Tea at Trianon: A History of Money and Debt

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, September 25, 2021

A History of Money and Debt

From Newsmax:

Money creation and distribution is and will always be the exclusive privilege of the state, for no other reason than to manipulate its value for international commerce needs. The tempting ability of the state to create too much credit is widely practiced, except too much credit debases the value of paper money as one finds out when going to the grocery store.

The intrinsic value of currency in the Middle Ages held up quite well since it was based on gold or silver coins whose supply was controlled by private bankers such as the Medicis in Italy and the Fuggers in Germany. During this period, there were only two major periods of inflation.

One, after the Black Death created severe labor shortages and, secondly when Emperor Charles V flooded the country with silver coins from a newly discovered silver mine in Bohemia.

This system finally collapsed once the state invented paper money and then printed and distributed it starting in the 17^th century.

You might think that paper money was invented in Europe; not true, it was in invented in China during the Tang Dynasty (618-927) AD.

The temptation to create too much paper money led to the fall of Louis XVI in France.

The British in the early 19th century invented bonds to finance their overseas expansions. They issued bonds (called Gilders because they were backed by gold) and were sold to investors due to the promise of interest. (Read more.)

More HERE.