This is the fourth edition of the Wizards of Money, your money and financial management series… with a twist. My name is Smithy and I’m from the Land of Oz.
Introduction
In this fourth edition of Wizards we are going to take a look at the special relationship between the Wizard profession and the Warlord profession.
We will first talk about this partnership in relation to the horrific and tragic events that took place on September 11, 2001. Then we will travel back just a short time – a hundred years or so – and look at some Wizard/Warlord alliances of special note – especially those that come in the form of brothers.
We will also go back a few thousand years to look at the Wizard/Warlord activities of the Empire that so resembles today’s American Empire that sometimes I even forget which Empire I am in! The decline of many of history’s great empires is associated with failures in the Wizard/Warlord partnership that are common across the wreckages of many civilizations. We will travel back in time to visit the Roman Empire, which bears so many similarities with the following aspects of the American Empire: trade, monetary system, labor relations, military activity, judicial and governmental system, foreign policy, immigration, “globalization”, and the fantasy-world of plenty and constant entertainment for many of those residing at the center of the Empire. The list goes on. Some of these aspects were covered in the July 1997 issue of National Geographic. In Wizards today we will focus only on parallels of the Wizard and Warlord type.
Why, on earth shall we do such a thing, you might ask? I will answer that question with a quote from the Roman Lawyer Cicero, a prominent lawyer in Rome around in the first century BC. Even by that time Rome was a highly litigious society, similar to America today, and lawyers had prominent roles in the governance of society, and in both Wizardry and Warlordism. Cicero stated “Not to know what happened before we were born is to forever remain a child”.
Whoever could have imagined the collapse of Rome, perhaps the most powerful and wealthy ancient empire? It climbed to such great heights that it had so far to fall. It collapsed so spectacularly that “the West” then plunged into a period characterized by strife, lack of cultural development, limited trade and domination by feudal lords – these were the so-called “Dark Ages”. Perhaps America, the most powerful empire of recent times, and whose collapse nobody could imagine, has something to learn from the collapse of its 2000 year old “look-alike” ancestor.
A Tragic Day for the American Empire
Nobody who saw the ABC interview with Howard Lutnick, CEO of the prominent bond trading firm Cantor-Fitzgerald, on Friday, September 14th 2001 could ever forget it. Most who saw it will surely forever be haunted by his statements about having to communicate with 700 families about missing employees, and the images of these families holding up photographs of lost loved-ones.
“The firm of Cantor Fitzgerald was commonly viewed as the core of liquidity for U.S. financial markets”, according to Larry Walker, Managing Director of EDS Financial Industry Group, in a statement on the EDS web site after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the heart of America. He goes on to comment on the implications of September 11 for the world’s monetary system “Cantor Fitzgerald … lost hundreds of traders and other professionals in the disaster. These individuals represented an enormous amount of intellectual capital with respect to issues affecting liquidity. Many believe that such talent cannot be easily replaced and that the United States may soon experience liquidity challenges.” Later on he adds “Whatever happens with U.S. liquidity could have a rippling impact around the world.”
Cantor Fitzergald was reputedly responsible for 70% of the US Bond market, according to the Guardian Observer September 16th edition. It is also a key component of the 25 primary bond dealers who act as counterparties to the Federal Reserve during its Open Market Operations. And it’s one of the three of those 25 who lost many employees during the September 11th attacks. Recall from Wizards, Part 1 that Open Market Operations are what the Federal Reserve does when it creates or extinguishes money by buying or selling government securities or bonds. The counterparties to these transactions thus play a fundamental role in the monetary system. The EDS concerns about liquidity just mentioned refer to the concern about the “flow of money” or the “accessibility of money” to conduct “business as usual” throughout the economy.
Today (late September, 2001) if you visit the web site of this prominent bond-dealer and key component of the monetary system you will see no mention of trade at all. You will instead see a list of hundreds of individual memorial services and information for friends and family of lost and dead employees. Certainly nobody ever imagined this could happen.
The amazing feat of the remaining Cantor-Fitzgerald bond-traders to return to work within days of this tragedy is a tribute to the extraordinary resilience of the American people, and helps one understand the spirit that created such a great empire. But it also may indicate something more sinister at work that also showed itself in the majority of the American public’s response to the tragedy. To return to “business as usual” (both financially and militarily) immediately after an incredible shock may provide a comforting band-aid solution but it may only be a short-term solution. For, what if “business as usual” is part of the problem? Then the underlying causes of the shock have not been removed.
