Profitless usurer, why dost thou useSo great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?For having traffic with thy self alone,Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
- William Shakespeare, The Sonnets , IV.
THE USURY ERROR
It would have been a major conceptual error to allow usury to be
charged on agricultural loans denominated in metals, especially if the
interest and principal was to be paid in metal. For one thing, metals are
“barren” – they have no powers of generation. Any interest paid in them
must originate from some other source or process, outside of the bor-
rower’s understanding or control. Money and power would concentrate
in the hands of lenders.
This structural flaw was alleviated by the central authority. Although
the Royal household was the largest lender and charger of interest, it
took decisive action to minimize the harmful effects of usury, by peri-
odically declaring agricultural debt forgiveness. It also set official prices
for valuing various farm commodities, in effect monetizing them.
“In the earliest city cultures every form of exchangeable goods could
be used as money,” Heichelheim reports, estimating that 12 to 20 such
commodities were monetized. He thought that price lists such as
Hammurabi’s price tables (and those of Sumer, and of Mesopotamia)
have been misinterpreted as price controls when they are really official
exchange rates of various commodities when used as money. 13
This meant that borrowers, depending on their harvest to repay
loans, wouldn’t be harmed by seasonal market supply and demand
forces, as the increased supply from their harvest tended to push market
prices lower. Thus the effect of monetizing these commodities was to set
minimum floor prices for them, when used to repay loans.
But the usury error struck in Europe, and by the time the practice of
usury reached Greece and Rome, over a millennia later, repayment and
interest of metallic loans for agriculture were being demanded in metal
or coinage. This practice was not sustainable, and as we shall see, it led
to horrendous societal problems wherever it occurred.
https://www.rt.com/shows/renegade-inc/379579-uk-finance-curse-suffer/
The Finance Curse
For many years, we’ve been told that finance is good and more finance is better. But it doesn’t seem everyone in the UK is sharing the benefits. On this program, we ask a very simple question – can a country suffer from a finance curse?
Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by City veteran David Buik and the man who coined the term Quantitative Easing, International Banking and Finance Professor Richard Werner.
THE GODS IN COUNCIL
Zeus. Hermes. Momus
Zeus. Now, gentlemen, enough of that muttering and whispering in corners. You complain that our banquets are thrown open to a number of undesirable persons. Very well: the Assembly has been convened for the purpose of dealing with this very point, and every one is at liberty to declare his sentiments openly, and bring what allegations he will.–Hermes, make formal proclamation to that effect
Her. All duly qualified divinities are hereby invited to address the Assembly on the subject of foreigners and immigrants. Mo. Have I your permission to speak, sir?
2Zeus. It is not needed; you have heard the proclamation.
Mo. I desire, then, to protest against the insufferable vanity of some among us who, not content with their own promotion to godhead, would introduce their dependants and underlings here as our equals. Sir, I shall express myself on this subject with that blunt sincerity which is inseparable from my character. I am known to the world as one whose unfettered tongue cannot refrain from speech in the presence of wrong-doing; as one who probes matters to the bottom, and says what he thinks, without concealment, without fear, and without scruple. My frankness is burdensome to the generality of Gods, who mistake it for censoriousness; I have been termed by such the Accuser General. But I shall none the less avail myself of the 3freedom accorded to me by the proclamation–and by your permission, sir–to speak my mind without reserve.–There are, I repeat it, many persons who, despite their mixed origin, have been admitted to our feasts and councils upon terms of
equality; and who, not satisfied with this, have brought hither their servants and satellites, and enrolled them among the Gods; and these menials now share in our rations and sacrifices without ever so much as paying the customary tax.
