Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from An Essay on Political Economy
The investing of foreign capital in this country has been a great factor in keeping up the wages of our workmen. It has offset the depressing effect of the large amount of labor that has been thrown on our labor market by immigra tion. It is estimated that there is between eight and ten thousand million dollars of foreign capital invested in this country, this brings an income of fully three hundred million dollars annually to its owners. So we see for the United States to pay its debts we must export at least threehundred million more than we import. This has put a leverage in the hands of foreign bankers, who control the foreign capital invested here. By taking their interest in gold they can depress the markets at will. By shipping in gold they can boom our markets. Market prices should be controlled by natural law 5 but to-day they are controlled to a great extent by foreign capitalists who can manipulate our gold supply at will. If the interest on foreign invest ments were paid in gold for two years we would have drained off all our gold supply. The effect of foreign capital going into South America and Australia so rapidly was to give an unnatural stimulus to business, creating an abnormal demand for labor at the time. As a consequence the cost of production rose rapidly, and when the English investor commenced to stop sending capital and demanded a return on his investment, the inevitable crash came.
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