Friday, December 29, 2006

World War II debt repaid

You will no doubt have heard this on the news. You can read the BBC article here.

What interested me about the war debts we have is that we stopped paying of debts for the First World War in 1934. These debts are huge. However we are actually owed more than we owe. So the US could bankrupt us by ending the repayment moratorium, but then we could avoid that by bankrupting others, including I believe the French!

I was also staggered to hear we still owe for the Napoleonic wars, though who to, I have no idea.

Wars are very very expensive in terms of blood and treasure. They should only be entered into as a last resort, rather than because your mate the illiterate idiot across the pond thinks it is a good idea.

Interesting fact about World War one is that we finished it with 22,000 serviceable aircraft, most of which were sold off as surplus.

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