Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : The coming US dollar crisis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: critical_mass who wrote (13777)	10/30/2008 9:03:54 AM
From: Tommaso	1 Recommendation Respond to of 71456

Good, clear thumbnail account of how things developed in Germany in the 1920s. If our forthcoming inflation morphs into a depression, the U. S. could get a McCarthy-era brush with fascism at some point.

To: critical_mass who wrote (13777)	10/30/2008 2:03:59 PM
From: pogohere	Respond to of 71456

"In consequence, in June, 1931, President Hoover succeeded in putting through a one-year moratorium for [German] reparations payments, and this was followed in July, 1932, by the Lausanne Agreement, as a result of which reparations were practically abolished. … The Lausanne Agreement between Germany and the reparations powers provided for the complete abolition of all reparations obligations with the exception of a reserved sum of three milliard marks. When one considers that Germany's reparations obligations under the Versailles Treaty amounted to 120 milliard marks annually for more than a generation, one can estimate the great progress represented by the Lausanne Agreement towards a solution of the reparations problem. Even the final sum of three milliard marks existed only on paper and there was no likelihood of its ever being translated into reality, since a condition of payment was that the international money market should be prepared to grant Germany a loan of the same amount. No one in Lausanne supposed there would ever be any prospect of this. … In any case, the fact which must be place on record is that the reparations problem was settled before Hitler came to power. It was the first diplomatic success of a German government before Hitler, but it came too late. The writ for new Reichstag elections had already been issued and shortly after the signing of the Lausanne Agreement the General Election resulted in a decisive victory for Hitler, giving him 230 seats in the new Reichstag." Hjalmar Schacht, "Account Settled," 1948, pp24-25. Message 24783802