“To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter VIII, The Great Compromise, p. 90
Context: In numerous years following the war the Federal government ran a heavy surplus. It could not pay off it's debt, retire its securities, because to do so meant there would be no bonds to back the national bank notes. To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply.

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John Kenneth Galbraith207

American economist and diplomat 1908–2006

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