The return to “business as usual” was also marked by the reopening of the various NY based stocked exchanges, accompanied by the customary speculative attacks against all those operations already critically wounded by the attacks. Free markets were back at work for the speculators who seemed to have no moral dilemmas about profiteering from the crisis. Nobody got upset about their lack of patriotism.
But the markets are not really free for, as has been discussed in earlier editions of Wizards, when big players get in trouble the public will bail them out. This will happen with the airlines which is probably acceptable to many people. But what this demonstrates is the overwhelming and disproportionate power of the shareholders, who are able to absolve themselves of the cost of this catastrophe by dropping their shares like hot-potatoes, while the public steps in to pick up the tab. As we say in the finance world, they get mostly upside gain and limited downside risk. And as we saw with creditors and IMF bailouts, in this case it is shareholders who do not bear the responsibility of the risks they assume. With the public always standing by to fund bailouts nobody should pretend that the markets are free and fair.
There is, however, one thing that the public cannot bailout, or otherwise be called upon to take responsibility for. We discussed this in Wizards Part 2 and I am talking about the value of the US Dollar. If market speculators had attacked the US dollar to any great extent, as so many traders have attacked so many other currencies, serious world wide financial economic troubles would have developed immediately. And no taxpayer bailout can fix this. We already saw from the opening of the stock markets that speculators were more than willing to not let human tragedy get in the way of maximizing return on capital. So, if we have a free market for speculators, how come no speculator attack materialized on the US Dollar?
The answer to this could be found hidden away on the second to last page of the Wall Street Journal dated Monday, September 17th. Apparently “a gentlemen’s agreement” had been reached by the world’s major financial Wizards to not attack the currency of the Empire. Actually this was a good thing because it would have added massive instability to an already tense situation. However what we learn from this is a bit frightening – that the control of the lynchpin of the international monetary system is in so few hands that such a “gentlemen’s agreement” can be pulled off with extraordinary success.
September 11 was certainly an attack on the “Wizardry” of America – an attack at the heart of the monetary and financial systems that dominate the modern world. It was an action that, while imaginative, lacked the ingenuity and faith that would be required to seek a peaceful and long-term solution to the worldly problems that this same financial system is complicit in. It was a horrific act of desperation by persons who had given up on peaceful solutions to their problems.
In the last edition of Wizards some excerpts from Reverend King’s Vietnam War speech were played. In that 1967 speech Dr King refers to a quote from John F Kennedy that states that “those that make peaceful resolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable”. The corresponding attack on the Pentagon on September 11 perhaps indicates the status of the attackers’ feelings about possibilities of peaceful resolution to whatever problems they may have had with the American Empire.
The fact that both the financial system (the Wizard world) and the military system (the Warlords) were targeted on September 11th is not without significance. The two are intimately related, and key components of many a successful human empire.
The Role of Wizards and Warlords in Empire-Building
Powerful warlords or a strong military are an obvious necessity for any great empire. First they are needed for self-defense and second they are needed for the job of plundering foreign lands. This is merely to state a fact about empire building – that any empire that accumulates lots of riches does so by using lots of the resources from foreign lands. The foreigners in these lands generally do not wish to donate these things to the empire and therefore military action is often required to complete the acquisition.
However once the empire is established and acknowledged as quite powerful, the empire’s monetary system can take over much of this role of plundering without having to kill as many people or expend as much military energy.
During Roman times, as the Romans conquered foreign lands and brought them into the Empire, they installed puppet rulers or Roman Governors that represented the interests of the rulers of the empire. The conquered foreign lands were known as the provinces of the empire. The Romans would pretty much let the province alone so long as they had a compliant governor in place and as long as they could trade with the foreigners to get all the goodies they desired in exchange for the Roman currency. By issuing their own currency (which was in the form of gold and silver coins) for trade the Romans had a nice solution to the problem of getting access to foreign resources without further straining the military. The military already had lots of work to do in putting down slave rebellions at home, controlling troublesome provinces and conquering new lands not already in the empire.
The people of the conquered lands were generally compliant even though they had to give up their own sovereignty in the process. Trade with others in the Empire and the pursuit of riches and luxuries traded around the empire, as well as the precious Roman currency, kept most of the citizens of provinces pretty happy with this agreement for many years. The Roman currency worked its magic so well that people all over the Empire and outside it were mesmerized by its power, and piles of Roman currency were found as far abroad as China and India many years after the collapse of Rome. Despite the brutality of Rome in conquering new territories and in building an economy based largely on slave labor, people trusted and traded in its currency and people all over the world wanted to be Roman citizens – for it was the very embodiment of success and greatness.
