Usury: why we don’t build Cathedrals these days….
Left: Bernard Lietaer
“In Europe during the Middle Ages – the 10th to 13th centuries – local currencies were issued by local lords, and then periodically recalled and reissued with a tax collected in the process. Again, this was a form of demurrage that made money undesirable as a store of value. The result was the blossoming of culture and widespread well-being, corresponding exactly to the time period when these local currencies were used.
Practically all the cathedrals were built during this time period. If you think about what is required as investment for a small town to build a cathedral, it’s extraordinary.
The question arises: with similar currencies, what would the cathedrals of the 21st century look like?”
Bernard Lietaer
Margrit Kennedy famously established that 45% of prices are related to capital costs. The more capital intensive an industry is, the higher this percentage becomes and no industry is more capital intensive than construction.
By Anthony Migchels for Real Currencies
The incredible facts are these:
1. In construction a whopping 75% of prices are related to costs for capital. Meaning that if we buy a new $100,000 home, $75,000 is lost to banks and other financiers.
2. When we buy the house with a mortgage, we will not only pay $100,000 for the house, but an additional $150,000 in interest over 30 years.
3. So we pay a total of $250,000 for a house that actually costs no more than $25,000 to build.
The case against Interest can be no clearer than this. We get absolutely nothing in return for all this money.
It’s not just the Cathedrals: what would our homes look like without Interest?
Even at very low interest rates the loans quickly become punitively expensive. And leaves the monetary system intrinsically unstable to boot.
“Monetary reform” that does not address interest is a hoax.
Related:
On Interest
Budget of an Interest Slave
The Problem is not Debt, it’s Interest
Mutual Credit, the Astonishingly Simple Truth about Money Creation
Regional Currencies in Germany: the Chiemgauer
Usury Free Blog: A truly inspiring article on the interest free economy of the Middle Ages (thank you too Larry)
Our Ancestors built these astonishing structures 600 years ago. Why cannot we do the same today?
Reims Cathedral
Wells Cathedral
Interest is not necessary or inevitable
quite right., quite the opposite…it’s completely unnecessary and easily done away with.
Why would anyone use cathedrals as an example of prosperity if other than to give examples of how brainwashed the community can be into throwing a large percentage of what they produce into extravagant structures they can’t even live in? Monuments to banking.
Our ancestors had other priorities philo. Nothing wrong with that. It is a good example of what they were capable of with interest free currency, even though you (and I basically too) don’t agree with their expression of their love of the One.
You honestly think there would be local lords if they weren’t monopolizing and charging usury on the money supply? Workers thought they were building because they were “being paid” when it’s always them paying the lords. You could argue they were being extorted.
well, there always was such a thing as seigniorage. But usury was unknown in the Middle Ages, it was a very bad sin.
It has been established that in the middle ages a ‘serf’ lost about 10% of his income to his ‘Lord’. Compare this to the 75% that the average Interest Slave loses to Interest (50%) and Taxation (another 25%)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPqGly7KlQ4
Monuments, but maybe not just to banking. Interesting video. Take it for what you will.
@philo. Nice missing the point, Mr. Magoo.
Interest in itself is not the problem. The problem is the origin of money as a loan by a monopoly, Since money has to origin somewhere and is actually a gift to the originator, it should be issued equally to each adult as needed for the economy as thin air is a gift to eveeryone.
This is social credit, compensating for interest.
But the premise is wrong: interest IS wrong. Therefore we should not compensate for it, we should eradicate it.
And why is interest wrong?
Because it all ends up at the absolute top of the food chain: the Money Power. Not to mention that it makes the monetary system intrinsically unstable.
This Usurious Usurpation. And it must end.
I’m not perse against SOcial Credit and I would support it if it gained momentum, but only if it is combined with interest free credit. It should not be combined with an interest bearing full reserve banking system.
The nice thing about Social Credit is the ‘National Dividend’ or ‘Basic Income’ aspect of it.
It’s one thing to loan a tool and expect it back plus something. A coin or piece of paper is a different thing. There is no such thing as a “full reserve bank”. That would be called a brokerage. To have a deposit there’s already a debt established. You can’t create another debt if the first can be extinguished which would mean no money to extinguish the second. You can transfer debt to establish ownership of a stock.