Zeus. These are riddles. Say what you mean in so many words, and let us have the names. Generalities of this kind can only give ground for random conjecture; they might apply to any one. You are a friend to sincerity: speak on, then, without hesitation
Mo. This is really most gratifying. Such encouragement is 4precisely what I should have expected of a king of your exalted spirit; I will mention the name. I refer, in fact, to Dionysus. Although the mother of this truly estimable demi-god was not only a mortal, but a barbarian, and his maternal grandfather a tradesman in Phoenicia, one Cadmus, it was thought necessary to confer immortality upon him. With his own conduct since that time, I am not concerned; I shall have nothing to say on the subject of his snood, his inebriety, or his manner of walking. You may all see him for yourselves: an effeminate, half-witted creature, reeking of strong liquor from the early hours of the day. But we are indebted to him for the presence of a whole tribe of his followers, whom he has introduced into our midst under the title of Gods. Such are Pan, Silenus, and the Satyrs; coarse persons, of frisky tendencies and eccentric appearance, drawn chiefly from the goat-herd class. The first-mentioned of these, besides being horned, has the hind-quarters of a goat, and his enormous beard is not unlike that of the same animal. Silenus is an old man with a bald head and a snub nose, who is generally to be seen riding on a donkey; he is of Lydian extraction. The Satyrs are Phrygians; they too are bald, and have pointed ears, and sprouting horns, like those of young kids. When I add that every one of these persons is provided with a tail, you will realize the extent of our obligation
5to Dionysus. And with these theological curiosities before their eyes, we wonder why it is that men think lightly of the Gods! I might have added that Dionysus has also brought us a couple of ladies: Ariadne is one, his mistress, whose crown is now set among the host of stars; the other is farmer Icarius’s daughter. And the cream of the jest is still to come: the dog, Erigone’s dog, must be translated too; the poor child would never be happy in Heaven without the sweet little pet! What can we call this but a drunken freak?
So much for Dionysus. I now proceed–
6Zeus. Now, Momus, I see what you are coming to: but you will kindly leave Asclepius and Heracles alone. Asclepius is a physician, and restores the sick; he is
More worth than many men.
[paragraph continues]And Heracles is my own son, and purchased his immortality with many toils. So not one word against either of them.
Mo. Very well, sir; as you wish, though I had something to say on that subject, too. You will excuse my remarking, at any rate, that they have something of a scorched appearance still. With reference to yourself, sir, a good deal might be said, if I could feel at liberty——
Zeus. Oh, as regards myself, you are,–perfectly at liberty. What, then, I am an interloper too, am I?
Mo. Worse than that, according to what they say in Crete: your tomb is there on view. Not that I believe them, any more than I believe that Aegium story, about your being a 7changeling. But there is one thing that I think ought to be made clear. You yourself, sir, have set us the example in loose conduct of this kind; it is you we have to thank–you and your terrestrial gallantries and your transformations–for the present mixed state of society. We are quite uneasy about it. You will be caught, some day, and sacrificed as a bull; or some goldsmith
will try his hand upon our gold-transmuted sire, and we shall have nothing to show for it but a bracelet, a necklace or a pair of earrings. The long and short of it is, that Heaven is simply swarming with these demi-gods of yours; there is no other word for it. It tickles a man considerably when he suddenly finds Heracles promoted to deity, and Eurystheus, his taskmaster, dead and buried, his tomb within easy distance of his slave’s temple; or again when he observes in Thebes that Dionysus is a God, but that God’s cousins, Pentheus, Actaeon, and Learchus, only mortals, and poor devils at that. You see, sir, ever since you gave the entrée to people of this 8sort, and turned your attention to the daughters of Earth, all the rest have followed suit; and the scandalous part of it is, that the Goddesses are just as bad as the Gods. Of the cases of Anchises, Tithonus, Endymion, Iasion, and others, I need say nothing; they are familiar to every one, and it would be tedious to expatiate further.
Zeus. Now I will have no reflections on Ganymede’s antecedents; I shall be very angry with you, if you hurt the boy’s feelings.
