Money... Ever wonder where it comes from? And where it goes when it suddenly start to disappear?
Why there are wild financial booms - followed by desperate busts?
Are these booms and busts part of the so called "free market" or is there something else at work?
The answers may startle you and when you "get" it, you'll suddenly understand a lot
about why the world is the way it is:
http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=BOpG8&m=1aqu4l6SUnEpNr&b=EctgL6tFsgMTYjxXwkJ97A
Brasscheck
We need to distinguish between "money" versus real wealth. Money, as a medium of exchange, is interdependent with debt. But money and wealth are not identical, and wealth is quite the opposite of debt.
ReplyDeleteFrom your friend the lifelong numismatist, here's a literal "object lesson" in inflation of money, and how corruption of the state - which in turn reflects corruption of the minds of the people - is, as a rule, reflected in the quality of its money. I reiterate (or state it another way), Marx was ass-backwards when he said economics is the substructure of mental/cultural conditions. The opposite is true:
the minds and morals of the people are what determine the quality of their money.
So here are some illustrations:
1. A silver denarius of Augustus Caesar, circa 10 BC. The Roman republic had recently died, and had become a corrupt plutocracy, but Augustus did have some real virtues, and Roman culture and Roman minds remained very strong at that time. The spiritual and mental strength of the Romans of Augustus' time is reflected in the high aesthetic quality of this almost purely silver denarius. (A denarius was around the size of a silver shilling, or silver US quarter, today worth around five dollars at today's silver price):
http://www.romancoins.info/August
usDurmius.jpg
So now let's fast forward to around
215 AD, the reign of Caracalla. That was around one generation after Rome's last truly great emperor, Marcus Aurelius, died, and Rome's decline and fall began around that time. I suggest that it's equivalent to America's present phase, one or two generations after the height of American Empire (which was not in 1989, but in 1945). By Caracalla's time, there was almost no silver left in the denarius. Here is what a denarius looked like in 215 AD, when Rome's decline had seriously begun:
http://home.golden.net/~el
oker/pics/dom-o.jpg
Also, note the solar diadem on the emperor's head, implying that he is a god on earth. Augustus at least had the dignity to refrain from accepting deification until AFTER he was dead! But 200 years later, such distinctions were forgotten, and the Roman Emperors were regarded as gods ON earth - cf, GW Bush and his anti-christlike way of pretending to represent God's will on earth - a descent into barbarianism.
(Sidenote: The Latin term "Imperator", ie, "Emperor", meant "Commander-in-Chief", a term which American Presidents began to emphasise only since Reagan's time.
Before Reagan, the role of "Commander in Chief" was hardly spoken of at all, because the early American republic wanted to dissociate civilian government from military power, just like the Roman republic did. The parallels are alarmingly vivid.)
So now let's look at American coins of when America was a real republic. Until 1909, NO American coins portrayed any historical person, living or dead. They ALL portrayed the Goddess of Liberty, until 1909 when the Lincoln penny was issued. (It was issued over many objections against virtually "deifying" any political leader.)
Then gradually after 1909, the Goddess of Liberty gradually disappeared from ALL American coins! (Gloss, sometimes an anonymous "American Indian" head would appear on coins, but it was meant to represent "Liberty").
In 1932, a beautiful picture of "Liberty" on the 25 cent piece was replaced by George Washington - a good choice of person, but a bad idea to deify a mortal man in place of "Liberty".
In 1938, the Indian head on the 5 cent piece was replaced by Thomas Jefferson - a less honourable man than Washington.
In 1946, a VERY beautiful head of Liberty on the 10 cent piece was replaced by FDR - a man with some virtues, but less honourable than Washington or Jefferson.
In 1948, another VERY beautiful picture of Liberty on the 50 cent coin was replaced by Ben Franklin, an opportunistic self-promoter who died of syphilis.
There were no silver dollars made between 1933 and 1971. But then in 1971, a dollar coin was made - with NO SILVER! - featuring the bolt-headed political opportunist Eisenhower - a good General but a dishonest hack politician - one of America's first de facto "Imperators".
Thus, compare this 90 percent silver dollar - the kind that was minted just before America's overseas empire began (in the Philippines in 1898):
http://www.thesilvercurrenc
yexchange.com/silv
er_dk/1889-morgan-silver
dollar-face-0001.jpg
...compare it to this UGLY US dollar of 1971, with no silver at all, minted during the Viet Nam War, when America's mutation from a republic into an empire was well in progress:
http://www.usmint.go
v/kids/teachers/librar
y/store/images/1971eis
enhower$1_obv.gif
...and then maybe you can see some parallels between Rome and America, and their changes from republic to empire, and how becoming empires destroyed the cultures, and the beauty, and the wealth, of both.