4 ms·

Very interesting stuff. Thank you for sharing. What readings would you suggest for someone who doesn't have a strong understanding of banking/financial systems?

by mchaver 13y ago

contingencies 13y ago
Debt: The First 5000 Years is a broadly informed anthropological perspective on various human exchange systems and a masterly evisceration of the set of common misconceptions the author dubs "The Economists' Creation Myth". For a detailed case study of the development of merchant banking (the direct predecessor to modern systems), a fantastic biography of the founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty Amschel Meyer Rothschild is available on Amazon Kindle. Interestingly, it was written by a self-exiled Israeli Jew who gained access to family archives in order to compile the work. There are many others but nothing really holistic that fully takes in to account modernity. (Apologies for the delayed reply: I'm switching continents at the moment!)
- derekp7 13y ago
  There's a documentary floating out there on Youtube, called The Money Masters. What is your feeling of the accuracy of this, and does it properly reflect the banking system history?
  - contingencies 13y ago
    I've seen it. Can't recall the specifics but I believe it essentially skips the technical aspects of the modern era instead focusing on history leading up to the US Federal Reserve and some subsequent well known major events in an effort to raise concern about the systemic problems of fractional reserve and well known derivative issues versus the realities of globalization. For example the fallibility of national regulators, corruption of financial institutions, challenges of post-facto manual slapdash policing versus things like HFT and off-market trading, etc. Notably, I don't recall any mention of SWIFT or the ISO's centralized currency register. Most of the documentaries I've seen are pretty much like that one: comfortable topics people feel are approachable and that they can easily acquire public faces to discuss. Dated enough to be out of view. Already discussed enough to be not too controversial. Often with slightly corrupting funding influences, eg. from the BBC. As for investigative journalism at the heart of the matter, I've never seen any. While nobody can assert a complete knowledge of the current situation, there are clearly some places where digging needs to be done in the global public interest.

Very interesting stuff. Thank you for sharing. What readings would you suggest for someone who doesn't have a strong understanding of banking/financial systems?

by mchaver 13y ago

Very interesting stuff. Thank you for sharing. What readings would you suggest for someone who doesn't have a strong understanding of banking/financial systems?

contingencies 13y ago

Debt: The First 5000 Years is a broadly informed anthropological perspective on various human exchange systems and a masterly evisceration of the set of common misconceptions the author dubs "The Economists' Creation Myth". For a detailed case study of the development of merchant banking (the direct predecessor to modern systems), a fantastic biography of the founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty Amschel Meyer Rothschild is available on Amazon Kindle. Interestingly, it was written by a self-exiled Israeli Jew who gained access to family archives in order to compile the work. There are many others but nothing really holistic that fully takes in to account modernity. (Apologies for the delayed reply: I'm switching continents at the moment!)

derekp7 13y ago
There's a documentary floating out there on Youtube, called The Money Masters. What is your feeling of the accuracy of this, and does it properly reflect the banking system history?
- contingencies 13y ago
  I've seen it. Can't recall the specifics but I believe it essentially skips the technical aspects of the modern era instead focusing on history leading up to the US Federal Reserve and some subsequent well known major events in an effort to raise concern about the systemic problems of fractional reserve and well known derivative issues versus the realities of globalization. For example the fallibility of national regulators, corruption of financial institutions, challenges of post-facto manual slapdash policing versus things like HFT and off-market trading, etc. Notably, I don't recall any mention of SWIFT or the ISO's centralized currency register. Most of the documentaries I've seen are pretty much like that one: comfortable topics people feel are approachable and that they can easily acquire public faces to discuss. Dated enough to be out of view. Already discussed enough to be not too controversial. Often with slightly corrupting funding influences, eg. from the BBC. As for investigative journalism at the heart of the matter, I've never seen any. While nobody can assert a complete knowledge of the current situation, there are clearly some places where digging needs to be done in the global public interest.