Throughout history many a successful currency has been built upon a strong and brutal military, and an economy based on slave labor. In return for this tremendous favor provided by the Warlords, the Wizards of currency then go about providing many a favor back to the Warlords. For the Warlords would get worn out and wiped out if they had to continue the same level of military activity in already occupied lands. It is much more efficient for the Empire to use some special magic in the form of a mesmerizing currency that can be used throughout the empire for the trade in all goods and services. In that way many will occupy themselves in the pursuit of the medium of exchange. Once a people are mesmerized, this enables the Warlords to focus on new conquests and the putting down of rebellions in the few but inevitable troublesome provinces.
During much of the Roman Empire many provinces were compliant with the Roman ways, and appropriately mesmerized by the Roman currency and the all entertainment provided by the Empire. However there were several provinces on the periphery that gave Rome many a headache over their lost sovereignty. Perhaps the most notable of these was the province of Judea, known today as Israel to some and Palestine to others. Much military energy was expensed on maintaining the compliance of the province of Judea, and Rome was not at all pleased.
Of course this is the place in space and time where the icon of today’s very Roman-like American Empire, a man known as Jesus Christ, lived out his life and was rather opposed to the ways of the Romans. It is very interesting that, unlike most others around him, Jesus appears to have understood that the Roman currency was little more than a tool of Empire.
One of the nicer and brighter Wizards of last century, John Meynard Keynes, once said that he knew only three people in the world in his time that actually understood money. This tends to be the case throughout many empires – that only a handful of people can see through the wizardry of money. Of course this is what makes it so powerful. It is fascinating that Jesus was actually one of the handful of people in Roman times that truly understood the nature of Roman currency. Evidence of this is found in the Bible at Luke 20:25.
The Roman Empire had their own secret agents, perhaps the equivalent of today’s FBI and CIA. Certainly they had much work to do in the troublesome province of Judea. According to Luke 20 various leaders were quite upset that Jesus had driven out merchants and traders from the Temple. Some secret agents were sent in to trick Jesus so that the Roman governor could arrest him. They asked “Is it right to pay taxes to the Roman government or not?”. Jesus responded “Show me a coin. Whose portrait is this on it? And whose name?” They replied “Ceaser’s – the Roman Emperor’s”. Jesus then said “Then give the emperor all that is his – and give to God all that is his”. Most citizens in the provinces trusted in their Roman currency so much that they thought they needed it for the necessities of life, and were therefore upset by the Roman’s collection of taxes. It took a Jesus to point out that it was simply an instrument of control for the Roman Empire.
Today, of course, the US Dollar has a similar mesmerizing effect throughout the world. Ironically this is the instrument of the very same Empire that holds Jesus as its savior. I ask you to take a good look at our US Dollar of today. Certainly we see George Washington on the one dollar bill, but I am always more intrigued by the other names on it. Today you will probably see the names of Lawrence Summers or Robert Rubin in the bottom right corner of the Washington side. Not emperors, but rather, one Chief Economist of the World Bank and one Executive of the mega-Wizard collection known as Citigroup. On the other side are all kinds of Biblical, Roman and religious symbols. A very religious person might have reason to get upset about all the religious symbolism on what is reputed to be the “root of all evil”. But this symbolism is a key part of the underlying wizardry. Perhaps we can go into more detail of the meanings of these symbols in some other edition. But now we will discuss some important Wizard/Warlord partnerships of today’s dominant empire.
Special Wizard/Warlord Relationships of the American Empire
It is instructive to look at some of the key Wizard/Warlord relationships of today’s dominant empire during the period of its key wars that helped to make it an Empire. We look at partnerships during the civil war, then the two world wars and then glimpse at them during the cold and gulf wars.
America’s civil war was certainly a key step towards its development into an empire, for the split of this young nation in half would have hampered steps toward empireness, and kept it occupied fighting amongst itself for many years. During such battles Wizards (in the form of bankers) usually would work closely with the warlords to finance the war, not from ideological concerns, but merely to make a profit for themselves. With this in mind the Loan Committee of bankers, formed to finance the Union in the war, offered Abraham Lincoln a loan of $5million at a whopping 12% interest rate. The chairman of this committee was Moses Taylor, who was also the President of City Bank at the time, which is known as Citigroup today.