I am not sure I understand. You could rent and you would still be paying a large percentage of what your mortgage interest would be over thirty years. If you itemize, you get to deduct currently your mortgage payments. Plus there is all the cost of upkeep on a house that you own versus if you rent. But you have to weigh the $150,000 in interest or more likely far more you pay over thirty years against the possible appreciation or depreciation of the house. My current house which I bought 29 years ago has tripled in value. That is appreciation. It is my appreciation to those who took the risk of loaning me money to buy this house. I am deeply and profoundly appreciative. I think what may bother people if they thought about it is that China and other countries loaned the U.S. trillions of dollars which we put into investing in building houses here using loans to do this. The U.S. in spite of the housing bubble and the crash of housing prices is still sitting on a trillion or more dollars of homes we would not have if it were not for this lavish investing and speculation in building houses. Go to Ireland for example and many of their housing developments are sitting half finished. We finished most of what we started to build. But housing is merely one area of a hoard of speculative loans. This computer exists because somewhere someone offered venture capital to another with an idea in his head about personal computers. There was the dot com bubble and crash. A lot of those speculative investors who demanded high returns of interest or shares in companies which they were underwriting lost all of their investments in those companies. But out of that still came changes in information technology that has changed the world. Banking is one of the areas involving high levels of speculation and constant new innovations. Some of these speculative devices for investing in market or derivatives may bankrupt the world economy. But if not, there is something astonishing when a housewife in Phoenix in two minutes can push a button on her on-line brokerage trading window and transfer funds from one company in one part of the world to another company in another part of the world because she believes the second company has better management and is in a better market position to use her capital that she is loaning in a more efficient manner than the first company. To resolve the abuse of power in banking or any other large economic or political system requires public advocates whose vigilance continuously monitors those industries and politicians to inform the public where, when, and how abuse is occurring. We need Ralpf Naders for every single sector of the economy and every single legislative committee. Blog on oh ye bloggers!
Bill:
There is no appreciation, there is inflation.
There is no risk, because you had to offer the house as collateral.
We don’t need China for financing, as we could print all the money we would ever need, had we not given away a monopoly on the creation of money to a small group of criminals called bankers.
Have a look at this short film. In 25 minutes you will get basic grasp of what is at stake:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7HMt5MgsDg
Re: the vid, he said the government should spend the money into circulation. Severe lack of understanding the physics of money. He doesn’t factor in the fact that bankers were still operating during the years of prosperity. The government should have taken over the mortgages eliminating usury. Issue directly to individuals who sign a promissory obligation for it evenly as possible until everyone is working. They can pay it back whenever they want but definitely before they leave the market. No usury. No bank.
You’re right, it’s debt free, which seems to be the American way. It’s still instructive though.
And the really mind blowing thing of this vid is: isn’t it amazing that a major Nation like Canada got away with printing its own cash? A British colony, resorting directly under the Crown?
What was the Money Power doing??
Spending money into circulation is also pre-taxing the people which should really scare free market minded individuals. The Money Power was biding their time. They don’t really care about anything but being shut down completely, but we can’t agree on a way to do it.
The Money Power was biding their time. They don’t really care about anything but being shut down completely, but we can’t agree on a way to do it.
Quite an insightful comment philo. Reminds of Sun Tzu: the main thing is to keep the army alive so the fight can be continued.
but that’s the point- inflation amortizes the loan automatically. there is never any interest, the rate is far below inflation. all money is already issued and sold at below cost.
besides. between bankruptcy and every protection and gimmick of civil law, we swim in free money. not that it helps. the real question is that all this productivity is invested in bells, whistles and images.
Bill, Not to mention it’s only an illusion that the bank had money to lend before you went in to borrow.
oops, I forgot the main thing, hahaha
In the Philippines, millions of businessmen, entrepreneurs are chained, hog-tied, shackled, slaved and tormented by interest-bearing loans, their interest payments (USURY) secured by their losing property-collaterals, that are even in triple schemes, and are tortuously struggling DAILY to pay. It is lamenting indeed that in the most Christian/Catholic country, USURY is more rampant than Islamic nations. There are Islamic nations almost free from any interest-bearing loan, just as there are on 5 debt-free nations on earth!
Hundreds of thousands to millions of Filipinos in the Philippines are now presently losing their property: homes, agricultural lands, businesses, and NOW PRESENTLY AT PUBLIC AUCTION SALE OF REAL PROPERTIES in the Philippines, for failure to pay taxes. Taxes that are evidently legalized robbery sucking blood by the trillions.
Eric V. Encina
Philipines
“Life without Usury” – Peter Jon Simpson
“The Dark Ages are a most misunderstood period… The Establishment teaches us that the Middle Ages came just after the Dark Ages. Lots of dirt, tyranny, poverty and borderline, hopeless living. Nothing could be further from the truth.
