In today's Gainesville Times, Nichols says, "During the First World War, German officials chose to borrow money to finance its war effort rather than to raise taxes, because increased taxes were highly unpopular."
Tom, you have a very selective memory but I guess your World War One service was a long time ago.
Not only did Germany borrow money, but all the belligerents went into debt. But, since I believe you have an agenda to attack Obama, of course you would use Adolf Hitler's name in your essay. As Marshal Trivulzio wrote to Louis XII of France in 1499, ‘To carry out war three things are necessary: money, money and yet more money.’
Shame on you for not discussing how all the countries borrowed from abroad.
The essential precondition for such warfare was economic mobilization. Before the war many pundits imagined that the principal constraint on sustained operations would be war finance—that states would be unable to extend their credit. They were wrong: by borrowing from abroad, from their own citizens, and ultimately from themselves (through accepting treasury bills as security for currency issue), the belligerents postponed payment until after the war.
Tom also says, "France entered the war because it had a treaty alliance with Russia." Actually, the Germans were invading France using a modified Schlieffen plan developed in 1904. The plan called for a "wheeling" attact through Belgium with a goal of taking Paris so quickly that the French wouldn't know what hit them. Germany had a pledge to protect the neutrality of Belgium, as did Britain. It's not a matter of Belgium being a British ally as Tom remembers it.
If alliance were the issue, then Belgium was also an ally to Germany. But, Belgium doesn't enter the war on Germany's side.
Tom says German "hyperinflation ruined bank savings and forced almost a quarter of the German workers to become unemployed." Was the 50% shrinkage in GDP the cause of unemployment in Austria aka Germany or was it hyperinflation? Maybe it was from losing the war?
I'd vote that winning the war would have been very good for "Germany's" economy. Losing the war destroyed the economy, Tom. You might have mentioned a little flu epidemic called the Spanish Flu that killed at least 50 million around the world. It started in Europe in the last few months of the "Great War."
Pretty much Tom, if you want to compare Obama to Hilter or the current world economic crisis to hyperinflation post WWI, you're not much more than a mustached corporal yourself.