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Germany's inability to repay war reparations led to the breakdown of the multilateral system of free trade. The United States introduced tariff restrictions in the Hawley-Smoot Act, which further deteriorated the situation around the world....
The Germans blamed the banks....After the Nazis came to power, they used the foreign assets locked in Germany to induce Switzerland and Britain to adopt less hostile policies toward the new German government. Frozen debt (call it blackmail) turned out to be an effective tool in preventing the West from getting its act together....
...17th-century Spain offers another good example....By 1598, the King of Spain gave the church's hierarchy the role to renegotiate the debt. The king thought that only they could rationalize default by using theological arguments, making a financial issue sound like a moral one, which the lenders could not oppose.
In our time, read "homeland security" and "support our military" for: "theological arguments."
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By now, morality, ethics, or any notion of honor has lost their association with religion, race, or patriotism. Policies became rationalized by armies of subsidized academics and think tanks. Subsidies to universities and "academic" publications have turned the resulting output into what I often call "the sciences of political lies".,,,
What the US has to do is simple in principle -- which does not imply that it is easy to execute. It must create massive equity bottom up....
