on Money, Government, Banks, Usury: Part One

Notes in progress on Money, Government, Banks, Usury.

Part one: Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton, who
on the night before his death wrote
“our real disease is democracy,” said
that the rich and well-born
ought have a stake
in the government–that the mass
of the people
could not be trusted
to judge or determine right,
which, actually,
is pretty true, unless
one compares the alternatives.

Hamilton created
a national bank, and sold shares
to his friends, that they
might profit
from government subsidized
bubbles, such as distilling.
Jefferson fought him, but lost:
the deck had already been stacked
to protect property
from the “excesses of democracy,”
where “property”
generally called his owner
“Massa.”

It took 40 years
and a man who killed men
in duels to kill
the Bank of the United States,
(which had given
fifty-eight thousand dollars
to Jackson’s opponents). Jackson
paid off the national debt,
and distributed the surplus
to the states.

The bankers, of course,
merely moved next door,
where the building
was privately owned,
and continued writing notes
that they couldn’t back up,
fueling inflation and speculation,
especially in government lands,
until it all fell apart
in 1837.

The depression that followed
was severe and world-wide
and lasted seven years:
nine-tenths of the factories closed,
people had no money, no food,
rioted in the streets, or moved
back to whatever farms
were still owned
by their relatives.