Mo. Ah; and out of consideration for him I suppose I must also abstain from any reference to the eagle, which is now a God like the rest of us, perches upon the royal sceptre, and may be expected at any moment to build his nest upon the head of Majesty?–Well, you must allow me Attis, Corybas, and 9Sabazius: by what contrivance, now, did they get here? and that Mede there, Mithras, with the candys and tiara? why, the fellow cannot speak Greek; if you pledge him, he does not know what you mean. The consequence is, that Scythians and Goths, observing their success, snap their fingers at us, and distribute divinity and immortality right and left; that was how the slave Zamolxis’s name slipped into our register. However, 10let that pass. But I should just like to ask that Egyptian
there–the dog-faced gentleman in the linen suit 1–who he is, and whether he proposes to establish his divinity by barking? And will the piebald bull yonder 2, from Memphis, explain what use he has for a temple, an oracle, or a priest? As for the ibises and monkeys and goats and worse absurdities that are bundled in upon us, goodness knows how, from Egypt, I am ashamed to speak of them; nor do I understand how you, gentlemen, can endure to see such creatures enjoying a prestige equal to or greater than your own.–And you yourself, sir, must surely find ram’s horns a great inconvenience?
11Zeus. Certainly, it is disgraceful the way these Egyptians go on. At the same time, Momus, there is an occult significance in most of these things; and it ill becomes you, who are not of the initiated, to ridicule them.
Mo. Oh, come now: a God is one thing, and a person with a dog’s head is another; I need no initiation to tell me that.
Zeus. Well, that will do for the Egyptians; time must be taken for the consideration of their case. Proceed to others.
12Mo. Trophonius and Amphilochus come next. The thought of the latter, in particular, causes my blood to boil: the father 3 is a matricide and an outcast, and the son, if you please, sets up for a prophet in Cilicia, and retails information–usually incorrect–to a believing public at the rate of twopence an oracle. That is how Apollo here has fallen into disrepute: it needs but a quack (and quacks are plentiful), a sprinkling of oil, and a garland or two, and an oracle may be had in these days wherever there is an altar or a stone pillar. Fever patients may now
be cured either at Olympia by the statue of Polydamas the athlete, or in Thasos by that of Theagenes. Hector receives sacrifice at Troy: Protesilaus just across the water on Chersonese. Ever since the number of Gods has thus multiplied, perjury and temple-robbery have been on the increase. In short, men do not care two straws about us; nor can I blame them.
That is all I have to say on the subject of bastards and new13 importations. But I have also observed with considerable amusement the introduction of various strange names, denoting persons who neither have nor could conceivably have any existence among us. Show me this Virtue of whom we hear so much; show me Nature, and Destiny, and Fortune, if they are anything more than unsubstantial names, the vain imaginings of some philosopher’s empty head. Yet these flimsy personifications have so far gained upon the weak intelligences of mankind, that not a man will now sacrifice to us, knowing that though he should present us with a myriad of hecatombs, Fortune will none the less work out that destiny which has been appointed for each man from the beginning. I should take it kindly of you, sir, if you would tell me whether you have ever seen Virtue or Fortune or Destiny anywhere? I know that you must have heard of them often enough, from the philosophers, unless your ears are deaf enough to be proof against their bawlings.
Much more might be said: but I forbear. I perceive that the public indignation has already risen to hissing point; especially in those quarters in which my plain truths have told home.
In conclusion, sir, I have drawn up a bill dealing with this 14subject; which, with your permission, I shall now read.
Zeus. Very well; some of your points are reasonable enough. We must put a check on these abuses, or they will get worse.
Mo.
On the seventh day of the month in the prytany of Zeus and the presidency of Posidon Apollo in the chair the following Bill introduced by Sleep was read by Momus son of Night before a true and lawful meeting of the Assembly whom Fortune direct.
