Uh, what?

[bjarvis]

Interesting news item... Britain makes final WWII replayments to Canada and US.

I'm not sure what surprised me more:
(a) that I didn't know there was an outstanding debt left from WWII;
(b) that it wasn't paid off long ago; or,
(c) that the US and Canada didn't forgive any outstanding balance decades ago.

I wonder what other financial commitments from WWII (or earlier) are still outstanding by any of the parties involved.

Comments

[squalidbear.livejournal.com]

Those bastard cheap-ass Canadians, getting all free health-care and shit off their 2% loan-sharking.

[bootedintexas.livejournal.com]

One would have thought all the checks for WWII were written many years ago. Very strange....(after all i thought Canada and Britain were the same thing back in the 40s....)

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I would have thought it all would have been resolved by the mid-1950s or so. If the UK had asked me, I would have forgiven everything years ago.

Hey, Britain: Call me... we'll work something out.

[apparentparadox]

Not to mention the ones who live near the border & listen to US public radio and watch US PBS tv for free!

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Um, what was the US doing with its 2% profits?

[squalidbear.livejournal.com]

Oh, you know that was going to worthwhile things; like abstinence education, ammunition for Dick Cheney, the "Godspeed" tina-evangelist program, Bush's English lessons (report card said progress was v. disappointing), the war in iRaq, the Supreme Justice selective breeding program, industrial shredders for the Constitution, illegal wiretapping, secret torture facilities - this stuff all costs money, you know. And it's not like you can do it with voter-approved funding! Hah!

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Don't forget tax breaks for the wealthy! Yup, money well spent.

[apparentparadox]

I bet that they only paid up so that BushCo can't force them to join us in the next war we start.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Nowadays, the logic probably works the other way around: go to war when the US tells you to, or the US won't pay back what it owes!

[apparentparadox]

Um, I think that the US never pays back what it owes. I think that we haven't paid our UN dues in years.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

The entire international banking system is predicated on this crap - there are MANY such international loans which show up as assets on the books of the lender.

final repayments

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

The Beeb reported this back in May.

It was the tail end of lend-lease. All war materiel was essentially donated to the UK/ war effort, but that ended with the war, and that which didn't go back to the states became debt. At the end of WWI, there was even more indebtedness, and that is not being paid off -- that non-repayment was part of the actual carriage of the WWII debt, rather than the forgiveness of the loan, according to someone quoted in the BBC article.

But then, if you could borrow at 2%, I'd pay that back as slowly as possible too. and apparently there is still debt from the Napoleonic wars still kicking around.

Re: final repayments

[cuyahogarvr.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you responded like this, otherwise I would have to. The reality of it all is that all of the major players are indebted to each other, the financial entanglements are mind-boggling.
Also, bear in mind, these were loans for re-building the country after the war, which was in the best interest of the US because of the evil threat of the emerging Soviet block. We did the same for France, Italy and Western Germany. Should they have been forgive? Sure, years ago. Should we have repaid OUR debt? Sure years ago.

[beartalon.livejournal.com]

I am not surprised it wasn't paid long ago, simply by looking at a normal loan. One payment a year, rather than monthly, and at that interest rate, it's not like a lot of interest racks up compared to the actual principal.

In terms of length of time, a 5-year car loan has 60 payments. A payment per year since 1946 is also 60 payments.

Sometimes I wonder how much richer/poorer we'd all be if all nations reviewed their debts to one another and cancelled out as many cross-nation debts as possible or simplify the A owes B owes C to A owes C and be done with it.

Of course, that would be far too simple.

I wonder what change will occur next year when the payments don't come.