Originally posted by bartholomeo
Britains Goldsmiths
Sorry this is the link and of course it's written in fiction so as not to spark political prosecution but it's pretty much the sad story in which we live in today, and as far as my knowledge is concerned all fingers are pointing to England as it all started there. [edit on 1-12-2006 by bartholomeo]
That link does work, and I do see what you're getting at now. The money conspiracy is about as real as any covert agenda can be. Politicians and rich people have always found a way to manipulate economics in their favor. The conspiracy theory you see laid out in this thread is predicated on similar notions. I do think that our leaders are engaged in sometimes deliberate mismanagement of our economy to further their own agendas by inspiring one crisis after another in which they can profit while appearing to save us.
As a qualifed historian, I can atest to the fact that usery took place even in the days of barter. In the modern world, money as a medium of exchange does have the potential to level the playing field...to a limited degree. It's much easier to learn basic money management skills than it is to learn the ins and outs of barter.
If today's power elite didn't have money, they'd invent it. Remember that CREDIT was around long before physical money became common. Agreed upon credit may have been among the world's very first verbal contracts. Even in the modern world, we still need banking reforms. Socialism appears "attractive" to many because it gives the appearance of putting an end to this problem.
Here in the United States, members of Congress peddled their influence throughout the 19th century without large sums of money. They could be bought for the price of a land deed. Perhaps an agreed upon number of horses. Even today, it's possible to buy a Senator's vote by giving him/her an expensive thing such a Rolex watch, a luxury car, or even a moderately sized sailboat.
I myself have engaged in barter, and boy did I ever get the better end of the deal. In an office setting, I traded a stapler for a telephone. Then, I traded the phone for a microfilm reader. That reader was traded for a fax machine, which allowed me to swap the fax machine for the typewriter I needed...to...trade for the computer I wanted. In the end, everybody got what they asked for, but I ended up with more than I started with.
It's true that many of the old money families that "built" Western civilization are still involved in that process. They're getting richer all the time. None of this is an excuse for the lack of reforms that we need to see in many countries. If anything, these observations underscore the need for those reforms. There will always be somebody on the lookout for loopholes in whatever system of government and economics they live under.
I would be a bad Conspiracy Master if I didn't look for some of those loopholes to satisfy my own...needs.