Whereas numerous persons both Greeks and barbarians being in no way entitled to the franchise have by means unknown procured their names to be enrolled on our register filling the Heavens with false Gods troubling our banquets with a tumultuous rout of miscellaneous polyglot humanity and causing a deficiency in the supplies of ambrosia and nectar whereby the price of the latter commodity owing to increased consumption has risen to four pounds the half-pint:
And whereas the said persons have presumptuously forced themselves into the places of genuine and old-established deities and in contravention of law and custom have further claimed precedence of the same deities upon the Earth:
15It has seemed good to the Senate and People that an Assembly be convened upon Olympus at or about the time of the winter solstice for the purpose of electing a Commission of Inquiry the Commissioners to be duly-qualified Gods seven in number of whom three to be appointed from the most ancient Senate of Cronus and the remaining four from the twelve Gods of whom Zeus to be one and the said Commissioners shall before taking their seats swear by Styx according to the established form and Hermes shall summon by proclamation all such as claim admission to the Assembly to appear and bring with them sworn witnesses together with documentary proofs of their origin and all such persons shall successively appear before the Commissioners and the Commissioners after examination of their claims shall either declare them to be Gods or dismiss them to their own tombs and family vaults and if the Commissioners subsequently discover in Heaven any person so disqualified from entering such person shall be thrown into Tartarus
and further each God shall follow his own profession and no 16other and it shall not be lawful either for Athene to heal the sick or for Asclepius to deliver oracles or for Apollo to practise three professions at once but only one either prophecy or music or medicine according as he shall select and instructions shall be issued to 17philosophers forbidding them either to invent meaningless names or to talk nonsense about matters of which they know nothing and if a temple and sacrificial honours have already been accorded to 18any disqualified person his statue shall be thrown down and that of Zeus or Hera or Athene or other God substituted in its place and his city shall provide him with a tomb and set up a pillar in lieu of his altar and against any person refusing to appear before the Commissioners in accordance with the proclamation judgement shall be given by default.
That, gentlemen, is the Bill.
Zeus. And a very equitable one it is, Momus. All in favour 19of this Bill hold up their hands! Or no: our opponents are sure to be in a majority. You may all go away now, and when Hermes makes the proclamation, every one must come, bringing with him complete particulars and proofs, with his father’s and mother’s names, his tribe and clan, and the reason and circumstances of his deification. And any of you who fail to produce your proofs will find it is no use having great temples on the Earth, or passing there for Gods; that will not help you with the Commissioners.
Momus
Momus is the name men give your face,
The brag of its tone, like a long low steamboat whistle
Finding a way mid mist on a shoreland,
Where gray rocks let the salt water shatter spray Against horizons purple, silent.
Yes, Momus,
Men have flung your face in bronze
To gaze in gargoyle downward on a street-whirl of folk.
They were artists did this, shaped your sad mouth,
Gave you a tall forehead slanted with calm, broad wisdom;
All your lips to the corners and your cheeks to the high bones
Thrown over and through with a smile that forever wishes and wishes, purple, silent, fled from all the iron things of life, evaded like a sought bandit, gone into dreams, by God.
I wonder, Momus,
Whether shadows of the dead sit somewhere and look with deep laughter
On men who play in terrible earnest the old, known, solemn repetitions of history.
A droning monotone soft as sea laughter hovers from your kindliness of bronze,
You give me the human ease of a mountain peak, purple, silent;
Granite shoulders heaving above the earth curves,
Careless eye-witness of the spawning tides of men and women
Swarming always in a drift of millions to the dust of toil, the salt of tears,
And blood drops of undiminishing war.
The Secular Masque
BY JOHN DRYDEN
Enter JANUS
JANUS
Chronos, Chronos, mend thy pace,
An hundred times the rolling sun
Around the radiant belt has run
In his revolving race.
Behold, behold, the goal in sight,
Spread thy fans, and wing thy flight.
Enter CHRONOS, with a scythe in his hand, and a great globe on his back, which he sets down at his entrance
CHRONOS
Weary, weary of my weight,
Let me, let me drop my freight,
And leave the world behind.
I could not bear
Another year
The load of human-kind.
Enter MOMUS Laughing
MOMUS
Ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha! well hast thou done,
To lay down thy pack,
And lighten thy back.