“In the middle of the 19th Century, Oxford Professor of Political History, Thorold Rogers wrote of that era: “At that time a labourer could provide all the necessities for his family for a year by working fourteen weeks.” The other thirty-eight weeks were his to do as he pleased. Would you like to earn all of the money required to feed, shelter, clothe and recreate your family for a year by working fourteen weeks? What would you do with thirty-eight weeks of vacation per year?
“Many parts of Europe were so prosperous during the Middle Ages that hundreds of communities averaged 160 to 180 holidays a year. None were bank holidays. The people worked for themselves, learned new skills, studied, went hunting or fishing, and many volunteered their skills and trades for building those magnificent cathedrals. Lord Liverhume, writing the century before Thorold Rogers said : “The men of the 15th Century were very well paid.”
Today we can still visit the remaining cathedrals if we can afford to leave our contemporary responsibilities. Cabot in his book ‘The History of the Reformation’ stated that our forbearers possessed the wealth and leisure for one hundred thousand pilgrims at a time to visit Canterbury and other cathedrals. This was in a land with one tenth today’s population. Cabot in his book ‘Rural Rides’ stated that concerning Winchester Cathedral: “That building was made when there were no poor rates, when every labouring man in England was clothed in good will and cloth and when all had plenty of meat and bread and beer.”
“Today these facts are hidden from us by an evolutionary, humanistic, government-save-me establishment. The Middle Ages are often referred to as the Dark Ages. And our lives today. Instead of working three days a week and having four to ourselves, we have two pay cheque familes today, where a generation ago we only needed one pay cheque to afford our common life style. Our wives must now work so we can afford what our parents had a generation ago. We flee into alcohol, professional sports, movies and T.V. We seek to escape the pressure of our due bills. 160 to 180 holidays a year to us is a foreign a circumstance as the planet Saturn and her multi-coloured rings.” — http://studimonetari.org/articoli/lifewithoutusury.html
___________________________________________________________________
Is there any doubt that within just a couple generations people are working many more hours? Both husband and wife must work full time and soon, the children will be working too.
Larry
I’ll believe it when I go back in time and see it. It would behoove the bankers who write our history through the Jesuit movement to cover up a slave class of the time. They’ve managed to hide the fact that a borrower signs a promissory note and a lender exchanges a product for a currency from the borrower for all these years. And that the banker is just a parasitic middle man. Oxford Professor of Political History = propagandist. I suppose it’s possible, it’s just too bad they didn’t leave us the detailed method for introducing currency properly. Many things about that paper don’t make sense to me. It says men were paid well but there was no “chain letter money”. Were they bartering? We’re talking about Catholic churches right? Vatican = bank. “Usury free” implies there was lending, or it would be “lending free”. You can talk about usury all day long – the bank doesn’t care unless you can convince people you have a plan to cut them out that will work.
The Dark Ages began with Constantine in 325 AD and by 390 AD the Word of God was buried in the dark in Latin. The Dark Ages ended in the 16th century with the printing press and the first English translations of The Bible.
“Is there any doubt that within just a couple generations people are working many more hours? Both husband and wife must work full time and soon, the children will be working too. ”
What a horror.
You’re right. The trend is clear. We’re going back to the times when our ancestors were being driven off the country side and herded into the cities, because Gold Based, Central Banking currencies destroyed the ancient fiat currencies of before, like the famous tallysticks, for instance.
Just imagine what happened to these generations in the sweatshops. It’s happening now in China. So people buying that crap are karmically relegating their own children to it.
Thank you Larry, it’s good to keep that threat in mind.
It’s incredible how deep we have sunk. It’s been years I’ve read all this stuff. Very useful reminder.
Consider how a construction project like a cathedral is organized. You have architects trained in “mystery schools” of esoteric number relations. These guys were probably living real high on the hog. Then you have the guys modeling the templates for every piece/part – kind of a dirty job but challenging requiring high skill level/training. These guys probably had servants at home. Then there are the guys who take the templates to the quarry, extract the stone, do all of the rough shaping and heavy lifting. Their wives were probably the servants of the former professions. And they probably worked all year round for their survival. They didn’t know how to keep the fruits of their labor for themselves. Then you have the monks and priests living in extravagant monasteries(money) with nothing better to do all day but write propaganda in numerous languages and fondle each other and nuns.
Besides, we do build cathedrals but we call them “skyscrapers”.
We don’t build like the Victorians either. The Victorians were the last ‘can do’ generation to have populated GREAT Britain – since then we have lost all our vision and our greatness which The Banksters probably stole from us through financial oppression. Come back Isambard Kingdom Brunel and show us how it’s done once more.
Hm…mm… Believing in the ‘greatness’ of the British Empire is believing in the ‘greatness’ of the Soviet experiment and the American Empire.
