Peter F. Drucker Boxed Set (8 Books) (The Drucker Library)

CHAPTER TEN

Trade with Japan

The Way It Works

NEVER BEFORE HAS A MAJOR DEBTOR country owed its foreign creditors in its own currency as the United States does today. All other major debtor nations today—Brazil, Mexico, Zaire—owe in their creditor’s currency, primarily in dollars. So, in the 1920s, did Germany and the other Continental European countries, the big debtors of those days. But the foreign debt of the United States today is owed in U.S. dollars.

The advantages to the United States are tremendous, and as unprecedented as the situation itself. For the first time a debtor nation stands to benefit both on its capital account and on its ...