The world was a fool, e’er since it begun,
And since neither Janus, nor Chronos, nor I,
Can hinder the crimes,
Or mend the bad times,
‘Tis better to laugh than to cry.
CHORUS OF ALL THREE
‘Tis better to laugh than to cry
JANUS
Since Momus comes to laugh below,
Old Time begin the show,
That he may see, in every scene,
What changes in this age have been,
CHRONOS
Then Goddess of the silver bow begin.
Horns, or hunting-music within
DIANA
With horns and with hounds I waken the day,
And hie to my woodland walks away;
I tuck up my robe, and am buskin’d soon,
And tie to my forehead a waxing moon.
I course the fleet stag, unkennel the fox,
And chase the wild goats o’er summits of rocks,
With shouting and hooting we pierce thro’ the sky;
And Echo turns hunter, and doubles the cry.
CHORUS OF ALL
With shouting and hooting, we pierce through the sky,
And Echo turns hunter, and doubles the cry.
JANUS
Then our age was in its prime,
CHRONOS
Free from rage,
DIANA
—And free from crime.
MOMUS
A very merry, dancing, drinking,
Laughing, quaffing, and unthinking time.
CHORUS OF ALL
Then our age was in its prime,
Free from rage, and free from crime,
A very merry, dancing, drinking,
Laughing, quaffing, and unthinking time.
Dance of Diana’s attendants
MARS
Inspire the vocal brass, inspire;
The world is past its infant age:
Arms and honour,
Arms and honour,
Set the martial mind on fire,
And kindle manly rage.
Mars has look’d the sky to red;
And peace, the lazy good, is fled.
Plenty, peace, and pleasure fly;
The sprightly green
In woodland-walks, no more is seen;
The sprightly green, has drunk the Tyrian dye.
CHORUS OF ALL
Plenty, peace, |&|c.
MARS
Sound the trumpet, beat the drum,
Through all the world around;
Sound a reveille, sound, sound,
The warrior god is come.
CHORUS OF ALL
Sound the trumpet, |&|c.
MOMUS
Thy sword within the scabbard keep,
And let mankind agree;
Better the world were fast asleep,
Than kept awake by thee.
The fools are only thinner,
With all our cost and care;
But neither side a winner,
For things are as they were.
CHORUS OF ALL
The fools are only, |&|c.
Enter VENUS
VENUS
Calms appear, when storms are past;
Love will have his hour at last:
Nature is my kindly care;
Mars destroys, and I repair;
Take me, take me, while you may,
Venus comes not ev’ry day.
CHORUS OF ALL
Take her, take her, |&|c.
CHRONOS
The world was then so light,
I scarcely felt the weight;
Joy rul’d the day, and love the night.
But since the Queen of Pleasure left the ground,
I faint, I lag,
And feebly drag
The pond’rous Orb around.
All, all of a piece throughout;
pointing {}} to Diana {}}
MOMUS,
Thy chase had a beast in view;
to Mars
Thy wars brought nothing about;
to Venus
Thy lovers were all untrue.
JANUS
‘Tis well an old age is out,
And time to begin a new.
CHORUS OF ALL
All, all of a piece throughout;
Thy chase had a beast in view;
Thy wars brought nothing about;
Thy lovers were all untrue.
‘Tis well an old age is out,
And time to begin a new.
Emmanuel Macron Is Not Your Friend
Emmanuel Macron is a Silicon Valley-loving, union-hating, Third Way centrist. He’s no bulwark against the far right.
If you live in a certain section of reality, the world right now is witnessing a resurgence of liberalism and tolerance thanks to a select troupe of American and European leaders.
Hillary Clinton is leading “the resistance,” while Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and German chancellor Angela Merkel are on the front line fighting against encroaching right-wing barbarism. (Never mind, of course, that Merkel is a conservative who opposes gay marriage and has spent years bludgeoning Greece into poverty, and that Trudeau combines the energy policyof Donald Trump with the arms sale policy of Donald Trump.)