Just ask the Bengals who got starved by the millions. Twice. Or the Irish, who got wiped out living next to the richest empire ever.
Here’s Aangirfan, look around at his blog a little and see what an affront to the One the British Empire really was. And is.
I think you’re talking about the Money Empire which was not the British (really the English) Empire. The British (English) Empire was hijacked by Rome and The Jews – Bolshevism.
The British Empire would have always happened once we know Britain is really Israel and the people we think are Israel i.e. The Jews are not – they’re Canaanites. It was all prophesied thousands of years ago.
One knows a tree by its fruit Charles.
I’m aware of the idea that the British (men of the covenant) is Israel.
The Jews of their day were dismayed that Jesus rejected the earthly Kingdom.
Heed falling for the same mistake.
It’s more than an idea, it’s The Truth.
I thought The Jews hated Yashua Anointed and they hated Him because He knew who they were – The Devil’s own – a generation (race) of vipers. This whole thing is racial. That’s why they use racism and anti-semitism as a political tactic to get us walking on egg shells – all aided of course by our treacherous politicians and media.
I was not aware that the Jews were dismayed about anything.
It’s not racial. There are plenty Jews that serve Truth and even the One.
Maybe there is merit to the British story, but it most certainly is not The Truth. At most it is part of the truth. There are strong reasons to believe that Jesus did not worship the being that initiated the Abrahamic Drama. Ie, that YHVH is not the One, but some kind of Angel.
You have allowed yourself to be educated. That’s your problem. Education is a nice word for brainwashing.
Forget what you learned and start to learn to doubt and wonder again. Allow the panic in your heart that comes along with not knowing.
It is quite presumptuous to spout ‘Truth’ all over the place when it comes to these matters. Please keep in mind that Elizabeth also believes she rules over Israel. Are you sure you want to be in that camp?
It is very much racial and it all started in the Garden with Eve and The Devil – men versus hu-men – Abel versus Cain.
‘Hu’ from the Gaelic tongue (Gaelic is from the Hebrew tongue) means serpent – a hu-man is a serpent-man aka reptilians – even the disso agent Icke knows it. From Cain to Canaan after the flood via Noah’s wife Naamah and Ham we get reptilians.
Yashua Anointed was called The Son of Man (a son of Adam) just to let us know for sure that He was not a reptilian. Eve was the mother of all living, Adam the father of men alone.
From Cain we get Cainibals – The VatiCain – Cainterbury and AngliCains, even John McCain all hidden in plain sight.
OK there are Torah believing Jews (non-Zionist) and there are Talmudic believing Jews (Zionists), but genetically they are the same race and they all reject Yashua Anonted (Jesus Christ) as the Messiah. Some will be saved, but most will not.
British Israel is The Truth and can easily be proven if one wishes to research it out. The first Israelites to occupy these islands were the Tribe of Dan commonly known as Tutha de Danaan and they settled in Ireland about 1,000 BC. The last tribe to arrive was Ephraim – the English otherwise known as Anglo-Saxons or Isaac’s sons – Saacsons and the Normans or Norsemen from North-People.
All what you call my so called education is Spiritually discerned hence I can sniff out an evil spirit as soon as they say or type something. Al on that other thread is such a person.
Nothing I say is presumptuous.
Yes, Elizabeth knows The Truth and is possibly without excuse (and really not for me to judge), but she was got at by The Devil via the Fabians from the age of twelve and all with her father George VI’s blessings.
Torah believing Jews are unsavable, as the Torah is the book of the Angel YHVH. Not of God.
‘Christians’ believing Jesus worshipped YHVH are probably mistaken, although I’m not going to say I’m certain of it.
And they are not one race. There are Khazars, Sephardics, Ethiopians. Even the Mali Empire was Jewish.
I’ve studied Muad D’ib and it’s an interesting story. But it’s basically ego: ‘we’re the chosen ones’. The Nazi’s were made to believe that, YHVH’s children, now the British Isrealites too.
The aliens are coming now to save us, because our ‘consciousness has so much matured, that we are ready’. etc. All ego.
My spiritual discernment tells me that Al is a good man and I don’t agree with him on many spiritual issues.
Etc.
I don’t believe this thread is doing either me, or you much good. Why don’t we call it quits and focus on the monetary instead? I’ll give you the last word, that’s no problem.
PS: the comment is squashed.
Hit ‘reply’ to read in full.
I am amazed the replies that has been posted thus far.So infantile and all over the place.
I am a committed pacifist non religious,and do not look for an ”Eye for an eye, a Tooth for a tooth” solutions of the religious mambo jumbo verities.These people still give credence to dismal failure and genocidal story telling that has never produced a single solution over centuries, and they still cling on to like their mothers aprons.
