General Discussion

Private interests vs. the public good. Media are corporations. Private interest. Citizens voting are the public good. By design.

Business vs. America.

Business opposed the United States from the beginning. The US had terrible problems getting loans from European banks from the get go.

https://www.johnadams.us/p/dutch-loan.html

On April 19, 1782, the United Provinces of Holland, by their States-General, acknowledged the independence of the United States. Mr. Adams then negotiated The Dutch-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce at The Hague as plenipotentiary for the United States, which was signed October 8, 1782. Most of the Treaty’s twenty-nine articles concern trade, shipping, merchant ships, and other commercial ventures like the treatment of prize vessels. Adams also made a successful application for a Dutch loan of three million guilders, Dutch currency, with a 5 percent interest rate per year, for the time period of ten years, to be paid off by 50 f coupons, annually. This was direly needed aid for the exhausted treasury of the United States in Congress Assembled that was quite insolvent as it negotiated a Treaty with Great Britain to end the Revolutions.
The Dutch-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce arrived in the United States in December and it was ratified by Congress on January 3rd, 1783. The ratified treaty marked the beginning of the long friendship between the United States and the Netherlands and remains the foundation of all Dutch-American political intercourse since 1782.