This is a good site

[Inor]

Watching a bunch of YouTube videos this evening, I just discovered this site. This is a really good site. He has a bunch of really good videos explaining current monetary methods and policies. I especially recommend this one. It describes the whole monetary policy of the U.S. in really easy to understand terms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0

But his home site is also very good. Check him out.

http://www.hiddensecretsofmoney.com/

[Pauls]

The first "bank" was founded in Sumer about 4500BCE.
There was a trader who was very wealthy by the days standards and he would hold anything of value for traders from out of the area. He held on to peoples gold, silver and copper while they were in town (a place called Ur).
He figured out that he could loan other people part of the holdings (he didn't use his own wealth - just his good name) to people who would pay it back with a charge tacked on to the loan (interest). It would be paid back before the person he was holding the goods for was ready to leave. It worked like this:
Inor gave me 400 silver coins to hold for him so he was sure to have money for the trip home.
I loaned 20 silver coins from his 500 to Ginger, who promised to have it back to me in twenty days with 2 extra silver coins.
She brought the 22 silver coins two days before Inor was ready to leave. I returned Inor's 500 silver coins to him and he went home happy.
I have two silver coins that were made out of nothing. I didn't sell any goods or make anything of value. I just loaned somebody money that wasn't mine, and got paid to do it.
After a time Gilgmeal used promissary notes, instead of actual money, to make money from nothing. This is what banks do today. They keep your money, paying very little interest (about .01%) and loan out notes of demand charging around 5% (that is 500 times what they pay for the money). Anyone who wants to give me five hundred times what any product costs me to make I will be happy to make anything they want.
Consider that most stores only make about 50% on their cost of product with a net profit of about 3% - the other 47% goes into costs associated with storage and other business expenses. (rent, power, water, gas, and wages & benefits to employees) Now with 500% markup they would make 453% net profit - if they could sell there product at that price.