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.
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final repayments
Date: 2006-12-28 11:37 pm (UTC)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.