ABSTRACT
During the World War, the American public in large numbers learned, entirely by accident, how to invest. With the passage of the War and the rapid absorption of the Victory loans, the investment-thirsty American public began to hammer at the doors of the investment bankers. Rogers classifies the various items which comprise the United States' balance sheet of international payments under the following headings: net short-term credits, tourist expenditures, immigrant remittances, charities, net export of long-term capital, commodity trade balance, return on war debts, net return on foreign credits, cinema royalties, and gold. "As a natural consequence, three-quarters of the world's stock of gold has piled up in France and America, and the use of gold as the basis of world currency has become, for the time being, impracticable. Gold in international trade is like oil in an engine; it works only if it is well distributed and moves about; if it all sticks in one place, the machinery jams".