Grow up you ENSLAVED.”If you want to be a slaves to banks and pay the cost of your own slavery let the banks create the money”
”None is more ENSLAVED than those who falsely believe that they are free”
That more or less sums it up.
You all have been ENSLAVED from 1694, finally legitimised in the US in 1913.
If you all wore your invisible neck less angle irons with pride all these centuries, continue to do so.
If not do not descend into the story books of the Torah, bible, Koran etc,
Every SECOND a child dies by design and stealth and has been going on for decades.
A silent and vivid Holocaust, because you and I are happy to be bloody parasites living off them, and produce future generations as your previous generation did to continue to be parasites.
In the mean time your food,water, medicine, planet earth is being poisoned as we have to reduce the population by 90%.So we are now doing it in the US and Europe.
It has come home to roost.
Wake up campaign for Interest Free Loans, a simple idea where every one can get their head around forget all obselete religious mambo jumbo.
As Gandhi said Hindus, Jews, Christians, Muslims,Blacks, Brown etc are my brothers and sisters, and an injury to one is an injury to all.
”Power of non violence no force in the world to over throw it”
Good call moneylender, Charles and I were done as it was.
Thank you.
One important point is ‘Interest Free Loans’ is only for productive purposes,,and not for speculative ventures.
Plus a minimum income for all, even Martin Luther King JR proposed it.
Loan is paid back and cancelled, money supply remains constant hence Nil Inflation and is self regulatory.
Hence no need for quangos and job for the boys to oversee it.
certainly!
I didn’t say Torah believing Jews are unsavable. I said some would be saved.
You need to realise that Judahites (from the Patriarch Judah – one of Jacob’s twelve sons) are not Jews. Judahites are the Royal line to Yashua Anointed. Jews are mostly Canaanites from Judah’s relationship with a Canaanite, as I have already said. Many Judahites are to be found in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Yashua Anointed was not a Jew nor were the Apostles.
Maud Dib like Al is a blasphemer. They both speak against the sound message of Paul. I’ll give credit to Maud Dib for his Israel history but he goes astray on the New Testament regarding Paul.
The whole Nazi thing was a Canaanite Jew Bolshevik conspiracy (Tavistock Institute) to blacken the idea of a one man leadership system. Hitler was renowned for his piss taking of the Canaanite Jew Roosevelt and the democratic system and quite rightly too. It took Hitler days to implement a new idea whilst it took three years here and in America – crap Demon-ocracy at it’s best.
Al will be a good man one day when he has repented i.e. when Yashua Anointed pays him a
visit and calls him – until then he will remain in is blasphemous errors and sins.
@ Money Lender What have you done in order to help overthrow the system apart from rant and sound off?
Fantastic reply: Satan is alive and well in our modern day society:
If you want to resist Satan, please do not besmirch
my blog with satanic handles.
Muslims must stand against usury because it is evil. If you propagate this idea, then you are an Islamofascist and an antiSemite.
Interesting discussion Anthony! I look forward to coming here more often.
Not that we should build pagan temples (or pyramids), but life was good under the occasional good king (too bad, not many of them came along)
One of the symptoms of a declining society is the decline of ornamentation and architectural style
THE MIDDLE AGES
(Le Moyen Age)
The National History of France
by
Frantz Funck-Brentano
1922
“Enguerran Le Portier de Marigny was the greatest figure of the reign after Pierre Flote. He came of a modest family of Norman origin. In 1298 we find him pantler of Queen Jeanne of Navarre, who was his patron at Court. He became chamberlain of the King. In these functions he displayed his administrative powers. At the end of the reign he could boast that he was the only one who understood the finances of the kingdom. He was equally well informed as to the resources of the neighbouring peoples and the resources of foreign courts. He writes to Simon of Pisa: ‘Know, Brother Simon, that I am aware as well as a man of Flanders of the power of the Flemings, of the money they can strike, and that I know as well as you who have been there the agreements which the German nobles make, what they do and what they think.’
“To these gifts of administration he added oratorical powers already useful to those who wished to acquire influence in France. Geoffroi de Paris calls him ‘the finest speaker of all in France.’ He exercised a considerable influence on Philip the Fair during the last years of the reign.”
“At the time of the great alteration of 1295, necessitated by the war against England, the King expressed himself in this way: ‘We have been obliged to have a coinage struck which lacks something of the weight and of the alloy that our predecessors put into it.’ But, adds the King, ‘I shall accept myself this money in payment of that which is due to me, and later I shall indemnify those who shall have suffered any loss from this cause’; and to this effect he engaged the revenues of his domains.”
