Chapter 739: First Debt Default
The Fourteen Points were proposed entirely from the perspective of the United States. To put it bluntly, they are only good for the United States at present. In terms of the area and population of the colonies, the United States is not worth mentioning, not to mention compared with Britain and France, even compared with Germany.
Even if all colonies became independent, the United States would be fine, but other countries would be doomed. How can we forget the natural leader of the Slavic world, the Russian Empire? Everyone knows that the Russian Empire is the biggest challenger to English-speaking countries in terms of both area and population. It can be said that there is no other.
Only when the Five Eyes Alliance comes together can they crush the Slavic world. Of course, there are other countries as candidate challengers, but compared to the sufficient population, the resources of other countries are not enough.
The Fourteen Points naturally did not forget the Soviet Union, which is still called the Soviet Union. How to snatch Eastern Europe from the hands of the Russian Empire and its successors was already explained in President Wilson's Fourteen Points in 1918.
Therefore, these fourteen points undoubtedly established President Wilson's position in the history of the United States. That is, when Mount Rushmore appeared, the United States had not yet achieved its goal of becoming a world hegemon, otherwise it is very likely that Wilson would have been one of the four big heads on Mount Rushmore.
This is the guiding principle for the United States to intervene in the world in the future, but in 1918? It was a bit too optimistic to put it forward. At the Paris Peace Conference, Britain and France, which had already concluded, directly regarded Wilson's proposal as waste paper.
The fundamental reason is that the military strength of the United States was not taken seriously, the American Expeditionary Force did not demonstrate combat effectiveness worthy of respect, and Britain and France jointly ignored this claim.
This is why Sheffield said that the United States should take advantage of the situation to get rid of Britain and France. Unfortunately, the United States does not have this condition now, either in terms of social foundation or ideological preparation. If we expect the infant beacon of humanity to fight the real imperialist powers with real swords and guns, we may wet our pants before we even start.
As he spoke, Sheffield had already put on his clothes and took the top hat from Alice Roosevelt. "I'll go to Morgan Jr. to see how serious the situation is. But I don't think it's a big problem."
"Is it because the Soviet Union announced that it would not recognize the loan?" Alice Roosevelt asked, "Is it a serious matter?"
"It's not serious, the losses are huge, but all the European capital has flowed into our country because of the war. No one knows how much this amount is. Even my arms trade, Rockefeller and Morgan's usury combined may not be enough. Our figures can be calculated, but how much money has flowed into the country in the past three years is uncalculated." Sheffield shrugged and said, "The losses of Morgan Bank should only be known to Morgan Jr."
It was just a coincidence that when President Wilson announced the Fourteen Points, which were so important, the lifelong enemies of the United States, the Bolsheviks within Imperial Russia, also announced an important decision. To put it bluntly, the Central Committee had decided that military loans between imperialists had nothing to do with us, the proletariat.
This was the first defaulted debt of the First World War, and the person who suffered the greatest blow was the Morgan Bank, which loaned $470 million to the Russian government before its collapse.
Although the biggest casualty of the Bolshevik default was not the Morgan Bank but the French, Sheffield knew that this impact would eventually spread to the United States, because France had long used various means after the war to make the Soviet Union recognize its debts and repay them.
First of all, the debt conditions of France to the Russian Empire were actually not bad. At least compared with various colonies, the Russian Empire did not have to sign various unequal treaties or even the Franco-Russian Alliance to borrow money. The conditions were still relatively favorable. However, when the foreign debt reached a certain scale, it became impossible to repay it even if it wanted to.
Regardless of whether the Soviet Union had integrity and a sense of contract, it was objectively unable to repay the foreign debts owed by the Russian Empire and the Provisional Government. Not only could it not repay them, the Soviet Union also began to nationalize France's investment in the Russian Empire.
As the largest debtor of the Russian Empire and a capital exporter, France undoubtedly suffered the greatest losses when the Soviet Union was established. This is also the fundamental reason why France was the toughest country against the Soviet Union in the early days of the Soviet Union.
The influence of the Soviet Union's default on its debts was just the beginning. Since the debt problem caused by the Soviet Union, the Allied camp has begun to haggle over the debt issue. The remaining two countries of the Allied Powers, Britain and France, have adopted different attitudes towards the Soviet Union's default on its debts, but they were the same towards the United States.
The British attitude after the war was that Britain could condone the Soviet Union's default on its debts. At the same time, for the overall interests of the warring countries, Britain pardoned the Soviet Union's debts, and the United States should also pardon Britain's debts.
The French chose a completely different strategy, that is, if the Soviet Union did not pay back the money, France would not pay back the money either. The goal was the same, but Britain and France took different means.
