Two types of robber baron
From Mr Claus von Billow Sir: Your leading article on 4 September, Russian roulette', expresses the hope that Russian robber barons will one day give way 'as happened in the history of Western capitalism to a new generation of entrepreneurs'. The term 'robber barons' was, of course, a term invented by journal- ists to describe a particular group of Ameri- can entrepreneurs in the second half of the last century. It may be of interest that a Harvard economic study has concluded that the purchase (and subsequent loss through fraud) of American securities by gullible European rentiers during those years constituted such a vital infusion of capital into the USA as to exceed substan- tially the total value of all Marshall aid after the second world war. The American robber barons, while often defrauding their investors, kept the lubricating funds within the American economy, while Russian and Third World robbers siphon such funds into secret offshore bank accounts.
Claus von Billow 109 Onslow Square, London SW7
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