Reddit reviews The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
We found 9 Reddit comments about The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
great stuff here!
I read this book a few months before: The Ascent of Money. Give it a go if you're interested in stuff like the history of stock exchanges, public companies, health insurance, etc.
I think that you can get some fascinating insights from non-fiction some recommendations
You want an "understanding of the long history of finance in the West" then you're better off reading The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World.
Or perhaps even more critically, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly
Why the West Rules - for now is a good overview of history written in an easily accessible way - with history, social sciences and economics thrown in.
For a great easy read on financial history, I recommend Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money, which will teach you a ton - and it includes all of the above (how influential psychology can be is astounding).
Because all good things are three, I'll throw in Against the Gods. A book on the history of risk analysis, you do get a hefty dose of psychology as well as a great understanding of how that all-important field works.
Yeah, what you say about the creation of money is essentially correct afaik. There's a really good explanation by G Edward Griffin in his Creature from Jekyll Island book. He call the money creation process the mandrake mechanism. There's a except of this chapter online somewhere. You'll find it if you google it.
Yes, the ever increasing money supply is a result of interest paid on the Fed loan. The government has to borrow more money to pay off the debt, hence the steady 3% rate of inflation. The following video explains this, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5352106773770802849#
Nial Ferguson's, The Ascent of Money (http://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Money-Financial-History-World/dp/1594201927) is also very informative and interesting. There's PBS miniseries based on the book if you don't have time to read it.
The solution may not be a return to the Gold standard, though people like Ron Paul and Edward G Griffin would beg to differ.
My solution is a bit more broad. It requires a number of social transformations that will happen in stages. Some may overlap or even happen concurrently. Here's a really rough sketch:
Firstly, the central bank must be disbanded an outlawed. The issuance of money would be returned to the federal government. Perhaps banking would become more of a public utility (as michael moore has suggested) rather than a for profit enterprise.
Later on down the line, if feel it's very important for local economies to become more autonomous, i.e. less reliant on large franchises, imports and exports. This will require the decentralization of power generation, banking, agriculture as well as a deurbanization/desuburbanization of our communities. Cities like Los Angeles that depend on person transportation would be phased out in favor of more pedestrian friendly communities. Ideally, residents would be able to walk or ride a bike to and from home, school, work, the market, and main street.
These sort of local communities would be more like small republics, the kind that Thomas Jefferson imagined. Thus, the residents would be more politically empowered than residents of a large metropolitan area like new york. Participation in city councils or town-hall meetings would be much more worthwhile to the residents of these communties. People would be much more aware of their liberties and would rely less on federal government to secure them. The federal government, meanwhile would be stripped of most of its policy making authority. It would exist merely to implement policies decided by the republics, and to facilitate interrepublic interactoins for the sake of logistics.
Of course, this brings me to the currency. It should restricted to as small a region as is practically possible. Local currencies (such as the Ithica Hour) rapidly grow local economies, as people are encouraged to spend it where it's accepted. Local currencies will also insulate communities from systemic/instutional crises that plague our current financial system.
In the final stages of this transformation, these local economies will start to produce an abundance. The processes used to produce everything from power, to basic goods and services would be so efficient and cheap that they would become commodities. The means of living for every man woman and child would be accounted for.
Working for a living will become unnecessary, limited only to custodial work to maintain the machines or processes by which the staple goods and services are produced. Instead, people will be free to explore their own desires or pursue their own occupations or crafts. It will seem necessary to love ones work, not to work to live. People in these communitites would expect life to be necessarily marvelous (as Murray Bookchin has put it.)
Additionally, with this economic abundance, the concept and need of property will begin to disappear. Money wouldn't be as necessary or even as valuable. Things would merely become possessions.
This sort of society would necessarily be highly educated, organized, and technically advanced, populated by free thinking philosophers, artists, scientists, engineers, and craftsmen of infinite variety. They would shun all forms of illegitimate institutional/cultural authority, including government, the corporate form, and organized religion. There simply wouldn't be need for them as the individual would be capable of governing himself and formulating/dispensing his own spirituality.
A sustainable society like the one I've (haphazardly described) would not merely be a future possibility. It's simply what must happen if we are to survive and evolve as a species. Our current capitalist system, though brutish and cruel, has gotten us this far, but it's gone as far as it can. It's logical end, as we are just now beginning to perceive, is political and economic slavery, not to mention the destruction of our natural environment. We must evolve beyond capitalism, money and debt or else we'll wipe ourselves out of the gene pool.
Oh, now I see what you're getting at.
Yes, that is true. In fact, there's a very good series running on Channel 4 in Britain about this called The Ascent of Money. If you're in Ireland or Britain you can watch it on Monday nights or on the web. If you're not, well, Redditors have their ways...
There is also a book version.
In the book/series, Professor Niall Ferguson talks about how the Financiers helped decide the outcome of the American Civil War and how the Rothschilds almost last their collective shirt at the Battle of Waterloo.
He follows the invention of money to the invention of stocks and then bonds and so forth. It's quite good. He recognizes that money is where the power is today, and traces how this happened. Episode 5 of 6 airs tomorrow night.
As you know, Woodrow Wilson's term marked a watershed for the rise of financier power: the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank. They had power then, but not nearly as much as they do today. We can see this as we note that not only have we given them over a trillion dollars, but they refuse any accountability.
In fact, the Bush administration marks the final total takeover of the federal government.
The faction in the Republican party that was calling for war was backed by financiers. Wilson was a peace advocate and held firm until the Zimmerman telegram put him in a position where he felt he had no choice.
"We are citizens of the world. The tragedy of our times is that we don't know this."
>... what the imf did to the third world ...
Develop its industry? Build its infrastructure? Seed its capital markets? Bring its population from malaria-ridden jungles and into cities? Those heartless globalizing bastards!
But seriously though, get educated:
Niall Ferguson:
http://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Money-Financial-History-World/dp/1594201927
Milton Friedman:
http://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Freedom-Anniversary-Milton-Friedman/dp/0226264211
Matt Ridley:
http://www.amazon.com/Rational-Optimist-How-Prosperity-Evolves/dp/006145205X
Hernando De Soto:
http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Triumphs-Everywhere/dp/0465016146
There's a nice book from niall ferguson about money:
http://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Money-Financial-History-World/dp/1594201927
There's also a 5 part tv miniseries based on the book.
Money is just a record of debt, and in fractional banking system the banks make it when they make loans.
This is well worth a watch Reddit. The book is also worth reading too.
http://www.amazon.com/Ascent-Money-Financial-History-World/dp/1594201927