More on Nick Cohen's 2002 suggestion that it was because we owed the US money we fought the Iraq war
Thinking some more about this idea of his, it just doesn't seem plausible for another reason. Presumably the British government can borrow at dollars at LIBOR, or perhaps better. The rate in 2002 when Nick Cohen advanced this interesting and novel suggestion was just over 3%, so the government could have simply borrowed the money, paying an interest burden of around £14m a year - and repaid the US. Sure there would be a small loss due to the US loan being on better terms, but a tiny price in order not to have fought what Nick then called a 'needless' war?Of course in fact we didn't need to borrow the money at all. Our dollar reserves were much larger than the remaining loan.
Labels: economics, Nick Cohen
posted by Matthew @ 7/31/2007 01:07:00 PM
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