George Hall on the History of the U.S. National Debt and Government Financing
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
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The History of US Public Finance
After the War of 1812, US government says it's not going to be in the infrastructure business. So state governments take over the business and finance canals and banks. A lot of the states start to go bankrupt or they can't pay it. They've lent largely to the Europeans. The European say, okay, we'd like to be repaid. The states say we can't pay. Hamilton nationalized all the debts, you're responsible for the state debts. And then there's bonds that pay back in greenbacks and bonds that payback in gold. There's two currencies floating around. You've got gold dollars that are worth a lot and you've got greenback dollars that
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