So where do we go now? It is beginning to look like we just should move to a beach and live off the land at least until government comes in and begins to tax in-kind as did Rome. Anyone with 10% of a functioning brain is starting to connect the dots. We can see 2015.75 unfolding little by little. The bank stress tests are fiction for they are supposed to survive if faced with rising interest rates, property collapsing and increased stock market volatility.The solution in such an economic collapse is you run to government debt. But about every other 51.6 year wave it is government’s turn to implode. What happens when the bonds banks are supposed to run to also collapse?
Banking use to be a business where the profit was made lending money long-term and borrowing short-term at lower rates. That was the basic model. The very first central bank failed in Amsterdam because government could not keep its fingers out of other people’s money. It was in Amsterdam that in 1609 we find the founding of the Wisselbank that was created to facilitate trade. With the state of the money supply so unstable, international transactions became impossible without a bank standing between to now certify the quality of the money being given in payment of a contract. Hence, it was with this founding, that Amsterdam became the center for international settlement of accounts at the Wisselbank.
Wisselbank was actually the model upon which the Bank of England was based. The history of the Wisselbank thus illustrates the problem we face today.The bank began merely certifying the money. It became more convenient to leave the money there and to begin to trade bank receipts for you then did not have to test each and every coin to ensure it was real, not debased, or clipped. The Temple of Apollo on Delos provided the same function in Ancient Greece, which was copied by the Romans. Delos is the only place in the world that an entire island is an archaeological site! It was the central bank of the ancient world.
Tangible money presents another huge problem so even a return to a gold standard would fail for you will quickly find bank receipts circulating as money. Are the coins genuine? Bank Money became more valuable than precious metals in every point in history. This very concept of clean certified money then traded at a premium for “Bank Money†but the greed of  government was the bank’s undoing in all ages. Wisselbank was no different.
