War repayments

[sleep envy]

the UK only recently finished paying the US for loans during WWII

what other countries took out loans to fund their war and how long did it take for them to pay them back?

[LHD]

Where's Eric Mc when you need him?

IIRC the US loans were paid off about 3 years ago.

What about the Marshall Plan though? Did Germany have to pay back the US too?

[Mars]

There were a number of different loans going both to and from the US with lots of other countries. I'm sure the UK had more than one. I recently found a wikipedia entry for "lend lease" which seemed to cover this including the recent(ish) UK repayment to the US. It was far more complex than I had imagined and involved the UK lending/leasing land to the US so they could base their operations here as well as the UK borrowing food and weapons from the US. But we were by means the only country to have done so.

The wiki entry was quite long, although interesting and worth a read.

[Mars]

2nd last line should have had a NOT in there. Can't seem to edit a post using PH-mobile.

[OnTheOverrun]

Don't forget that we also leant a lot of money to our allies to fight the war and £2.3bn is still outstanding.

[tank slapper]

We also still owe the US for the WW1 war debt. It was £866 million in 1934, which adjusted for inflation is in the region of £40 billion now.

[sleep envy]

will have a look at the Wiki page, ta

[Jasandjules]

There are gilts outstanding which are War Loans - 3.5% IIRC. Patriotic people bought them, and got ripped off..........

[illmonkey]

Cricky, we should have setup a higher direct debit, rather than going with the minimum repayments. Could have shaved a few quid off.

[K50 DEL]

Get Martin Lewis on the case, maybe we were mis-sold some PPI or something and we can get a refund!

[muppetdave]

I can't remember the ins and the outs of Lend Lease, but there's quite a bit about it in a book I'm reading currently (it focusses on the Eastern Front and the argument that the Eastern Front was far far far more prolonged and critical than the Western Front). Apparently Russia borrowed heavily from the US also (along with many others as already mentioned) - and Roosevelt used the war - the US being mostly well out of reach of activity in geographical terms, to build the US in to the 'monster' it is now - economically (well - was...), politically and in military terms. Interestingly the Romanians had larger armies and air forces than the US before WW2!

On a slight swing from that - can someone explain to me why/how Switzerland managed to remain neutral throughout whilst Hitler was on a rampage. Call me a cynic, but was it left alone being 'neutral' in everyone's eyes so he could plant/launder his deposits there?

Edited by muppetdave on Friday 30th October 09:08

[GC8]

They also f*cked us by lending us a fortune after the war and immediately devaluing our currency (wiping out virtually all of the benefit and saddling us with a debt for life, whilst promoting the US Dollar (by forcing us to trade Sterling, rather than linking it to the value of gold IIRC))

[Saddle bum]

GC8 said:

They also f*cked us by lending us a fortune after the war and immediately devaluing our currency (wiping out virtually all of the benefit and saddling us with a debt for life, whilst promoting the US Dollar (by forcing us to trade Sterling, rather than linking it to the value of gold IIRC))

Yeh!

[TEKNOPUG]

muppetdave said:

On a slight swing from that - can someone explain to me why/how Switzerland managed to remain neutral throughout whilst Hitler was on a rampage. Call me a cynic, but was it left alone being 'neutral' in everyone's eyes so he could plant/launder his deposits there?

Edited by muppetdave on Friday 30th October 09:08

It was a good place to do business with the rest of the world (not the Allies basically). Besides, if you completely surround a land-locked country, there is little point in invading. The same could be said for “neutral” Sweden.

Ironically, Switzerland still considered themselves as sovereign territory and were more than happy to shoot done German aircraft which entered their airspace, with Me109’s that they bought from Germany….

[Jasandjules]

illmonkey said:

Cricky, we should have setup a higher direct debit, rather than going with the minimum repayments. Could have shaved a few quid off.

Nope, the whole point of the 3.5% War Loan is that they only pay out interest at 3.5%. Whenever deposit rates are higher than that, as they tend to be pretty much all the time, then the Govt is saving money by only paying out at 3.5%...

[JonRB]

My understanding was that the price of America's assistance in the war was pretty much the dismantling of our Empire and bringing us to our knees, leaving us the pathetic shadow of our former selves that we are now.

[Engineer1]

It's almost America where jealous that they never got an empire because they turned up on the world stage too late so when they got the chance they broke everyone else's.

[muppetdave]

Engineer1 said:

It's almost America where jealous that they never got an empire because they turned up on the world stage too late so when they got the chance they broke everyone else's.

Pretty much. Politically, the US used the opportunity to become one of the front runners as they were in a very strong position to crack on and take over everything by kind of being 'the daddy' - upping industrial production and lending here there and everywhere. Despite being relatively poor, Russia showed how dominant they could be in military terms on the Eastern Front - vast numbers and resource winning the day. Therefore the stage was set for the next chapter - the Cold War.