WW-1 (1914-1919)

When it began, the London was till the center of finance. At the end of WW-I, the U.S. was dominant.

The U.S. did not fight WW-1 until the very last year. For the first few years, it supplied Europe with goods. In part, the Europeans paid with real value: they paid in gold and in their holdings of U.S. securities. However, the U.S. government also financed Europe to the tune of $ ???? This money was never really repaid, as Euopre did not recover fully, and later drfited into the depression and then into WW-2.

To out the $ ??? in context, the U.S. GDP at the time (current dolalrs) was about $ ???

After the first year of the war, commodity prices went up. Then, about two years into it, wages in the U.S. followed. In 1917 , the U.S. entered WW. Production stopped growing, construction dropped steeply, but wages and commodity prices continued to grow.

The U.S. government borrowed money to finance the war (Liberty bonds...), and banks made it easier by lending people money to buy liberty bonds, at rates that were equivalent to that received on the bond! Neverthless, Anderson claims that they also kept such borrowing in check, and financed much of the war from current production.