The world seems to have forgotten that, finally, business must be settled almost wholly by barter. Certainly, American bankers, investment bankers and promoters overlooked this basic fact when they joyfully proceeded to lend hundreds of millions and even billions to almost every foreign country on the face of the earth after the World War and before the collapse of our speculative boom. They never stopped to ask how the overseas borrowers could settle the colossal sums advanced to them.... The world had drifted too far away from the A.B.C. truth that trade and commerce must necessarily represent barter. —B. C. Forbes, 1880 - 1954