From: "Matti Lamprhey" 
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Subject: Re: A Short Histoy of Banking
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 12:13:53 +0100
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 wrote...
> In the old days there was no paper money. The accepted token of
> exchange was precious metal minted into coins by the Church and the
> Crown. Because there was only a limited amount of gold and silver
> available, the economic life of the nation had a certain regularity.
>
> An even greater restriction existed throughout Christendom. This was a
> prohibition against usury, or charging interest. The Church held it to
> be a grave sin and the code was upheld by the civil powers. There were
> harsh penalties for those who broke the law.
>
> The regulation of usury was to prevent the separation of money from
> reality. Money is not a good, it is a measure. It is fraud to pretend
> otherwise, and constitutes theft. Usury is making money from lending
> money; it is making money from nothing. This is exactly what is
> happening today on a colossal scale.  

This is not correct.  The usurer who lends _real_ money to someone is 
not creating money out of thin air.  If you want to trace the chap who 
invented inflation, just google "who wrote the first IOU".  (Actually my 
money says it was a woman.)

Matti