Post by juergen on Feb 1, 2009 1:51:58 GMT -5
Between 1500 and 1800, France became insolvent eight times. Spain went bankrupt seven times during the 19th century.
In most cases the country's coffers were "dry" by war and in each case, the simplest solution was to pay back the debts. But in 1557, Spain's King Philipp II rejected to pay his country's debts after its military battles against the Dutch and the Ottomans, it was the start of the first banker crisis.
After the Revolution, France's new regents had an even more extreme solution. They expropriated property from churches, major landowners and executed lenders.
A similarly brutal option was to go to war, in order to plunder occupied areas, such methods of consolidation tended to happen when nations started to collapse.
In the past, inflation was the preferred method of dealing with debt by the creation of more money. The first inflation was as early as ancient Rome, where the Romans devaluated their coins by using fewer precious metals in them and it became a standard practice for the future generations.
With the introduction of the paper money, the process was more simplified, since nations could just print it. The first country to start printing money on a grand scale was France in the 18th century, when it needed to pay off the mountain of debt accrued by Louis XIV. In times of crisis, French governments ever since have fallen for this temptation.
The greatest winner, besides people who had loans or mortgages they no longer had to pay back, was the government - its debt shrank into insignificance.
Question = What will be the Imperial politic in this matter ?
In most cases the country's coffers were "dry" by war and in each case, the simplest solution was to pay back the debts. But in 1557, Spain's King Philipp II rejected to pay his country's debts after its military battles against the Dutch and the Ottomans, it was the start of the first banker crisis.
After the Revolution, France's new regents had an even more extreme solution. They expropriated property from churches, major landowners and executed lenders.
A similarly brutal option was to go to war, in order to plunder occupied areas, such methods of consolidation tended to happen when nations started to collapse.
In the past, inflation was the preferred method of dealing with debt by the creation of more money. The first inflation was as early as ancient Rome, where the Romans devaluated their coins by using fewer precious metals in them and it became a standard practice for the future generations.
With the introduction of the paper money, the process was more simplified, since nations could just print it. The first country to start printing money on a grand scale was France in the 18th century, when it needed to pay off the mountain of debt accrued by Louis XIV. In times of crisis, French governments ever since have fallen for this temptation.
The greatest winner, besides people who had loans or mortgages they no longer had to pay back, was the government - its debt shrank into insignificance.
Question = What will be the Imperial politic in this matter ?