The latest recruit to this line-up of supposedly woke real-world Superfriends is French leader Emmanuel Macron, who in May beat Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right (though, she will insist, no longer antisemitic) National Front, in the presidential election. Since then, Macron has been the object of liberal admiration the world over, with pundits and observers swooning at his courage for standing up to Trump and Vladimir Putin, as well rejecting Le Pen–style xenophobia.
Like Trudeau and Obama, Macron is young, handsome, and charismatic. And, as with Clinton (and particularly Trudeau), he has embraced symbolic shows of social liberalism while explicitly positioning himself as a roadblock against the far right. All of this has helped obscure the more disconcerting elements of his beliefs, particularly his staunch support for economic reforms that would shift France toward a more free-market model.
In this sense, we can think of Macron as an updated, French version of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, with a dollop of the newer generation of triangulators. He’s consciously cast himself as the outsider who will break from politics as usual in defense of decency and democracy — and he’s done it all in the service of implementing a right-wing economic agenda.
123
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bagot_Glubb
Another remarkable and unexpected
symptom of national decline is the intensi-
fication of internal political hatreds. One
would have expected that, when the survival
of the nation became precarious, political
factions would drop their rivalry and stand
shoulder-to-shoulder to save their country.
In the fourteenth century, the weakening
empire of Byzantium was threatened, and
indeed dominated, by the Ottoman Turks.
The situation was so serious that one would
have expected every subject of Byzantium to
abandon his personal interests and to stand
with his compatriots in a last desperate
attempt to save the country. The reverse
occurred. The Byzantines spent the last fifty
years of their history in fighting one another
in repeated civil wars, until the Ottomans
The Fate of Empires 13
moved in and administered the coup de
grâce.
Britain has been governed by an elected
parliament for many centuries. In former
years, however, the rival parties observed
many unwritten laws. Neither party wished
to eliminate the other. All the members
referred to one another as honourable
gentlemen. But such courtesies have now
lapsed. Booing, shouting and loud noises
have undermined the dignity of the House,
and angry exchanges are more frequent. We
are fortunate if these rivalries are fought out
in Parliament, but sometimes such hatreds
are carried into the streets, or into industry
in the form of strikes, demonstrations,
boycotts and similar activities. True to the
normal course followed by nations in
decline, internal differences are not
reconciled in an attempt to save the nation.
On the contrary, internal rivalries become
more acute, as the nation becomes weaker. ”
Contrast With.,
In the 14th century, a Muslim historian named Ibn Khaldun wrote about the pattern of history. Farmers would build irrigation systems supporting villages and towns. Later some warrior would bring these towns under his rule and form a united political entity, like a kingdom or an empire. Then a tribe of nomads would come along and conquer the kingdom, seize all the holdings and settle in their place and further expand the new empire. As time went by the nomads would assimilate and become soft city dwellers. Exactly the kind of people they had conquered and at this point, another tribe of nomads would come along and conquer them and take their empire. Conquest, consolidation, expansion, degeneration and conquest, this was the pattern of history.
Glub is good on these questions. Social conservatism is not I think a Left Right thing, Political Correctness is a thing of the American Left, although the notions of Left and Right in the USA are quite alien to how we see them here in Europe.
A good read of Edmund Burkes Present discontents speech to parliament also addresses the point that without a rudder the quality of Captain is irrelevant.I suspect that the ECB, the Euro and Pecking orders beneath Petro Dollar Hegemony are key aspects of the factionalism between the politicians across all divides in the House of Commons, these are not Party Political but Ideological and around certain Friedmanite economic shibboleths.
Keep calling em as you see em, I for one think a Grand Coalition is a splendid idea. ( Would the grownups in Westminster please assert some authority! ( are there any?)
Sorry for the long Comment but I think Glubb is worth paying some attention to although I suspect he and I would disagree on the more abstract notions of human nature his notions of Public Service are I think sorely missed these days.
Narcissism of small differences
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