Abolishing the Fed & World Bank

Isn\'t it amazing how little our so-called \"education\" system teaches us about the most important things in life?

After we abolish the Fed and the World Bank, perhaps we should abolish formal schooling as well.

Thank God I learned to prevent schooling from interfering with my education.


A BRIEF HISTORY OF INTEREST

http://www.monetary.org/interest.htm

This essay was originally created for the Swiss Money Museum Web site ( http://moneymuseum.org ) in mid 1999. It appears here thanks to the gracious permission of Dr. Jurg Conzett, creator of the Money Museum Web site.

by Stephen Zarlenga
copyright 2000, AMI

1)Early Loans And Interest Were Based On Agricultural Produce
From about 30,000 BC human existence became more refined until social and economic forms of agriculture appeared around 10,000 to 7,500 BC. This took the form of hoe gardening done mainly by women and led to matriarchal based societies.
From around 6,000 BC the horse was tamed and sheep, goats and cattle were domesticated so that by 5,000 there existed a mixed culture based on animal breeding and hoe gardening. The great plough revolution starting about 4,500 was complete by 4,000 BC. enabling the first city civilizations to arise, and the introduction of writing shortly after, led to a developing \"social technology\".
Loans in the pre-urban societies were made in seed grains, animals and tools to farmers. Since one grain of seed could generate a plant with over 100 new grain seeds, after the harvest farmers could easily repay the grain with \"interest\" in grain. (Suggested graphics here showing 1 wheat seed, next to a sheaf of wheat with the large number of new seeds which could be generated by that 1 seed) Also since just so much seed grain could possibly be used, there were natural limits to this lending activity.
When animals were loaned interest was paid by sharing in any new animals born. (graphics - a male and female cow/sheep/goat, and the offspring) The Sumerians used the same word - mas - for both calves and interest. A similar Egyptian word meant to give birth. What was loaned had the power of generation, and interest was a sharing of the result. Interest on tool loans was paid in the produce which the tools had helped to create.

2)The Oriental Usury Error On Lending Metals
The social organization taken by the developing urban communities in Egypt, Assyria, and Sumeria is known as the Ancient Oriental System. It embraced the idea of a living King as the divine representative and savior, able to organize the welfare of mankind through a powerful Royal household exercising centralized control over the economy. Compulsory labor was required for public works and Pharaohs instructed what and how much to plant and how much of the harvest would be stored. Agricultural and metallic commodities (mainly barley and silver) by weight served as the primitive money system in these societies.
The ancient orient made a momentous innovation, allowing usury to be charged on loans of metals, with the interest to be paid in more metal. This was particularly a problem with agricultural, as opposed to loans for commercial or trading purposes. The conceptual error treated inorganic materials as if they were living organisms with the means of reproduction. But metals are \"barren\" - they have no powers of generation and any interest paid in them must originate from some other source or process.
This structural flaw was tempered by central authority. The Royal household, the largest lender and charger of interest, took action to minimize resulting problems by setting official prices for valuing up to 20 commodities, in effect monetizing them. Thus farmers depending on their harvest to repay loans, wouldn