If you think that block chain is a new accounting system idea, then you're around 600 years wrong in your calculations!
If you think fractional reserve banking started with the Rothschilds in Germany, then you're also few centuries off..
The parallels from hundreds of years ago - of debt based money systems, the negative results of high taxation and interest rates, and the politically motivated migrations of peoples across borders, are stark.
The affluence of societies that are not encumbered by state bureaucracies, taxation, and debt based banking, are also very stark.
This is not about Jewish immigration. Or Jewish peoples.
Nor is it about the entrepreneurial spirit of Jews of the time.
Personally, I think that the Jewish peoples were comprised of small insular communities - with a high intelligence - who were not culturally assimilated into their environments, and thus creating a conflicting moral and ethical value system within those environments .
The clash of cultures is nothing new.
Learn from our history....
Avoid repeating the same mistakes.
Blockchain may well be the answer - but not to a new system - but by reverting to a much older one..
Or it might be the nail in the coffin.
Understanding history might well be the difference as to which outcome it might be...
Part 5....
With the banishment of the moneylenders from England, and the abolition of usury, taxes were much less severe - and there was no longer state debt. (see my previous post about usery).
The first block chain...
The tally stick.
(derived from the Latin word tallia - meaning a stick).
This instrument of finance was known to the Chinese, and used in some middle eastern cultures also.
A tally stick was made out of hazel, willow or boxwood. (because these woods split easily).
They were usually eight inches in length (from forefinger to
thumb) and half an inch wide - although they could be up to eight feet long.
Denominations were indicated by different sized cuts into the wood.
£1,000 were marked by cutting out the thickness of the
palm of a hand, £100 by the breadth of the little finger, £1 that of a barley corn.(Shillings and pence were marked by incisions).
When the details had been recorded on 'the tally' it was split nearly to the bottom, so that one part retained a stump or handle on which a hole would be bored.
This was known as the counter tally or counterfoil and was held on a rod at the Exchequer.
As no two pieces of wood are identical, it was impossible to forge a tally stick.
Tally sticks were first introduced during the reign of King Henry II - and would remain in circulation as a system of accounting until 1783.
During the period 1290-1485, tallies would constitute the means of conducting state finance.
Tallies were used not only to pay state salaries, but to finance major items of infrastructure (the construction of the wall of the city of London, for example - or public buildings and trading ports).
The exact amount of tallies in circulation is not known, but as late as 1694 £17 million worth were still in existence.
With reduced taxes, no state debt and no interest to pay, England enjoyed a period of unparalleled growth and prosperity.
Without interest payments on debt, and with much lower taxes, a laborer could provide for all the necessities his family required, and the purchasing power of their wages and their standard of living would only be exceeded in the late 19th century!
And only working for approximately 14 weeks a year!
King Henry VIII relaxed the laws regarding usury , but they were repealed by his son, King Edward VI (1547-53), by an Act of 1552 , stating that:
“usury is by word of God, utterly prohibited, as a vice most odious and detestable...”
The end of the Golden Era....
During the 17th century this golden era (of virtually no taxation and no interest on debt), came to an end due to migrations.
Jewish peoples of Spain had been expelled from Spain in 1492, by Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon - on account of their persistent involvement in the practice of usury.
They moved out of Spain and settled in Holland.
The usurers based in Amsterdam had their eye on, and a desire to, return to England - so as to be able to expand the operations of their money lending business.
Early Banking practices in England that mirror modern day.
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) very small numbers of exiled Spanish Jews settled in London. Many of them practiced as goldsmiths.
They accepted deposits of gold for safe keeping - and then issuing ten times the amount of gold received as gold receipts.
(modern day fractional reserve banking).
These loans came with interest....
These receipts were initially lent to the Crown (or Treasury) at 8% per annum. According to Samuel Pepys, the diarist - and Secretary to the Admiralty - the interest rate increased to as high as
20% and even 30 % per annum.
The rates of interest merchants paid often exceeded 33% per annum. (the legal rate was 6%).
Workmen and the poor bore the brunt of these extortionate rates, by having to pay 60%, 70% or even 80% per annum.
(Credit cards, and pay day loans are the modern day equivalent).
Cromwell and the English Civil War.
