heads are not the issue
The history of why the currency failed is very much the issue. It ain't what you know that gets you, it's what you know that ain't so.
The Massachusetts colony issued "Bills of Credit" in 1690, Pennsylvania something similar in 1723 (loaned at interest), the United States issued "Greenbacks" in the era of the Civil War, and the German government under Hitler created its own quasi-currency (also loaned at interest) from 1934-1938. Some of these were successful in that they created infrastructure that improved commerce, even where the currency declined in value. Others were extremely successful and subsequently came under attack by the private banksters who would and did do everything and anything to protect their "franchise." The German experience following WWI is extremely interesting and is being seriously misrepresented: it was apparently the German abandonment of English economic theory that led to the resurrection of its economy, to the disgust of the banksters everywhere. (Someone is going to attack me for "defending" Hitler, just watch). The details of the German monetary adventure are too complex to deal with here.
Benjamin Franklin defended the Pennsylvania experience:
"there was a cry among the people for more paper money . . . I was on the side of an addition, being persuaded that the first small sum, struck in 1723, had done much good by increasing the trade, employment and the number of inhabitants in the province, since I now saw all the old houses inhabited and many new ones building; whereas I remembered well when I first walked about the streets of Philadelphia . . many of the houses in Walnut Street . . . with bills on their doors, 'to be let,' and many likewise in Chestnut Street . . which made me think the inhabitants of the city ... were deserting it. . . . The utility of this currency became by time and experience so evident that the principles on which it was founded were never afterward much disputed, so that it grew soon to £55,000, and in 1739 to £80,000; trade, building, and inhabitants all the while increasing. Though I now think there are limits beyond which the quantity may be hurtful." (from his Autobiography).
I understand that Ludwig Von Mises has charged that Franklin's motive was to profit from printing the money (he was a printer). Quelle canard!!
There is reason to believe that the American Revolution was caused by the British monetary acts of 1751 and 1764, which suppressed colonial issues of bills of credit and paper money and therefore stifled trade in favor of British merchants and the (then) privately owned and operated Bank of England. Franklin lobbied unsuccessfully in London in 1766 for the repeal of these laws.
The history of money is fascinating, but has largely been written and heavily influenced by those who would hold the franchise privately and destroy efforts by legitimate, republican governments to operate it in the interests of their citizens. The English attacked both the US Continental and the French Assignat by counterfeiting both. That is a matter of record.
The issue of what is money will now, once again become a pressing public matter as, again, the private banksters destroy both more currencies and liberty. It is quite conceivable that gold and silver will be treated as currencies again, probably only for a season--as history shows--and it would be wise to study that history with discrimination and a willingness to consider how these affairs have played out in the past and why. |
