Both Sides of Every War

The oldest banking legend: fund both armies, win either way. Waterloo made it canon.

The documented layer: the Nye Committee (1934-36) investigated munitions-industry war profiteering and helped coin 'merchants of death'; Butler's 'War Is a Racket' itemized WWI margins; modern instances (cost-plus contracting, documented fraud settlements by major contractors) continue the pattern. The 'fund both sides' banking legend leans on the Rothschild-Waterloo canard (fabricated) and real cases of trading-with-enemy enforcement (the 1942 Union Banking seizure involving Prescott Bush's directorship — documented, though its significance is debated). The node separates the confirmed economics from the dynastic myth.