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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (9393)	11/8/2001 10:10:48 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I am reading Harold James' new book about how the tensions inherent in globalization led to the Great Depression, The End of Globalization. It's well known that tariffs contributed to the Great Depression, but perhaps less well known that capital controls did, too. Capital controls were an attempt to deal with the destabilizing effect of "hot money" flowing from country to country in search of higher interest rates and arbitrage advantages. amazon.com Does anyone besides me think it's interesting that one of the main weapons being used against terrorism now is capital control? Isn't it interesting how governments feel threatened when they can't control money flow?

To: Ilaine who wrote (9393)	11/8/2001 12:04:05 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi CobaltBlue; About reparations. As long as we're complicating the issue and looking at root causes, note that France had to pay reparations to Germany after the Franco-Prussian war. The reparations at the time were thought to be debilitating (5 billion gold francs), but the French paid them with far less problem than thought. Some links: naval-history.net stabi.hs-bremerhaven.de google.com -- Carl P.S. I seem to recall that a 20 franc gold piece is 1/4 oz. You can buy them all over fairly cheaply, and they make a beautiful collection, with a set of the faces of Napoleon on through the various Empires and Republics until the 20th century. That puts the reparations at 62.5 million ounces of gold, or about $18.75 billion in current dollars. That was a huge amount back then, I wonder what the US budget was...