By Eric Touissant, includes "... In the 1830s, four of the United States repudiated their debts - Mississippi, Arkansas, Florida and Michigan. The creditors were mainly British. Alexander Nahum Sack writes in this regard: "One of the main reasons justifying these repudiations was the squandering of the sums borrowed: they were usually borrowed to establish banks or build railways; but the banks failed and the railway lines were never built. These questionable operations were often the result of agreements between crooked members of the government and dishonest creditors." ..."