Lincoln told the bankers to get lost and decided to issue his own debt-free, interest free currency known as the “greenbacks”. The wizards were not pleased at all that someone would dare violate the traditional wizard/warlord alliance, and take over both responsibilities for themselves, leaving the wizards without a war profit. I am certain they feared for their future.
Eustace Mullins points out in his book “The Secrets of the Federal Reserve”, published by Bankers Research Institute, that the assassinations of both Presidents Lincoln and Garfield followed radical statements or actions involving the medium of exchange. Mullins is well known by those acquainted with his materials as something of a conspiracy theorist but he has done some excellent research on the history of banking in America and his findings really do make one think. According to a lawyer named Alfred Crozier, who gave testimony before a Senate Banking Committee around the time the Federal Reserve system was being readied for implementation, President Garfield had stated shortly before his assassination “whoever controls the supply of currency would control the business activities of all the people”. He also reminded the committee that Thomas Jefferson had warned a hundred years earlier that “a private central bank issuing the public currency was a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army”. So Jefferson attributed more danger to the Wizards of an Empire than to its Warlords – which is very interesting! This maybe because the Wizards’ power of control is psychological, not physical and so can go largely unnoticed, and therefore continue unchecked. But the power exercised by warlords is obvious and therefore more likely to be challenged. Hence it is in the interests of any empire to replace physically forced rule by warlords, by the psychological rule of wizardry, in lands where it has become practical to do so.
After the embarrassment of the public’s representative taking over wizardry during the Civil War the bankers were very busy re-establishing their powers. After the civil war strong alliances between various senators and bankers, and the concern over various financial crises, helped create the Federal Reserve System by 1913 through the help of special outings disguised as duck hunting. We spoke about this in Wizards Part 1 and the Federal Reserve of Minneapolis has this history on its web site.
It came in very handy for the bankers of America that this system was in place just in time for the First World War. At that time that Mr. Paul Warburg, who was a Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, had been responsible for much of the design of the Federal Reserve System and was one of the 20th century’s most amazing Wizards.
Another powerful banker of the times, was a Mr. Eugene Meyer who was Chairman of the War Finance Corporation which, according to the New York Times August 10, 1918 edition, had been planned by Mr. Warburg himself. These two chaps exercised tremendous power and influence over the financing of war at the time, and made sure that bankers were able to profit from the financing of war.
Interestingly Paul’s brother, Max Warburg, was the head of the German Secret Service at the time according to the Mullins book. There is no doubt that the Warburg brothers not only represented a powerful Wizard/Warlord alliance in a single set of siblings but they were clearly operating on both sides of the war, and for this they profited doubly! While Paul Warburg was a Governor of the Federal Reserve Board of the US, the Warburg family was financing the Kaiser in Germany. They also helped finance the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Mr. Mullins in his book “Secrets of the Federal Reserve” cites some text from a December 12, 1918 US Naval Secret Service report that says that Warburg “handled large sums furnished by Germany for Lenin and Trotsky. Has a brother who is leader of the espionage system of Germany.” In fact it is not unusual to see bankers operate on both sides of a war – after all, it is not their job to be concerned with this ideology or that, but simply to keep the medium of exchange flowing and to make a profit for shareholders. Plus being on all sides of a conflict will enable them to quickly fit into their appropriate Wizard role within the victorious empire.
Mullins also points out in his book that Woodrow Wilson did not really believe in his own crusade to “save the world for democracy” by getting America involved in World War I because Wilson had written much later that “the World War was a matter of economic rivalry”. Interestingly it was this World War that really saw the development of the income tax system and the role of the Federal Reserve, operated by the bankers, as fiscal agents of the government. Since then America has used the income tax system and debt-money issuance as the primary way of financing wars from which both bankers and many other corporations would profit. The Romans also similarly taxed their citizens in all of their provinces as a primary means of financing their conquests.
The Warburg brothers were the most outstanding example of a Warlord/Wizard relationship within a single set of siblings operating on both sides of the First World War. They passed this baton on to a new set of brothers to take on this role for the Second World War – that was the Dulles brothers.
