I’m OK. How are you doing?
The deluge finaly ended, starting to dry up now.
I’ll be in and out as I’m making the meatballs right now.
Checking In! It wasn’t me! Yet!
Research on nations and their indebtedness:
Ottomans (research these terms: capitulations and/or concessions. Example: Royal Dutch Shell)
When the Capitulations were first established it was supposed that foreign assistance could benefit the Empire. Capitulations stipulated that the privileges was based on religion. The intercourse of the Christian world with the Mohammedan world was founded upon different principles. Foreigners had secured many privileges or “capitulations” that they could not be brought under local jurisdiction, but were subject only to the codes of justice of their own countries, administered through their own consular courts. As a result, almost all the business of the country was in the hands of non-Muslim people Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Italians, French, Germans, and English, which were under non-ottoman (local) jurisdiction. Wherever mines have been developed, railroads or irrigation works constructed, foreign capital and foreign brains have been chiefly responsible. This system produced and environment which he Muslim’s of the Empire stayed poor, and the standard of education for this group never increased. And so it would, if it were not that foreigners occupy a privileged position in the country. In fact, citizens of Great Britain, Italy, France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary were in many respects in a separate class from Muslim citizens, whether Turks, Greeks, Armenians, or Jews. The Empire also perceived the capitulations as a reason for corruption. Officials, representing different jurisdictions, sought bribes at every opportunity, withheld the proceeds of a vicious and discriminatory tax system, ruined every struggling industry by graft, and fought against every show of independence on the part of Empire’s many subject peoples. A citizen of any of the great powers was practically exempt from the payment of income taxes and several other kinds of taxes to which the Turk was subject. He was immune from search, could secure passports from his own consul, and could be tried in courts of his own nationality. All these special privileges together constituted a body of privileges known as “Capitulations.” On September 10, 1915, Talat Pasha abolished the “Capitulations”, which the capitulation holders refused to recognize her action.
Ottoman public debt was part of a larger schemes of political control, through which the commercial interests of the world had seek to gain advantages that may not be to Empire’s interest. The total pre-war debt of Empire was $716,000,000. France had 60 percent of the total, Germany was 20 percent, and Great Britain was 15 percent. The debt was administered by a Ottoman Public Debt Administration and its power was extended to the Imperial Ottoman Bank (Central bank). Debt Administration controlled many of the important revenues of the empire. The Council had power every financial affairs. Its control even extended to determine the tax on live stock in districts. Siding with Germany, with the minimum dept holder put the Empire in the position to pay its dept or even pay a war indemnity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Ottoman_Empire
Also see: Ottoman Public Debt
http://www.turkeyswar.com/economy/publicdebts.htm
And here it is: Gibbon
“The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire,” by Edward Gibbon In The East
http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume2/chap39.htm
“Circassians approaching from the Georgian (country of) flank”
2010-03-23 20:59
http://www.georgiatimes.info/en/articles/32645.html
Economy of Brazil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Brazil