From the world’s first-ever bailout by the Romans to 33% interest loans 5,000 years ago, humans have pretty much always been in financial crisis

“The empire of credit was in the middle of a property boom, the treasury was full, and low interest rates had pushed up land prices,” writes McWilliams. “The simplest way to exterminate the very spirit of capitalism is to flood the country with notes of a high face-value without financial guarantees of any sort.” Lenin activated Russia’s official mint to print worthless paper, calculating that once even the simplest peasant realized a thousand-rouble note was just a scrap of paper, “the great illusion of the value and power of money, on which the capitalist state is based, will have been destroyed.”

Author: Eric Spitznagel

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