{
“Not content to exercise their authority over the territories subject to them, the Templars attempted to acquire new rights, in which they were particularly favoured by the troubles of the war in Aquitaine under Philip the Fair. Their patronage, moreover, was very much sought by the people of the country, who thus armed themselves against the power of the seigniorial bailiffs. Michelet notes that in the seneschal’s jurisdiction of Beaucaire alone the order had bought 10,000 pounds’ worth of revenues vested in land; and this did not only represent at the epoch a considerable property, but a great territorial power. The Prior of St. Gilles had under him alone fifty-four commanderies. In most of the countries of Europe the Brothers had fortresses; in the kingdom of Valencia they possessed seventeen of them. They had been seen to attack crowned heads –the King of Cyprus and the Prince of Antioch– dethrone a King of Jerusalem, ravage Greece and Thrace.
“The origin of their financial power was the immense treasure which they had brought back to the West: 150,000 golden florins, which a skilful financial administration soon increased tenfold. As the Templars had houses in every country, they carried out the financial operations of the international banks of to-day; they were acquainted with bills of exchange, orders payable at sight; they arranged annuities and pensions on paid-up capital, made advances of funds, lent against pledges, managed private deposits, and undertook the levy of taxes for lay and ecclesiastical lords. They lent money to kings.
“From the year 1290, Philip the Fair was uneasy on the subject of the power of the Temple. By letters of 29th June he ordered his seneschals and baillis to send him the list of the properties acquired by the Brothers of the Temple during the last forty-five years. The same year the Parliament forbade them to extend their patronage over individuals. On 22nd April 1293, Philip the Fair reminded his officials of this decree, ordering them to see to its execution.
“The Temple enjoyed insolent prosperity. Richard Cœur de Lion said that he left his avarice to the Cistercians and his pride to the Templars. After the catastrophe in which their power was to collapse, the good chronicler, Geoffroi de Paris, drew this portrait of them: ‘The Brothers of the Temple, gorged with gold and silver and who commanded such nobility, where are they ? What has become of them, those whom no one dare cite in the courts ? Always buying and never selling, making themselves feared as much as the King’s officers, extending their pride over the world, making themselves richer than the richest: “So often goes the pitcher to the water that it breaks.” ‘
“They came to the point of braving the King and refusing to pay taxes.”
}
“Philip the Fair has not been understood, and therefore has not received justice. This young Prince was one of the greatest kings and of the noblest characters in history. Speaking of his struggle against the Papacy, the great historians of the sixteenth century will recall that he was surnamed Philip the Catholic, ‘by the voice of the people and at the request of the clergy.’
“The generation which succeeded him celebrated with gratitude the prosperity which he gave to France by his far-seeing and active policy. His reign did not appear to the subjects of Philip of Valois the ‘reign of the devil,’ but a reign of beauty and of wisdom, worthy of admiration. At the opening of the fourteenth century, commerce, industry, agriculture are in a flourishing state from north to south of France: the cultivation of the vine and of cereals, the raising of cattle, the wool trade are equally prosperous. Agricultural machinery had been brought to perfection. One sees the foundation of joint-stock companies, a marvel for those days. In Provence and in Languedoc one encounters swineherds who possess vineyards; simple drovers have houses in town. And the increase of population becomes more marked with the ease and the active life, to such a point that eminent historians, like Siméon Luce, go so far as to claim that the population of France equalled then, if it did not exceed, the population of France to-day.”
http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/cikkek/moyenage.html
“The sixth Dynasty was probably a family of a different part of Egypt. It has left many records which indicate less centralization at Memphis than those of earlier Sovereigns; and mark the beginning of wars for predatory purposes and extension of territory. This change is accompanied by a less careful style of sculpture and less pains in the excavation of tombs as though the Egyptians were gaining a larger horizon, or, it may be, exchanging religion for ambition.”
Bilderberg meeting 2012: Everyone not invited
Near Washington, D.C., the Bilderberg meeting started Thursday, May 31 at Chantilly, Virginia, USA at the Marriott Hotel and will end June 3, 2012. Peasants like you and me are not allowed in that hotel. A concerned citizen booked a room way in advan
http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/News/112761-2012-06-02-bilderberg-meeting-2012-everyone-not-invited.htm?From=News
Ahhh, here’s to an interest-free future. Do you think that more and more people are coming to understand just how the global economy’s octopus tentacles are reaching into and sucking up everything? I find it distressing how many people are sort of blank and numb about it … I don’t know how much of that is because it’s too difficult to understand, and how much of it is just pure terror hidden under a giant bubble of numb.
