Super article, if only our history teachers could have made the study interesting.

You should also consider the opinion of God about charging interest on money as it is expressed in The Bible and The Quran. Interest causes wealth to concentrate as the poor pay interest to the rich. Interest can therefore be seen as a tax on poverty to the benefit of the rich. The following example demonstrates this and also that interest on money is unsustainable and leads to crisis:If someone brought a 1/10 oz gold coin to the bank in the year 1 AD, and the money remained there until the year 2000 AD, collecting a yearly interest of 4%, the amount of gold in the account would have been 3.6 * 10^31 kilogrammes of gold weighing 6,000,000 times the complete mass of the Earth.If interest is charged on a limited scale or over a short timeframe then those problems do not surface. Interest is an insidious process. Over time it is unescapable that it reduces large numbers of people to a state of servitude to the money lenders. This is a long term development that transcends the life span of a human. Interest is the main reason why a number of civilisations have failed and why Western civilisation is about to fail. Therefore all interest is usury and the current financial system is a usury financial system. Interest is also the cause of inflation as more and more money has to be created to keep the economy going.If a few people end up with all the money by usury, there is no money circulating in the economy, and the economy collapses. The government raises taxes but the wealthy do not pay taxes, but they make a profit with more government contracts, and so the middle classed gets screwed. My take on the fall of Rome (as well as the US) is the following:Many historians have investigated the fall of Rome and consequently many theories have been proposed to explain this important historic event. From the Natural Money perspective, economic theories are the most relevant. In the fifth century the Roman historian Vegetius pleaded for a reform of the weakened army. The Roman Empire, and particularly the military, probably declined largely as a result of an influx of Germanic mercenaries into the ranks of the legions. This led not only to a decline in the standard of drill and overall military preparedness within the Empire, but also to a decline of loyalty to the Roman government in favour of loyalty to commanders.There was a decline in agriculture and land was withdrawn from cultivation. The chief cause probably was high taxation on cultivated land. Another factor may be that after the third century the debasement of the currency led to inflation. The debasement of the currency may have been caused by usury, as the usurers may have amassed most of the gold and silver in the Roman Empire. Price control laws then resulted in prices that were significantly below their free-market levels. The artificially low prices led to a scarcity of food. Together with increased taxation and oppressive laws, this led to a decrease in the overall wealth of the Empire. In the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Edward Gibbon wrote:Unable to protect their subjects against the public enemy, unwilling to trust them with arms for their own defence; the intolerable weight of taxes, rendered still more oppressive by the intricate or arbitrary modes of collection; the obscurity of numerous and contradictory laws; the tedious and expensive forms of judicial proceedings; the partial administration of justice; and the universal corruption, which increased the influence of the rich, and aggravated the misfortunes of the poor. A sentiment of patriotic sympathy was at length revived in the breast of the fortunate exile; and he lamented, with a flood of tears, the guilt or weakness of those magistrates who had perverted the wisest and most salutary institutions.Taxation was spurred by the expanding military budget and was therefore indirectly the result of the barbarian invasions and the use of mercenaries. Two centuries later the Eastern Roman Empire managed to survive the invasion of Arabs by introducing local militia that were not paid from the treasury but from local revenues. Over time the ranks of the militia were filled with local people that had an interest in defending their own land. Local militia can reduce military expenses and thus tax levels, while improving military preparedness.

Opperdienaar,I expect the same to work flawlessly this time around too, because common man has nor time or interest to learn the intricate plots of the rulers, any more than the common Roman man did, and so he will not be able to know who is it that is really the robber and the thief.One reading these forums must really ask himself why it was that the Cambodian (for instance) communists were seeking to extinguish all those who were educated. I would say that in my opinion, the stated policies and goals never had anything to do with real ones, and not only in Cambodia. Those directing the events always aim to get rid of the few who may understand the real game being played.Misdirections. And speaking of misdirections, one can judge how deep a hold they took, by simply observing that most believe that, for instance, the FED is a private bank, a corporation, whatever else but always "independent" (and therefore "not directed") of the congress.

Fundamentally there is not a big difference between debasement and printing, isn't there?What is also interesting that as the roman rulers debased money and prices inevitably went up, these rulers blamed greedy business men and instituted price controls:http://orion.it.luc.edu/~jlong1/priceed.htmIn the year 301 with four emperors the edict of Diocletian said:"Greed raves and burns and sets no limit on itself. Without regard for the human race, it rushes to increase and augment itself not by years or months or else days, but almost by hours and very moments. If some thought of restraint were curbing its means - or if our shared fortunes could calmly endure this free rein for going wild (it rips them apart, day after day in the worst way with conditions as they are), perhaps a place for pretending it all away and keeping quiet would still seem to remain, since a shared endurance of our spirits would be moderating the detestable enormity and the pitiable state of affairs."and"Therefore, who would not know that effrontery hijacks the public interest? Whatever way everyone's shared security demands our armies be directed, through villages or towns and on every route, effrontery goes to meet them with a spirit of thievery. It ratchets up the prices of things for sale, not fourfold or eightfold but so much that the human tongue's reckoning cannot untangle what to call the accounting and the deed! In sum, meanwhile, by the purchase of one thing a soldier is deprived of his bonus and his salary: he yields to the detestable profits of robbers all the tax the whole world pays to support the armies. By their own hand our soldiers seem to give up the expectation of their own service and the labors they have completed to those who steal from everyone. In this way, day after day, the plunderers of the state itself carry off so much they don't know they have it!" In the end emperors also came and went faster and faster. I'd expect higher emperor velocity for us as well. Maybe this one can collect taxes, maybe this one, let's try this one.The same Diocletian that was center stage in the Ron Paul-Krugman debate.