Here is some interesting history from the Mullins book: A fellow named Otto Lehmann-Russbelt wrote a book called Aggression in 1934, published by Hutchinson and Co. In this book he says “Hitler was invited to a meeting at the Schroder Bank in Berlin on January 4, 1933. The leading industrialists and bankers of Germany tided Hitler over his financial difficulties and enabled him to meet the enormous debt he had incurred in connection with the maintenance of his private army. In return he promised to break the power of the trade unions. On May 2, 1933 he fulfilled his promise.” Mullins goes on to report that “present at the January 4, 1933 meeting were the Dulles brothers, John Foster Dulles and Allen W Dulles of the New York law firm Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the Schroder Bank”. This meeting and the Dulles brothers involvement in it and the financing of Hitler was documented in the New York times on October 11, 1944 according to Mullins. It is widely acknowledged in many sources that the Schroder Banks were the main financiers of Hitler. Alan Dulles’ later career highlights included being head of the CIA and a director of the Schroder Company. John Foster Dulles settled for being Eisenhower’s Secretary of State.
Not content with just being the star Wizard/Warlord brother partnership on both sides of the Second World War the brothers Dulles continued to carry their skills into the cold war, and into numerous other countries that saw what amounted to puppets of the American Empire being installed throughout the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Africa. Whenever the people of these countries should elect their own representative through the democratic process they would surely mysteriously be replaced through various means if the leader looked at all like not being in business with Western corporations for their pursuit of profit. While this might sound a bit harsh to the uninitiated the public release of much relevant information in the past years through the Freedom of Information Act reveals much of this CIA driven skullduggery in countries across the globe. So the well read and well educated should not be seduced by the alternative “beacon of freedom” descriptions of the Empire proposed by its current President. Certainly the people of America have many freedoms that other peoples do not, but as in Roman times, this comes at the cost of the lost freedoms of the millions we can’t see.
Well, later on, after the brothers Dulles were all worn out and had the necessary naming of an airport after them, a new set of brothers, complete with a father as well, were wanting to take over as the Empire’s star Wizard/Warlord family.
This was the Bush brothers and father, but so far they have not been able to demonstrate any talent on the Wizard side. Their appointed Wizard brother embarrassed the family by revealing its shortfall in Wizard skills in a most spectacular way through the failure of the Neil brother’s Silverado Savings and Loans effort. Fortunately the evident lack of wizard skills in the Bush family could be swept under the carpet quite quickly because the father was the President of the American Empire. He was able to organize a quick bailout of all failed S&L wizards with the assistance of the American publics’ tax money. Ever since that huge embarrassment the Bush’s abandoned Wizardry altogether and have tried to make up for their shortcomings by expanding all Warlord activities, which they have some demonstrated talents in. I am certain I don’t need to elaborate.
The family and ancestral links of both today’s main Wizards and Warlords, and their role on both sides of major conflicts, could be discussed for days and days. But now we must go back to the Romans.
The Downfall of the Roman Empire and the Roman Monetary System
Interestingly the Roman Empire’s equivalent of the Federal Reserve started out in a Temple devoted to the Goddess Juno, the highest Roman Goddess, and not to any of the big brawny male gods. According to Jack Weatherford’s book entitled “The History of Money”, the Roman goddess Juno represented the genius of womanhood and was the patroness of women, marriage and childbirth. I think this is funny because today the Federal Reserve, banking in general and the whole practice of modern wizardry is primarily a male affair. Though the Federal Reserve has the obligatory affirmative -action type “girl seat” on its Board it is presently unoccupied because either no females have been found appropriate for the girl seat, or have no desire to be on it.
The goddess Juno had a few last names depending on which job she was doing. For example she was Juno Lucina for protecting pregnant women and Juno Moneta as patroness of the Roman state. Moneta came from the Latin word Monere which means “to warn” because the geese that lived around the Juno temple honked loudly whenever invaders were nearby.
As patroness of the Roman state Juno Moneta had to preside over some stately activities such as the issuing of money. The Roman denarius coin of 269 BC was manufactured in the Juno Moneta temple and bore her image and last name “Moneta”. This is where the name “money” comes from.
Much of the Roman history of money above and in what follows comes from Jack Weatherford’s book “The History of Money” that we also mentioned in Wizards – Part 1. Other information also comes from the History Channel’s four part series on the Roman Empire. Weatherford writes that Rome built the world’s first empire based on money, rather than government, as the main organizing principle. Most of the real commercial growth of Rome occurred during the so-called Republican era, prior to the rise of Julius Ceaser in the 1st century BC, and the long line of Emperors (or dictators) to follow.
The early Roman emperors were aware of how commerce and markets could be used to enhance their imperial power. From Ceaser onwards the issuing of money was pretty much taken out of the hands of the followers of the Godess Moneta and control was passed to the ruling Emperor and minted coins bore his image. It was at this point that money was elevated from “medium of exchange” to “tool of empire” and so the trouble began with the Roman Monetary System.