It’s really amazing how people will defend Usury. I deal with it all the time, it’s so deeply engrained in our psyche, it’s really a great feat of propaganda. Only 500 years ago it was totally anathema. People just don’t see the enormity of the thing, both in a moral sense and in the sheer scale of the wealth transfer, nor do they understand that it is a wealth transfer from poor to rich per definition.
Even when they understand Fractional Reserve banking, they don’t come to the simple and automatic conclusion that if we can create credit for nothing we should get it for nothing.
The slave mentality is really very deeply entrenched. And people don’t worry over the slavery itself, the only thing they hope is to become a master one day themselves, which they never do, of course.
It is distressing how deep that slave/sheep mentality runs. The people always want a bloody king so that they don’t have to think for themselves. What’s so bad about thinking for yourself? There is all sorts of amazing things that happen when you master your mind instead of being a slave to that as well …
I wonder if enough people will ever rise above the ennui. Sometimes I feel such a strong hope that yeah, we will, (maybe because we’ll have to). Other days I am very black in thinking that we are going to drive ourselves into the dirt with no return.
I know Sue………I know all about it……………….
AWESOME! I hope you don’t mind if I use your comments to explain to others how this slavery mentality works.
Sure Christine, go ahead, glad you liked the article!
USURY is a sin. Period
Reblogged this on Irish Tory.
so this is why the rent is too damn high!
yeah…..simple as that
There are those who say that taxes operate like a water spout, which gathers up the waters into its trunk, and then gently diffuses them over the country again in refreshing, or, as Burke, the pensioner, called it, fructifying showers. — Sometimes I imagine that I am living in the “primitive ages,” and that I and a farmer are about to have a simple barter; hat for flour: we have just wiped the sweat and dust from our brows and are about exchanging our commodities, my hat for his barrel of flour, each valued at five dollars. At this moment appears before us a thing that calls itself a Banker: neat, trimmly dressed, fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin new reaped. “Hold men,” says he, “for one moment. Have ye not heard of the modern contrivance for facilitating trade ! See,” says he, “this bit of paper; it is a symbol of property, it facilitates the exchange of property; do you but take it and give me sixty cents for the use of it, and you will be astonished how it will facilitate the barter that you are about to make.” Facilitate! said we, why if it had not been for your nonsense, the exchange would have been effected by this, and we should have been at our work again. “Ay, ay,” said he, “but you do not comprehend it. It is what we call the credit system. It is the most delicate, and at the same time most important agent in producing general prosperity.” Explain this, said we, and we will believe it. “Believe it!?” said he, “Why, don’t you know that to destroy credit is to put a stop to all labours.” No, said we, we do not know that, but we know that if you was obliged to labour sixteen hours a day, as we do, you would be one of the first to destroy credit, if you thought the act would put a stop to all labour.
But the fact is, there has been plenty of labour ever since Eve eat the apple, and God has decreed that, that shall be the case, until we all return unto the ground from whence we came. Was there no labour in the days of Alfred the founder of the city of Oxford, the like of which, for expensive buildings, is not to be found in the world ? Was there no labour about the thousands of castles, abbeys, priories, &c. that were built in England & Ireland, between the reigns of Alfred, the great, and William the deliverer ? Was there no labour on the land in England, the steepest hill of which exhibits to us marks of cultivation, and which in these days lie idle because they require too much labour to bring them into cultivation ? The men that ploughed those hills, worked eight hours a day; had, by law, eight hours of recreation, and eight hours for rest. The men that ought now to be ploughing those hills are huddled together in cotton factories, heated to eighty-four degrees, there to work sixteen hours instead of eight, and there to submit to laws, made by the cotton lords themselves, such as make one shudder to think of; and such as make one blush to name. And these are the doings that we are not to repudiate; these are the lights we are to follow; and these are lights that, of late, we have followed.
Reblogged this on seeds for natural justice and commented:
“In Europe during the Middle Ages – the 10th to 13th centuries – local currencies were issued by local lords, and then periodically recalled and reissued with a tax collected in the process. Again, this was a form of demurrage that made money undesirable as a store of value. The result was the blossoming of culture and widespread well-being, corresponding exactly to the time period when these local currencies were used.
Practically all the cathedrals were built during this time period. If you think about what is required as investment for a small town to build a cathedral, it’s extraordinary.
The question arises: with similar currencies, what would the cathedrals of the 21st century look like?“
Bernard Lietaer
Margrit Kennedy famously established that 45% of prices are related to capital costs. The more capital intensive an industry is, the higher this percentage becomes and no industry is more capital intensive than construction.
