Crash the stock market and you get a recession. Crash the debt market and you get the depression.

Nothing New in Monetary History

QUESTION: Marty, I gather from your writings that the Romans had corporations, stocks, bonds, futures, insurance, and financial panics. The chart you have showing the collapse of the monetary system in just 8.6 years and the 52 year decline in the follis demonstrate what you repeated from the Bible that there is nothing new under the sun. So I suppose the saying boys will be boys applies to bankers. Has anything ever change?
ANSWER: Honestly, only technology. How to do the same thing differently. It seems that old things do not die. Hell, even a 30,000 year old virus came back to life after it was defrosted from the ancient ice. Sort of like politicians. They say in a nuclear blast the cockroaches would survive. My bet is so would politicians. Above is a chart of the English penny. We see the same trend toward debasement. Nothing ever changes.


Here is the collapse of the Byzantine Empire. Unlike the Romans, the Byzantine debased their gold coinage to the point what use to be gold became silver.


This led to the Great Monetary Crisis of 1092. It is always the same scenario. But at the core is also the collapse in debt for therein is the destruction of capital formation. I have stated countless times, crash the stock market and you get a recession. Crash the debt market and you get the depression.


Here is the progressive debasement of the Greek Tetradram. It does not matter what nation we have investigated, It is always the same pattern. So it is true – there is nothing new under the sun.