It’s funny to think just how many people use paper money yet do not really know how the whole concept of paper money started.

Paper money was non existent in the ancient world. Money was mostly coins made from gold or silver or other metals and the more you had, the richer you were.

In order to understand the concept behind paper money, we must look at pre-modern history.

The story of paper money started in eleventh century England. In those times, noblemen were rich and yet they were never satisfied with the amount they had. Besides having lavish life styles demands were placed upon all nobles by the king to pay royal taxes. In the days of the crusades these demands were almost unbearable. The crusades were crippling the economy.

Something had to be done to produce more money, money was power and without it, if you were a nobleman, you were nothing.

One way for nobles to raise money was to levy taxes on the inhabitants of their lands. This was a limited source of income because even if they were taxed to the maximum physically possible there was still only so much to be had.

The other way to acquire more treasure was to wage war on your neighbours, kill them and do of with their treasure. It wasn’t hard to find ligitate reasons for war in those days. Offense could be taken and honor defiled for reasons for which we would hardly even bat an eyelid at nowadays.

Noblemen began to look for ways of stopping others from doing away with their own hard plundered money.

Jews were now coming to live in England. Noblemen knew that Jews had experience in working with and guarding precious metals. The Jew was in a precarious position, he had no citizenship and few rights. By giving the Jew great responsibility he was committed to absolute loyalty.

To this end a number of specially guarded secret stongholds were set up in which to hold the funds and treasure of all the noblemen who cared to entrust it to the protective care of the Jews. Nobody dare attact these strongholds because to do so would be classed as absolute treason and the penalty for such treachery would result in the most terrible death imaginable.

For each pound’s weight of gold that a noble had in the vaults, they were issued with a paper certificate that promised to pay the bearer of that certificate the weight of one pound in gold.

Thus, the nobles could extract only as much gold as they intended to use, keeping the rest safe.

As time past these Jewish trustees realized that gold was not being reclaimed to the extent that they had originally expected. What they saw was that the bearers of the certificates were exchanging them for goods or services which they would have otherwise bought with gold or silver coins. A new method of payment was emerging.

This meant that if the gold was not being withdrawn, odds could be calculated on what the chances were that everybody would come to claim their gold at the same time. These odds varied from period to period according to various political and demographic factors and conditions but on the whole it was calculated that the odds that all gold would be reclaimed at any one specific time were about eighteen to one.

Gold and silver bullion was now becoming security for a new financial structure.

It was now possible to print more certificates that could be given on loan under the agreement that a certain level of interest would be added to the total sum to be paid back.

To the nobles and the monarchy, this was a huge benefit, it was now possible for them to think in business terms instead of being just feudal rulers.

Nobles could set up businesses with borrowed funds within their dominions and appoint people to run these businesses for them. These new businesses ranged from farms to mills to breweries and a great many other businesses.

Noblemen could now pay royal taxes from their earnings and not only through the levy of heavy taxes on constituents and waging war on other noblemen. A new order had come about in the nobility. Could it have been that this was the real reason for the writing of the Magna Carta? After all, in those days, such advancement was a good as a new world order.

The Jews who managed these systems, in time spread to many other countries and set up similar frameworks in those places. Nations protected these people with all their might. They became the very foundation of the wealth of nations. This special class of people became untouchables.

In time, those Jews who were entrusted with the wealth of nations (and indeed sill are), became the most powerful people in the world. They had the power to open and close the taps that feed economies.

Institutions were set up to deal with the withdrawal of funds so that there would be no need to deal directly with the holders of the bullion. In this way the families responsible for holding the nations wealth were able fade into a world of secrecy and virtual anonymity. These institutions are, of course, banks.

Nowadays, not all the families in the business of printing money and holding bullion are Jews. Others, by inter marrying with the Jews or by duplicating the system elsewhere have become established in the “money printing” business.

This, dear reader, is the true story behind the history of paper money.

Thought! Could this be the real reason behind modern anti-semitism? Could it be that some of those self same people who needed the help of the Jews so urgently in those troubled times resented the power that they inevitably had no option other than to hand over to their Jewish trustees?

Antisemitism has been rife throughout the cultured world throughout history but remember that the families who control the power of money have remained immune to this and rightly so. The rage of antisemitism has always fallen on Jews who are lower down on the socio-economic ladder, Jews who are mearly trying to live their lives in peace and who have done nothing to deserve this hatred.

Rulers of countries of land who have traditionally kept their citizens in a state of abject squaller and poverty have systematically pointed their finger at the Jew who saved their skin by guarding their treasuries. What they hated was the fact that the Jew was the only one who could get him out of the utter state of futility that was his medieval reality.

Thus, these unscrupulous noblemen vented their frustration against their Jewish financiers by instilling hatred in the primitive minds of their subjects. The reason being that this distraction diverted the blame from them as the real cause of the hardship and misery.

In our modern times the need to print money is so great that there is only a very small fraction of the total worth of all the money in circulation that has physical gold or silver security behind it. Mostly, it is accepted to take security in the form of paper.

Andy Routledge
http://www.routledge-associates.com