He told the United States ambassador, Henry Morgenthau, Sr.: On 2 August 1915, he told Morgenthau "that our Armenian policy is absolutely fixed and that nothing can change it. We will not have the Armenians anywhere in Anatolia. They can live in the desert but nowhere else." In another exchange, Talaat demanded from Morgenthau the list of the holders of American insurance policies belonging to Armenians—"they are practically all dead now"—in an effort to appropriate the funds to the state. Morgenthau refused. To Ernst Ludwig he mentioned that the loss of the Armenian workforce would damage the economy for a short while, but that Turks would step in their positions and replace the Armenians soon.