Thereafter trade increased and Rome increased its wealth by conquering other lands and appropriating their resources. H.G. Wells wrote in “The Outline of History” that “Rome was a political and financial capital … a new sort of city. She imported profits and tribute and very little went out of her in return.” The same might be written about New York City and Washington DC in future history books. Wells then goes on to say of the speculative activity at the time “Men made sly and crude schemes to corner it, to hoard it, and to send prices up by releasing hoarded metals”, speaking about the activities around money.
Roman Emperors got more money by conquering new lands and stealing their gold reserves, which they would then spend to conquer new lands. Increased spending sometimes required melting and reissuing more coins with the same amount of gold if not enough gold had been stolen recently. This led to devaluation of currencies and by the 1st century BC the Roman current was already devalued to one forth the value of the earlier Moneta denarius.
The Roman budget exploded following the conquest and robbing of many a European and Middle Eastern territory, including many of those same places that the United States has troops posted in today to ensure it’s appropriation of modern gold – which is oil. Most of these budgets were then used to finance more military conquests, the permanent troops that needed to be posted in conquered lands, and “investment” in infrastructure in conquered lands. Those concerned with today’s World Bank might be amused with this latter aspect of the Roman Empire.
By the time of the Roman Emperor Trajan, who ruled from 98 AD to 117 AD, the Roman budget exceeded its income from its profiteering and conquering activities. Rome was having some difficulty meeting all the expenses of having to keep permanent troops in occupied territories and numerous other expenses. The British Empire started having this same trouble in the 20th century too, which pretty much forced it to hand the Empire Baton to its friends in America.
Trajan the Emperor was quite the investor in infrastructure. He even built the world’s first indoor shopping mall known as the Trajan Markets, and was responsible for huge investment in the Empire’s travel and communications networks. Emperors of this time also liked to spend lavishly on “Romanizing” the conquered land with all the trappings of Roman culture that helped to amuse and occupy the people of conquered lands. This included the coliseums and amphitheaters that exported Roman entertainment throughout the empire. I suppose this had an effect of warming the people of conquered lands to the Roman Empire, similar to the export of American movies, television and other media. This also feeds back to help with mesmerizing people with the power of the Empire’s currency. Anti-globalization activists should be aware that the phenomenon of so-called “globalization” is at least as old as the Roman Empire. Though we don’t hear too many stories about anti-globalization activists in Roman times, it is interesting to wonder about them.
With all these expenses and the increasingly sophisticated tools desired by the military forces it is no wonder the Emperors starting having massive budget shortfalls. They reacted in two main ways. One way was to tax the citizens of the whole empire, including all the provinces, more and more. The other way was to use the same amount of gold and silver to issue more and more coins. The latter only caused terrible problems of inflation as the greater money supply just forced prices up. The burdens of both of these tactics fall most heavily on the poor. And as with the broader American Empire the gap between the rich and the poor continued to widen as poor people were forced to sell off their real assets – animals, land, work tools, etc. – to pay their taxes. The main difference in the American Empire’s approach is that its efforts are funded mostly by debt-money creation, which forms a sort-of tax on peoples abroad (mainly through interest), as well as conventional taxes on citizens who live in the heart of the Empire. In the Roman Empire, as with the American Empire, speculative activity probably came to dominate productive activity, much of the latter being performed by slaves or low paid persons. Roman farmers and small traders got screwed by all the taxes and unstable prices and went out of business.
The real economic infrastructure that had made the empire successful was collapsing as a result of the policies implemented by the ruling emperors to fund the continued occupation of provinces and infrastructure spending. The whole economy was shifted to providing more luxuries for the ruling class while everyone else got poorer, in what was, and always is – a zero sum game. Unrest and tensions built throughout the Roman Empire and the rulers could no longer control it. They had already stolen everything from the citizens and the provinces, so they ran out of funds to keep the empire going. The Empire could not sustain itself. It imploded from inequality, recklessness and stupidity. At least the good Wizard of the 20th century, John Maynard-Keynes, had the foresight to warn of this. But nobody seems to have listened.
The implosion of the Roman Empire was so complete that it took another one thousand years for the money economy to return.
Today one might think that the modern equivalent of the ruling class of the Roman Empire are the larger owners of the large corporations, and that debt plays a role similar to Roman taxes. I leave the reader/listener to draw their own conclusions about what we have to learn from all this.
Please note that Wizards of Money has a web site at www.wizardsofmoney.org where you can find the text of all episodes plus some more references and other information.
That’s all for Wizards of Money Part 4.