By Anthony Migchels for Real Currencies
The incredible facts are these:
1. In construction a whopping 75% of prices are related to costs for capital. Meaning that if we buy a new $100,000 home, $75,000 is lost to banks and other financiers.
2. When we buy the house with a mortgage, we will not only pay $100,000 for the house, but an additional $150,000 in interest over 30 years.
3. So we pay a total of $250,000 for a house that actually costs no more than $25,000 to build.
The case against Interest can be no clearer than this. We get absolutely nothing in return for all this money.
It’s not just the Cathedrals: what would our homes look like without Interest?
Even at very low interest rates the loans quickly become punitively expensive. And leaves the monetary system intrinsically unstable to boot.
“Monetary reform” that does not address interest is a hoax.
Satyajit Das claims the growth rate between 1500 and 1782 was 1.7%…per century! a subsistence if not a sustainment model.
Very good article. I will be going through a few of these
issues as well..
Curch propagated and royal sponsored history says that most of these amazing great masterpieces of architecture were first built in the dark night of history, you guess by extraterrestrials, nobody saw them under construction. People only saw them after completion when they woke up next morning.
However some people, who do not believe extraterrestrials, have an out of the box suggestion:
Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba is not an exception, all European Gothic Cathedrals began as Mosques
http://www.arfaglobal.com/p/islamic-mosqe-cathedrals-of-europe.html
There weren’t Muslims in Western Europe during the upper middle ages. Western Expansion of Islam was stopped at the Battle of Tours, in North Central France. The Muslim presence in these Western areas was only transitory.
The case may be made for Spain, but not the more further West and NorthWest regions of Europe. The Cathedrals were built by Christians.
Battle of Tours followed 21 years of Umayyad conquests in Europe which had begun with the invasion of the Visigothic Christian Kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula in 711.
This interactive map shows the spread of Islam:
http://wps.pearsoncustom.com/wps/media/objects/2426/2484749/chap_assets/flash/ch7/index.html
“3. So we pay a total of $250,000 for a house that actually costs no more than $25,000 to build.
The case against Interest can be no clearer than this. We get absolutely nothing in return for all this money”
The statement of “fact” regarding construction cost of $25k for a home costing $250k (I’m assuming including 30 years of interest) with the rest being lost to banks/financiers is absolutely baseless. I work as a commercial banking underwriter/analyst and deal with construction loan requests all the time reviewing construction costs for projects as part of my underwriting. The average cost to a build (excluding the land) is about $50/sq.ft in my area of southern Texas. There is no way in hell even a SMALL modern home of 1000 sq.ft. in the smaller cities of Texas would cost $25k to build. Realistically we’re talking about $70K cost ($50 x 1000 + $20K for land/lot).
Banks generally charge interest-only on a line of credit during the building phase so even if you maxed out the line at the very beginning of the construction (which shouldn’t happen because builders borrow on the line gradually throughout construction as they incur costs) to $80k @ 6% interest the builder is only paying about $4,800 in interest FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR assuming he maxed out the line at very beginning. Again this is an extreme example of the interest they would pay because the line generally isn’t maxed out at the beginning. Once complete the builder may turn around and sell that 1,000 sq. ft home for $100k and pay off the line having only incurred the interest for the year and walk away with their profit.
Regarding the statement, “The case against Interest can be no clearer than this. We get absolutely nothing in return for all this money” it is absolutely wrong. In reality the interest we pay on mortgages to purchase a home NOW is the “cost” we’re paying for not having to WAIT to save up the $100k needed to purchase the hypothetical home outright today with our own cash.
If in your view interest is unjustified you could go the alternative route and save paycheck to paycheck enough funds to buy the needed construction materials (bricks, wood, etc) for your home and build it room by room as you have the funds. I hear this is how they do it in some parts of the world and there’s nothing wrong with that if that’s the route you choose but it seems most people want things now rather than later and there is a cost for that privilege.
Remember that by lending money the lender is taking on risk that they might not get repaid and lose out on the loan. What reason would there be to lend if not to make something on the loan? Both the bank and the borrower should win from the transaction: the borrower gets the funds they wouldn’t have access to today in order to purchase a home now rather than wait years to save up the funds and the bank gets some form of compensation for the risk in extending a loan for up to 30 years.
Is our financing system perfect? Absolutely not. See the financial crisis and what happens from lenient underwriting/lending. But we tend to hate banks because we hear more of the negative stories of banks having to unfortunately foreclose because someone can’t afford to keep up with payments rather than the good that most people wouldn’t own a home today or open up a business if it weren’t for the ability of having the privilege to borrow. That gets taken for granted.