Читать книгу Financial Cold War. A View of Sino-US Relations from the Financial Markets онлайн

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To finance its participation in WW1, Woodrow Wilson's administration issued five ‘Liberty Loans’ totalling $21.4 billion, with maturities between four and 30 years. The government debt was gradually reduced during the 1920s and, by the time Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, the outstanding public debt stood at around $20 billion, or 20 percent of GDP.ssss1 From there, the size of the US deficit continued to grow through WW2 and peaked at 119 percent of GDP at the end of the war.ssss1 Each US administration since then has added to the balance of US Treasury debt outstanding. However, as America enjoyed strong economic growth, the debt as a percentage of GDP steadily declined to 24.6 percent of GDP in 1974.ssss1 From that point on, however, slower economic growth and rising government expenditure saw the US national debt grow at a much faster pace than the economy.

It's not just the government that has continually spent more than it earns; American consumers have done so too. This might never have been possible without an audacious deal negotiated by former Treasury Secretary William Simon to ensure a stable source of funding from overseas.