Money

Money is a complex topic.  This story could go SO MANY directions.  I could write about what money means to ME.  My history with money …. How much I’ve had, when and what I did with it.  What it was like to have none.  The banking industry.  My awakening to how money is created.  My comprehension of the U.S. banking system’s history —- economic history literacy.  That would be a good course to develop right now!  If only I could sustain a focus on a single topic for long enough to complete it.

The Netflix series,  the “deMedici’s” , was very interesting; it told about how the Italian diMedici family controlled the European banking system by placing currency exchanges within each country, using the network of the Catholic Church, run by the Pope and his administration at The Vatican.  Mid 1400’s through early 1500’s. Their reign spanned 3 generations. The story also illuminates the relationships between the Italian city/states, the Vatican and France.  Gun powder and cannons were just becoming a thing in the late 1400s.

The book, The Rich Are Different, by Susan Howatch, explained the 1929 Economic Crash and the significance of the federal legislative reforms that followed.  The LONG novel follows the life of a poor boy turned Wall Street Investment banker.  Both his professional deal-making life and his tragic personal life are explored.  The gambling casino nature of the banks’ handling of deposits blew up, and a banking run totally collapsed the banks. There was no FDIC insurance.  The federal government passed a number of new statutes to regulate the industry, including the separation of commercial and investment banking.  Plainly stated, banks could no longer gamble with customer deposits.  (But that law was revoked under the Clinton administration.)  The book has a sequel, which follows the next generation of this wealthy family - it’s called Sins of the Father.  The soap-opera nature of the characters’ development, entwined with a picture of how the financial system worked at that time, holds the attention!  The prose is awesome - I kept a blank bookmarked in the book so I could record new vocabulary words.  It’s a vocabulary expand-or, for sure!

My MBA degree taught me very little about money.  The focus was on calculating industry standard ratios from financial statements to ascertain where to invest, and how to successfully grow a business and maximize profit. Punching the business calculator’s buttons to determine the Future Value of Money and similar statistics that could be incorporated into a report to management. Razzle-Dazzle them with your brilliance because you know which buttons to push.

Part of my BIG awakening, circa 2007ish, came from John Perkins’,  Confessions of An Economic Hitman.  The realizations that sprung from this book came into my bubble at the same time the 911 Lie became obvious.  I also recall watching Natalie Portman in the movie, V for Vendetta.  I  also read Naomi Klein’s, Shock Doctrine to complete the picture behind my formerly closed eyes.  The comprehension of the sinister nature of the U.S. Government became a part of my mindset at this time.

Then came the 2008 financial crash.  With my MBA and my new revelations about money and about our merged corporate/governmental system (some would call it fascism), I did not know how the hell recovery was possible.  I researched the real estate scams, the illegal foreclosures, the recording of title transfers in Excel spreadsheets rather that county courthouses.  It was amusing to try to engage a real estate professional into a conversation about this.  Economic social activism made it possible to make home loans to people who had no ability to pay.  And so the Federal Reserve pumped money into the banks coffers to cover their losses and to allow business to continue forward.  Very few failed.  The infusion of capital from the U.S.Treasury and Federal Reserve was know as “quantitative easing”, an the details of who was given how much remained hidden from the public for years.

Then came the 2023 fiasco, now 6 days in.  Here is the best description of our present conundrum: Mar 14, 2023 Status

And here is the history…. Of our debt based money system, and who sits at the top of the pyramids.  https://stateofthenation.co/?p=160617