This is another fascinating piece of history, which I'll only touch upon (in relation the financial history of how we arrived here today).
There was growing religious divisions between the Anglicans and the puritans. (King Charles and Oliver Cromwell).
In 1640 one of the leaders of the Jewish community Fernandez Carvajal, organised an armed militia of about 10,000 operatives.
They were used to intimidate people and sow confusion.
Civil war was soon to follow.
The leader of the Roundheads was Oliver Cromwell - whose
‘New Model Army’ was outfitted and provisioned by the chief
contractor (and professional agitator) , Fernandez Carvajal.
They were financially supported by the moneylenders in Amsterdam.
Manasseh Ben Israel (Amsterdam) sent petitions to Cromwell, asking that the Jews be allowed to emigrate to England , in return for the
financial favors that he'd arranged.
The national treachery to which Cromwell enacted is revealed in
correspondence between himself and the Synagogue of Mulheim,
Germany.
16 June 1647
From O.C. (Oliver Cromwell) to Ebenezer Pratt:
“In return for financial support will advocate admission of Jews to England: This however, is impossible while Charles lives. Charles cannot be executed without trial, adequate grounds for which do not at present exist. Therefore advise that Charles be assassinated, but will have nothing to do with arrangements for procuring an assassin, though willing to help in his escape.”
In reply :
12 July 1647
To O.C. from Ebenezer Pratt
“Will grant financial aid as soon as Charles removed and Jews admitted. Assassination too dangerous. Charles shall be given an opportunity to escape: His recapture will make trial and execution possible. The support will be liberal, but useless to discuss terms until trial commences.”
King Charles was staying as a virtual prisoner in Northamptonshire, and on 4 June 1647, 500 revolutionaries seized the King. He was then allowed to escape to the Isle of Wight, where he was subsequently arrested.
The King participated in a show trial in a High Court of Justice. (two thirds of its members were 'Levellers' from the new model army).
He was found guilty and executed on 30 January 1649.
From 7-18 December 1655 Cromwell, (called 'The Protector') held
a conference in London to obtain approval for the large-scale immigration of Jews.
The overwhelming consensus of the delegates, (mainly priests, lawyers and merchants) , was that the Jews should not be permitted to enter England.
In October 1656 however , the first Jews were surreptitiously allowed to land freely (in spite of strong protests having been lodged by the Council of State, who declared that the immigration 'would be a grave menace to the state and the Christian religion, and that their admission would 'enrich foreigners at the expense of the English').
Interestingly, something very similar is happening now, in the UK, Europe, and in the US...
Cromwell died on 3 September 1658.
He was then succeeded by his son Richard, who ruled for only nine months.
Charles I’s son (Charles II) , then succeeded his executed father.
He would be the last English monarch to issue money (bank notes) in his own right.
On 1 August 1663 he passed the Act for the Encouragement of Trade.
which enabled the “export of all foreign coins or bullion of gold or silver, free of interference, regulation, or duties, of any kind."
At the time, the Earl of Anglesey observed that “It is dangerous to the peace of the kingdom when it shall be in the power of half-a-dozen or half-a-score of rich, discontented, or factious persons to make a bank (an accumulation) of our own coin and bullion beyond the seas and leave us in want of money when it shall not no longer be in the king’s power to prevent it.”
As the saying goes, those that do not learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.
The parallels from hundreds of years ago are stark.
The affluence of societies that are not encumbered by state bureaucracies, taxation, and debt based banking, are also very stark.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
FWIW: in previous blogs of mine I've shown the foundation of Bitcoin (public ledgers and (metal) mining) go right back to the first city-states. David Astle, in his book, The Babylonian Woe makes a good argument that these money masters co-opted the natural religions that existed at the time and turned them into a front (somewhere to hide behind)--something I think is highly plausible.
From what (little) I know, it seems fairly obvious that various deities were usurped/amalgamated , purely for political reasons..
Sure, that's one way to view it, but I think Astle's was suggesting something more...well, conspiratorial:-P
You know about more than just lentils dont you?
I know they taste nicer with salt...
thank you for sharing
And there we were feeling all special that we are the first generations of people to experience this, but we're just history repeaters...
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
....bugger...