Carl Remick wrote:
> Re Michael Cohen's: " How did the US keep from becoming a permanent
> economic colony of Britain?"
>
> Defaulting on loans helped. When Pennsylvania defaulted on its foreign
> loans in 1842, one British investor fumed: "There really should be
> lunatic asylums for nations as well as individuals." He described the
> U.S. as "a nation with whom no contract can be made, because none will
> be kept; unstable in the very foundations of social life, deficient in
> the elements of good faith...." Pennsylvania eventually paid up, but so
> far as I know, the British Council of Foreign Bondholders is still
> sending dunning letters to Mississippi, which never repaid its external
> 19th century debt.
>
> Carl Remick
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu