in the private data.

Any government spending that can't find effects in the private market is essentially bubble spending and should only be used for specific charitable reasons.

None of what you stated really makes sense.

Your premise is, British Industry lost it's prominence because British factories selfishly refused to upgrade, and therefore lost buisness.

Can you not see the illogical line of thinking in there?

I have a couple of questions

1)  Why didn't they have incentive to make sure they could compete internationally?  Your arguement seems to be they selfishly ran themselves out of buisness for selfish reasons.   Why was it that Brtish factories didn't have to compete?  (For half a century)

2) Why was it that other factory owners in places like Germany and the US receive no government money but DID upgrade their factories?

I know the answers to this, but I want to see if you do, or at least have a clue.  Otherwise writing a giant wall of text on how economies have changed since the 1920's, tarrifs, the british empire et al, would be a huge waste of time.

1)  How could it not lower debt.  The government is spending less, and borrowing less.   If it's less then it takes in, then debt really decreases.

2&3)  You seem to have somewhat misunderstood my point.  If you are upgrading peoples skills and infrastructure to create a better economic climate, that will be shown... in the economic climate.

So if you increase education to create a bunch of new needed engineers, that will be shown in the economy by the growth of engineers and products created by those engineers.

Now if you increase education to create a bunch of liberal arts students, that won't be shown in the growth of the economy, because it does nothing.

The value of a government's economic policies can only be measured by private GDP.

I'd question the creation of a bunch of skilled technicians at a time where there is no climate for their employ.

Creating a bunch more engineers in troubled economic times would seem to me, only create more people vieing for existing engineering jobs.  Hurting engineers positions to bargain, giving companies big advantages to cut their employees salaries and benefits.

That's the untold darkside of education improvement.

The reason why they did not invest was because those industries were in terminal decline and so their investment would ultimately have been fruitless - why pin you're hopes to a sinking ship? Therefore they were quite happy to sit on their mines and shipyards which although struggling, were still profitable without ploughing any money into them. At this point, if the government had spent wisely on researching new methods of production and attracting other businesses then Britain could have been weened off of these heavy industries, alternatives in light industries making consumer goods could have been found and Britain would have a much more resiliant, more diverse economy more like Germany's.

The reason why businesses in Germany in particular did better than in the UK was because when they were rebulding their economy after WW2, they had something of a clean slate and could focus on the most promising area of growth at that time, which was those light industries making consumer goods. This is compared to Britain, where we ended up attempting to salvage our heavy industry through nationalisation, which, though I consider myself reasonably left-wing in my views, I have to concede is seldom appropriate for most sectors and which is usually at best a way of buying time for the economy to change and develop new industries without creating a spike in unemployment. It also requires an enormous amount of money to do correctly which Britain was not able to provide even with such large loans and other sources of income (e.g. from the Marshall Plan)

Your premise seems to be buisness owners knew they were obsolete and just didn't care that they would eventually lose their only livelyhoods and their familiys only livelyhoods.  This being the era where there was very little invsetment diversification and factories were handed down father to son.

Nobody needed to "research" new ways of production, it was already out there.  Hell it was already in the UK.  A few US companies like ford opened more advanced comanies in the UK.  I'm guessing you read a thorwaway line or two about Great Brtiain being behind in production technology, and what they meant by that was applied technology, not the level of technology that actually existed.

They had the same level of technology, the US, Germany and plenty of other countries had... and Germany's Industry grew faster both pre and post WW2.  So no.  It's not just having a "Clean slate".

Here's the think about pre-WW2 international trade.    It barely existed... even shortly after WW2.  Tariffs ruled the day... and nobody had a stronger position then the British Empire due to it's many colonies and deals with commonwealth countries.   An example of this lies in Kenysian economics.  His strongest reason during the day for targetting the poor? 

They didn't buy foreign products.  Stimulus money was wasted if the rich used it to buy expensive luxuary items from overseas.  The rich were the only ones able to get over the tariffs. 

That's why American companies like ford were forced to build car factories in the UK and steel factories in Canada.  To avoid the tarrifs. 

British industires didn't improve not because they were short sighted, but because the UK government created a situation in which no improvements were needed.  Nor was their any reason to expect this wouldn't continue on forever.  Neither the UK government nor the factories have forseen the change that happened.

All the best factories became rich foreign factories.... and rich foreign ones were the first ones moved when free trade got big post WW2.

By the time the tariffs were gone, UK factories were way behing.  Germany, and by that i mostly mean West Germany was the new focus of the cold war for the US, so their better factories that survived got amped up by the US more.

The UK government didn't need to invest in factories.  All they needed to do was not activly discourage investing in factories by promoting unfair trade advantages.

The buisnesses were foward thinking, with the same foward thinking the UK government provided.  It was jsut the wrong kind of thinking... created specifically by government policy.

The real fault lies with... the government.

I agree. Immigrants aren't so much the problem. It's the companies who use them to pay less than minimum wage that really are the problem. If only people realised that. Immigrants only come here to better themselves and there relatives. 

Also, culture isn't the only problem with the EU. It's the economic and wealth diversity also. Say, Germany which is much richer than Spain and yet they use the same currency. I have no idea how that is supposed to work well. I don't know why the EU couldn't of remained a trading bloc and nothing more. Some of the laws it passes are just daft too. The common agriculture policy and the fishing policies for example are just stupid. 

I will be suprised if the Europe don't fall to war (again!) if those who set it up and run it don't realise how flawed some of it is.  

You've got to be having a laugh if you think austerity is helping spain or greece in any way

Things in them countries won't great before but at least they didn't have 30% unemployment and people won't relying on the church or having to steal food or electricity to survive. Spain and Greece are like 3rd world countries now. Greece must of lost about a 1/4 of its economy to thin air by now and if austerity works, why is it taking so long to prove it? Asia is laughing at us. Austerity has certainly made things much worse. Being tied to the Euro certainly don't help either.  

Apparently you hadn't been paying attention to greece, because yes... it was like that before Austierity.

Austerity is taking so long to work... because austerity took so long to implement.

That and because they haven't applied needed structural reforms.

I mean christ, do you even know what greece would look like now without austerity?  They would of defaulted on their debts, been removed from the EU, had their currency deflate to Zimbabweian levels after being kicked out of the EU and be unable to import even the most basic goods like medicine.

Greece actually would be a real third world country.

It don't work because they cut the wrong areas. They hapilly cut stuff like education and other vital services in Greece which help the economy in the long run. But do these politicians cut there own wages? NO! Do they close tax loopholes or pursue tax avoiders? of course not! Anything that don't affects them is cut first because they don't care about the morons who elect them constantly. All the while, pushing there own failings onto immigrants and fuelling extremist nationalism. Ain't that clever and sly of the Greek politicians? Of course, Greece won't be fixed over night but they need to realise there current policies aren't working at all. Otherwise, they likely would of been on the mend by now. This really is like the 30's all over again.