The fact that we have no adequate knowledge of Germany's capacity to pay over a long period of years is no justification (as I have heard some people claim that, it is) for the statement that she can pay $50,000,000,000.
Why has the world been so credulous of the unveracities of politicians?
If an explanation is needed, I attribute this particular credulity to the following influences in part.
In the first place, the vast expenditures of the war, the inflation of prices, and the depreciation of currency, leading up to a complete instability of the unit of value, have made us lose all sense of number and magnitude in matters of finance.

What we believed to be the limits of possibility have been so enormously exceeded, and those who founded their expectations on the past have been so often wrong, that the man in the street is now prepared to believe anything which is told him with some show of authority, and the larger the figure the more readily he swallows it.
But those who look into the matter more deeply are sometimes misled by a fallacy, much more plausible to reasonableness.

Such a one might base his conclusions on Germany's total surplus of annual productivity as distinct from her export surplus.

Helfferich's estimate of Germany's annual increment of wealth in 1913 was $2,000,000,000 to $2,125,000,000 (exclusive of increased money value of existing land and property).
Before the war, Germany spent between $250,000,000 and $500,000,000 on armaments, with which she can now dispense.

Why, therefore, should she not pay over to the Allies an annual sum of $2,500,000,000?
This puts the crude argument in its strongest and most plausible form.
But there are two errors in it.