Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrat335
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For the US, the WWI was a lucrative business ( I am sure the WWII as well ( initially at least.))
That's why they wanted it to keep it going - they invested in it.
"My first question at the Treasury of an international
character was our American debt. At the end of the war, the
European Allies owed the United States about ten thousand
million dollars, of which four thousand million were owed by
Britain. On the other hand, we were owed by the other
Allies, principally by Russia, seven thousand million dollars.
In 1920, Britain had proposed an all-round cancellation of
war debts. This involved, on paper at least, a sacrifice by us
of about seven hundred and fifty million pounds sterling. As
the value of money has halved since then, the figures could
in fact be doubled. No settlement was reached. On August
1, 1922, in Mr. Lloyd George’s day, the Balfour Note had
declared that Great Britain would collect no more from her
debtors, Ally or former enemy, than the United States
collected from her. This was a worthy statement. In
December of 1922, a British delegation, under Government,
visited Washington; and as the result Britain agreed to pay
the whole of her war debt to the United States at a rate of
interest reduced from five to three and one-half per cent,
irrespective of receipts from her debtors.
This agreement caused deep concern in many instructed
quarters, and to no one more than the Prime Minister
quarters, and to no one more than the Prime Minister
himself. It imposed upon Great Britain, much impoverished
by the war in which, as she was to do once again, she had
fought from the first day to the last, the payment of thirty-
five millions sterling a year for sixty-two years. The basis of
this agreement was considered, not only in this island, but
by many disinterested financial authorities in America, to be
a severe and improvident condition for both borrower and
lender. “They hired the money, didn’t they?” said President
Coolidge. This laconic statement was true, but not
exhaustive. Payments between countries which take the
form of the transfer of goods and services, or still more of
their fruitful exchange, are not only just but beneficial.
Payments which are only the arbitrary, artificial transmission
across the exchange of such very large sums as arise in
war finance cannot fail to derange the whole process of
world economy. This is equally true whether the payments
are exacted from an ally who shared the victory and bore
much of the brunt or from a defeated enemy nation. The
enforcement of the Baldwin-Coolidge debt settlement is a
recognisable factor in the economic collapse which was
presently to overwhelm the world, to prevent its recovery
and inflame its hatreds.
The service of the American debt was particularly difficult to
render to a country which had newly raised its tariffs to
even higher limits, and had already buried in its vaults
nearly all the gold yet dug up. Similar but lighter settlements
were imposed upon the other European Allies. The first
result was that everyone put the screw on Germany. I was
in full accord with the policy of the Balfour Note of 1922,
and had argued for it at the time; and when I became
Chancellor of the Exchequer I reiterated it, and acted
accordingly. I thought that if Great Britain were thus made
not only the debtor, but the debt-collector of the United
States, the unwisdom of the debt collection would become
apparent at Washington. However, no such reaction
followed. Indeed the argument was resented. The United
States continued to insist upon its annual repayments from
Great Britain.
It, therefore, fell to me to make settlements with all our
Allies which, added to the German payments which we had
already scaled down, would enable us to produce the thirty-
five millions annually for the American Treasury. Severest
pressure was put upon Germany, and a vexatious régime
of international control of German internal affairs was
imposed. The United States received from England three
payments in full, and these were extorted from Germany by
indemnities on the modified Dawes scale."
W. Churchill "The Gathering Storm."
I think we know by now that it's the Wall Street, the bankers that really rule the US; rarely do politicians take the front seat.
So Russians are correct in many ways, when they are saying that "money is the source of all evil in the world."
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