Deal and believed that free markets would lead to disaster without proper regulation. The American economy boomed for about 30 years after World War II with the benefit of Keynesianism, robust antitrust regulation to promote competition and financial regulations preventing the most volatile forms of market speculation, high unionization rates and protections promoting the growth of domestic industry. However, during the 1970s, stagflation was brought on by the 1973 oil crisis and the shift from the gold standard to fiat currency, which discredited the policy consensus that was set in place by the New Deal Coalition. Eventually, Ronald Reagan was elected as president in 1980, and many of the statutes and organizations created by the New Deal were dismantled. United Kingdom London was the center of the so-called First Era of Globalization because of the power and resources of the British Empire. However, World War I severely weakened Britain, causing massive unemployment. The United Kingdom successfully held out during World War II and emerged victorious, but the war effectively caused the dismantling of its empire. Winston Churchill was influenced by the work of Hayek and opposed heavy government interference in the British economy. However, the Labour Party, led by Clement Attlee, came to power in force after the 1945 general election and was dedicated to government controls to prevent another economic crisis. The United Kingdom's major industries were nationalized over the following decades (including the Bank of England, electricity, water, natural gas, railways, mining, bus transport, telecommunications, along with large portions of the oil, shipbuilding, aerospace, automotive, and steel industries. Basic human services such as healthcare and university education were brought under government control and made available for free, while rents in the private housing market were regulated and council housing provided homes for around a third of the population by the late 1970s. Meanwhile, practically all occupations and wages were heavily regulated and unionized. The practices became so prevalent that even Conservative governments elected after the initial wave of nationalisations in the late 1940s kept them. However, during the 1970s, massive strikes by unions (see the Three-Day Week and Winter of Discontent) and other economic woes, such as the 1973 oil crisis, almost ground the British economy to a halt. Thatcher, an ardent admirer of Hayek, began privatizatizing industries. While her results were initially mixed, the Falklands War brought on a nationalistic fervor that kept Thatcher in office long