Sublime

Economies that combined all these institutional innovations – banks, bond markets, stock markets, insurance and property-owning democracy – performed better over the long run than those that did not, because financial intermediation generally permits a more efficient allocation of resources

Behind each great historical phenomenon there lies a financial secret, and this book sets out to illuminate the most important of these. For example, the Renaissance created such a boom in the market for art and architecture because Italian bankers like the Medici made fortunes by applying Oriental mathematics to money. The Dutch Republic prevailed

In his report, Hamilton championed several controversial measures. Some original holders of the wartime promissory notes, including many Continental Army veterans, had sold them after the war at a tiny fraction of their face value, believing that they would never be repaid in full. Hamilton planned to redeem them at face value and wanted current

Then there’s the debt trap – one of the most powerful of the growth imperatives. Governments finance their activities in large part by selling bonds, which is a way of borrowing money. But bonds come with interest, and interest is a compound function. In order to pay interest on bonds, governments have to generate revenues, which usually means

bitcoin could establish itself as a global alternative to fiat currencies during a historical period when these moneys are vulnerable to the depredations of the world’s governments, now indebted to the unsustainable level of $280 trillion.