What’s good anti-inflation policy in Washington may Walter be disastrous in Ankara or Brasilia or many other cor- Wriston, ners of the world. Where does all this leave the big meet international banks? In trouble. lesser customers lay dead on the bank and deeply involved in what Lorenzo battlefields. The Medici bank never goes on beyond its nation’s borders fully recovered from its losses. -- which essentially changes all the de’ Medici When bankers tell you not to worry, rules. U.S. banks are taking 90- that sovereign countries “can’t” day deposits from OPEC sources By Norman Gall default on their loans, remind them and lending them to less-developed of the Medicis, remind them of nations for terms as long as ten IN THE 14TH CENTURY a poor, London’s famous Baring Brothers years. Half of Bank of America’s less-developed country began destroyed by Argentinian defaults, deposits are for-eign today, up to make its influence felt in the remind them of Russia’s defaults from 31% in 1971; Citicorp’s are international economy as a major on czarist bonds and of all the 75%, up from 44%. By the end exporter of a basic raw material. U.S. jurisdictions that defaulted on of 1978 U.S. commercial bank The country was England. The loans from Europeans in the 19th loans to Brazil and Mexico alone product was wool. Sophisticated century. Remind them that Spain equaled the combined capital of Italian bankers, sensing opportunity -- though it was the OPEC of the the 12 largest U.S. banks. And in England’s exportable surplus 16th century by dint of its control not just the American banks. and the rest of Europe’s need for of the New World’s gold and silver Among the Japanese banks, wool, moved in. The bankers were -- defaulted at least eight times three-quarters of their overseas shocked by what they saw. Here on debt owed to foreign bankers. loans are to developing countries. was a brawling, backward country Almost every major bank in the All this overseas activity adds to whose rulers were always fight-ing world is today an international the upward pressure caused by civil wars. So primitive domestic inflation on the was the economy that demand for loans. Put money was very scarce, simply, bank lending and the monarchs were has far outstripped the chronically short of growth of bank capital. the wherewithal to pay As recently as the mid- their proops. To get an 1960s the prevailing rule assured supply of wool, of thumb for prudent the Italian bankers made banking was to limit English loans. But the outstanding loans to English turned out to be about 15 times capital in deadbeats, and England’s order to maintain enough creditors had to do what reserves to absorb the English themselves potential loan losses. did centuries later: take During the international control of customs to lending boom of the collect what was due them. 1970s, this multiplier rose Even then the bankers steadily until it reached didn’t always get out an average of almost 30- with a whole skin. The to-1 for the eight largest famous Medici bank of U.S. money center Florence staked Ed-ward banks. Among U.S. IV in the savage Wars, banks, Chase Manhat- of the Roses. Edward tan’s outstanding won, but his purse was claims are 31 times empty and many of the capital; Chemical’s, Forbes, June 23, 1980 33; Continental Illinois, 26; Wallich was saying: The party in and investing that took place in the Bankers Trust, 37; Irving Trust, nearly over; it has been going on 19th century and the great wave 31. For Japan’s largest bank, too long. Note Wallich’s reference that billowed up after the world Dai-Ichi Kangyo, the multiplier to inflation. These loans to poor was OPEC-ed in 1973. If Victorian is 42, and for Fuji Bank, Japan’s and developing countries are Britain shipped its surplus savings fourth largest interna-tional closely related to the increased rate to Argentina to build railroads, the lender, it is 36. Deeply involved of inflation the entire world has railroads themselves could generate as they all are in international suffered since 1970. Note Wallich’s the income to service the loans. lending, these giant banks could reference to “the financing of Not surprisingly, of the 87 foreign conceivably have their joint total consumption-oriented oil imports.” government loans of £1 million or capital wiped out by a series of To use a helpful analogy with more issued in London from 1860 to defaults on the international scene. private business, it was as if the 1876, nearly half had maturities of Like backward, brawling 14th- banks were lending people money terms from 100 years to perpetuity. century England, the poorer to cover operating losses rather But if an American bank lends Arab countries of the world are now deep than for productive investment. money to an African nation so that in debt to the over-extended bankers To go back to our original example: the African nation can burn oil, of the richer nations and, like many It does make a difference whether there is no productive investment old monarchies, they can service the Italian bankers’ money went to generating cash to pay the interest. their debts only by borrowing finance the wool trade or to finance So much for those who say, “Why more. To say that sovereign states wars. The one is a productive not just roll these loans over and cannot default is to ignore history. investment, the other is not. This over?” People will lend you long- Earlier, this year, in bankers’ is a major difference be-tween the term money to buy a house or build language, Federal Reserve great wave of international lending a factory. But who would give you Governor Henry C. a 25-year loan for a Wallich spoke some big party you want unpleasant truths. to throw tomorrow? He told a meeting Granted that many of bankers that of today’s loans commercial bank loans are hardly self- to the poorer countries liquidating, most had grown 23% a year people assume on average since 1975, the governments nearly trebling in five would not let their years. “Such a rate banks sink even if of growth,” he said, a number of poorer “exceeds the rate of countries defaulted; overall credit expansion the governments or that can be sustained their central banks by any banking system would take over the not in the grip of bad loans. If so, galloping inflation. they might feed the For the longer run one flames of domestic must ask whether the inflation. There is world’s banking system also no guarantee can meet increased of when, how and demands by less- on what terms the developed countries government would even if these demands intervene. In the reflect genuine 1932 presidential investment financing campaign, Franklin rather than the financing D. Roosevelt of consumption- promised that, if oriented oil imports.” elected, he would Forbes, June 23, 1980 make sure that c o u n t r i e s “it will no longer defaulted on be possible for their debts. i n t e r n a t i o n a l These disasters bankers or others were both to sell foreign cause and securi-ties to the effect of the investing public drying up of of America on international the implied lending after understanding 1928 -- initially that these to divert securities have funds into been passed on or stock market ap-proved by the speculation. State Department MIT economist or any other C h a r l e s agency of the Kindleberger government.” blames the The great surge cutoff in of U.S. foregin international lending in the late 1920s was taken to secure debt repayment credit for triggering and triggered by the 1924 Dawes by defaulting governments. fueling the Great Depression. Plan. An earlier version of today’s But under Roosevelt, the U.S. We’ve learned a lot since then, petrodollar recycling, it provided government did not intervene. yet once again the financial world that a big loan would be floated Many banks failed and many is in the same peculiar situation in several countries as when the vic- to finance the torious allies were continued payment trying to extort of war reparations by war reparations Germany. The U.S. from Germany.It share of the Dawes couldn’t be done loan, managed by except through J.P. Morgan & Co., a peculiar ar- was $110 million. It rangement under was oversubscribed which the winners 11 times. The kept the losers public impression in the game by of broad U.S. bankrolling them. government support That’s what’s for foreign lending happening today. was reinforced by The poor countries the intimate dealings of the world are be-tween the State losing their shirts to Department and OPEC but, through New York banking the foreign banks, houses during OPEC and the the U.S. military industrial nations interventions in are trying to keep Central America and the poor countries the Caribbean before in the game. But 1930, when strong the bankers are measures were beginning to bridle. Forbes, June 23, 1980 “The smaller and medium-size limits of 20% of capital, which stormy, trying times, but in fact European and U.S. regional blocked further loans to such big they witnessed an unprecedented banks now are refusing to go customers as Brazil and Nigeria. expansion of international trade into syndicated loans,” says a Okay, you say.