The United States, which also suffered heavy losses due to the Soviet Union's default on its debts, stood firmly on the side of France. The consequence was that it was sold out by France. Under the fierce opposition of the United States, France and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations, making the United States the only major country that insisted on the Soviet Union's repayment of its debts, which looked very embarrassing.
This was the debt problem that lasted until before World War II. Capitalism, socialism, Britain, France and the Soviet Union, the successor to the Russian Empire, all wanted to default on their debts.
The triangular debt problem that had lasted for decades had already erupted at this time. Sheffield swore that he had never seen Morgan Jr. associated with the word "forced smile", but the slave owner could not find any other adjective.
After using a long opening speech to explain his purpose in a roundabout way, Little Morgan finally couldn't bear the torture of rhetoric. If it were normal, as a master of rhetoric, he would still beat around the bush with the slave owner, but now he really didn't have the mood to do so. "Tell me, William, why did you come to my place?"
Of course it's a joke! Ahem! Sheffield cleared his throat and said, "There are rumors that Morgan Bank suffered heavy losses because of the Bolsheviks' statement. I came to confirm it."
Morgan's face instantly became extremely constipated. "Who told you that? This is a statement without any source."
"You should check your bank's stocks on the New York Stock Exchange now." Sheffield said noncommittally, "Capital won't lie. If you keep it like this, something bad will happen. I just want to know if it's serious."
"Four hundred and seventy million dollars, do you think that's serious?" Morgan Jr. revealed the truth helplessly, but still said it was no problem. "The domestic consumer market has been booming in the past three years, and the bank's business is also very good. But if we really can't get the money back, it will be a major blow to the bank's business."
In other words, it is still under control? Sheffield nodded in understanding, but if Morgan knew that this was just the beginning, would he not be so optimistic?
The slave owners knew the butterfly effect of the Soviet Union's default. France would not pay back the United States if it could not get the money. As for the Soviet Union's default, Britain actually suffered little loss. It was just that after the war, it took advantage of the Soviet Union's default to force the United States to forgive the debt.
"Let me ask, how much loan did Morgan Bank give to Britain and France?" Sheffield lit a cigarette and asked with concern.
"Totaling over the past few years, it's about one billion US dollars. In the first year, France borrowed 100 million from me, and in the second year, Britain and France borrowed 600 million together. Last year, the loan was 1 billion, but last year it wasn't just from Morgan Bank." Young Morgan took a deep breath. Apparently, after the Soviet Union's default on its debts, he began to feel uncertain about Britain and France.
"Oh!" Sheffield took a puff of his cigarette. Fortunately, Britain and France had been hesitant until the 1930s and had repaid some money during that period. Otherwise, if they had announced that they would follow the Soviet Union's example after the war, wouldn't Morgan Bank have exploded on the spot?
"Those bastards have no sense of contract, but this can't affect Morgan Bank." Morgan Jr. did not ask for help, but said that he could hold on.
That's good! Sheffield was not really prepared to pay for the rescue. If he paid for the rescue, it would depend on how many industries the Morgan Alliance had that were worth acquiring. Is this proletarian default counted as defaulting on debts? After the war, Morgan Jr. would find that even the wealthy people of the imperialist powers would default on their debts.
After confirming that Morgan Jr. could hold out, Sheffield went back to Citibank to watch the fun from another place. Although Morgan Jr. did not say who his allies were for the loan last year, the slave owner thought that those with such strength must be the two giants of Citibank, one of whom was the Rockefeller family.
The Rockefeller family's loan did not involve the Russian Empire, and Morgan Jr. had to shoulder the $470 million debt himself. But Sheffield wanted to see if Rockefeller Jr. was affected.
The slave owner was disappointed. He could not get an answer from young Rockefeller. As he grew older, his brother-in-law became more and more similar to the poker face of old Rockefeller.
"The situation is still very good!" Since everyone thinks it's okay and can hold on, why should Sheffield worry? Just earn some hard-earned money honestly and don't get involved in these usurious things.
Instead of spending this time talking about the issue of deepening our presence in the medical industry, we asked Rockefeller Jr. about the current health situation in the country and asked him, “Do you want to invest in the medical industry?”
In response to his brother-in-law's question, Sheffield said, "I'm just asking. Everyone knows that many sources of damage on the battlefield are not just bullets. If an infectious disease breaks out, the consequences will be disastrous."
"I have heard of this matter. How could an infectious disease break out in our country? We are not affected at all." Rockefeller Jr. said calmly.
That's not necessarily true! Sheffield was inevitably disappointed by Rockefeller's answer. It seemed that the flu had not yet appeared.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
