Price Fixing in Ancient Rome

As might be expected, the Roman Republic was not to be spared a good many ventures into control of the economy by the government. One of the most famous of the Republican statutes was the Law of the Twelve Tables (449 B.C.) which, among other things, fixed the maximum rate of interest at one uncia per libra (approximately 8 percent), but it is not known whether this was for a month or for a year. At various times after this basic law was passed, however, politicians found it popular to generously forgive debtors their agreed-upon interest payments.

A Licinian law of 367 B.C., for instance, declared that interest already paid could be deducted from the principal owed, in effect setting a maximum price of zero on interest. The lex Genucia (342 B.C.) had a similar provision and we are told that violations of this “maximum” were “severely repressed under the lex Marcia.” Levy concludes that “Aside from the Law of the Twelve Tables, these ad hoc or demagogic measures soon went out of use.” (Continue to FULL story…)

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The “Black Friday” Gold Scandal

If any pair of investors had the financial clout and lack of scruples required to engineer the bedlam of Black Friday, it was Jay Gould and Jim Fisk. As president and vice president of the Erie Railroad, the duo had won a reputation as two of Wall Street’s most ruthless financial masterminds. Their rap sheets boasted everything from issuing fraudulent stock to bribing politicians and judges, and they enjoyed a lucrative partnership with Tammany Hall power player William “Boss” Tweed. Continue reading

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A Realistic Argument PROVING $2,432 Gold and $149 Silver

EDITOR: WOW! Now THESE numbers make sense. ~ J.B.

Below is a comment from youtube video on Mike Maloney’s latest video The World’s Biggest Gold Investors are on a Buying Spree

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Gold is $76 AUD a gram here in Australia. Its worth panning a gram or two of gold dust now for a living. Silver is $950 a kilo! [end of comment]

If we convert the numbers to conventional standard weights / measures and convert to Federal Reserve Notes we come up with the following… Continue reading

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(Im) Peaches and Cream…

It is beginning to come apart…

We have described, in the last several days, a fascinating trend that is developing: the dash for cash ahead of the next market crash.

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Here are 3.4 trillion reasons the stock market could be poised for a big rally

Cash. Lots and lots of cash, money, filthy-lucre, green, dinero…

Last week, Lim Chow Kiat, who runs some $440 billion for Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, laid out his case for keeping powder dry. Before that, Chicago billionaire Sam Zell said his firm has never been this cash-heavy. Meanwhile, hedge-fund titan Paul Singer has been busy raising a big chunk of change. Continue reading

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…and you wonder why you are broke!

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Redistributing Our Wealth by the MILLIONS and BILLIONS

We have been railing against Public/Private Partnerships for many years. This is not a new issue. Many times in the past we’ve tried to inform the public of the dangers of PPPs, but they are complicated and most people today don’t want to take the time to delve deeply into anything that isn’t giving them pleasure. But now is the time to become educated on just one of the ways that we are being bled dry, that our money is being sucked off with huge vacuums and given to those conspiring to destroy America and the great American dream. They are winning because we are too busy, too lazy, too involved in other pursuits to stop them. Continue reading

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How wiping out $1.5 trillion in student debt would boost the economy

Many American voters have come around to the idea that the loans are an unsustainable burden

Illustration by Glenn Harvey

Student-debt cancellation, once viewed as a niche political issue, has now, with loans topping a staggering $1.5 trillion, made it onto the platforms of major presidential candidates.

Since at least the Great Recession a decade ago, borrowers, activists and others have been building a case that erasing debt acquired during students college years is a matter of economic justice. More recently, researchers have found that canceling some or all of the nation’s outstanding student debt has the potential to boost gross domestic product, narrow the widening racial wealth gap and liberate millions of Americans from a financial albatross that previous generations never had to contend with. Continue reading

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Do you remember how it was for your parents?

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The Key to a Sustainable Economy Is 5,000 Years Old

We are again reaching the point in the business cycle known as “peak debt,” when debts have compounded to the point that their cumulative total cannot be paid. Student debt, credit card debt, auto loans, business debt and sovereign debt are all higher than they have ever been. As economist Michael Hudson writes in his provocative 2018 book, “…and forgive them their debts,” debts that can’t be paid won’t be paid. The question, he says, is how they won’t be paid… Continue reading

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