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Notes -
How did this impact the German economy if it never circulated (neither entered nor left it)?
I assume it was bad for the German economy because it made banks less likely to lend to them, drying up credit. (Plus the whole part where the French got irritated by the lack of repayment and seized some of their territory.)
We're literally talking about the opposite situation!
American banks gave Germany perhaps 4x as much as the 20 years later Marshall plan. Some was from the reparations (Dawes and Young plans) they bankrolled, without being paid back, which did not circulate in the German economy, but they loaned and invested even more (about $5 billion/year in the late 1920s, more than Germany (American bankers) paid in reparations in total (for comparison, in dollars, the total original reparation sum was $30 billion) which helped Germany grow production 30% above 1914 levels, with the 2nd largest industry in the world.)
Be that as it may, I don't think it's good for the American economy to loan money and not have it paid back. Obviously a certain amount of this is the cost of doing business, but it's not good when that happens.
Are you saying that failing to pay their war debts didn't hurt German credit?
I sense I might be losing the thread on this, so feel free to lay your thesis out for me.
That makes two of us! ...for the American economy, ah. I suppose not. But it kept bonds valued well on their books, working out like deferred payments. The American banks both financed the loser's payments and forwarded loans to the victors on reparations payments. I don't have access to the full period of bond values then, but I suspect their balance sheets were held up quite well until the depression.
The German government's credit wasn't really impacted, surprisingly. Somehow everyone kept playing ball with them even after they chose to hyperinflate themselves. Germans who bought war bonds etc. in WWI were the most negatively impacted. Even more surprising to me, Germany was still able to access credit markets into the 30s, even after they started issuing fake money: Öffa then Mefo bills. Chase bank e.g. went through crazy hoops and even let Americans buy German war bonds during WWII (until 1941) (at a discount, buying subsidized returnee marks taken from Jews).
Well that seems counterintuitive, but the interwar years were a weird time to be sure.
ETA: despite perhaps losing the plot, I enjoyed this - econ is not my strong suit, which means it is good for me to be discussing it.
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