Economic Oligarchy Belloc

If 
liberty of purchase and of sale, of mortgage and of 
inheritance was restricted, it was restricted with the 
social object of preventing the growth of an economic 
oligarchy which could exploit the rest of the com- 
munity. The restraints upon liberty were restraints 
designed for the preservation of liberty ; and every 
action of Mediaeval Society, from the flower of the 
Middle Ages to the approach of their catastrophe, 
was directed towards the establishment of a State in 
which men should be economically free through the 
possession of capital and of land. 
 
https://archive.org/stream/servilestate00belluoft#page/50/mode/2up

Henry VIII brought usury to England

The canons of the Roman Catholic Church prohibited 
all usance or interest. The great French jurisconsult, 
Pothier, decides that the minutest coin beyond the sum 
lent, if added to the loan when repaid, constituted usury, 
and stamped the contract with crime. A legal rate of 
interest was first fixed in England in 1545, by the 
statute 37 Henry VIII. It was repealed by 5 and 6 
Edward VI., but restored by Elizabeth. The rate was 
ten per cent, for a year. It was reduced by the 21 
James I., c. 27, to eight per cent.
 
https://archive.org/stream/bankcharteractou00dunc#page/178/mode/2up 

Saturday, January 23, 2016

THE JUSTICE OF THE PEACE

DISTINGUISH carefully between the two, This thing is yours, the other thing is mine. You have a shirt, a brimless hat, a shoe And half a coat. I am the Lord benign Of fifty hundred acres of fat land To which I have a right. You understand? I have a right because I have, because, Because I have—because I have a right. Now be quite calm and good, obey the laws, Remember your low station, do not fight Against the goad, because, you know, it pricks Whenever the uncleanly demos kicks. I do not envy you your hat, or shoe. Why should you envy me my small estate? It’s fearfully illogical in you To fight with economic force and fate. Moreover, I have got the upper hand, And mean to keep it. Do you understand? ~Hilaire Belloc: in “Sonnets and Verse.”

President Harrison on Currency

Connected with this subject is the character of the currency. The idea of making it exclusively metallic, however well intended, appears to me to be fraught with more fatal consequences than any other scheme having no relation to the personal rights of the citizens that has ever been devised. If any single scheme could produce the effect of arresting at once that mutation of condition by which thousands of our most indigent fellow-citizens by their industry and enterprise are raised to the possession of wealth, that is the one. If there is one measure better calculated than another to produce that state of things so much deprecated by all true republicans, by which the rich are daily adding to their hoards and the poor sinking deeper into penury, it is an exclusive metallic currency. Or if there is a process by which the character of the country for generosity and nobleness of feeling may be destroyed by the great increase and neck toleration of usury, it is an exclusive metallic currency.

http://www.inaugural.senate.gov/swearing-in/address/address-by-william-h-harrison-1841

Friday, January 8, 2016

Police: Victim killed, found along Onion Creek was 16-year-old boy

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/crime-law/police-victim-killed-found-along-onion-creek-was-1/npz8n/#9e499b0b.3828699.735971

http://keyetv.com/news/local/body-found-near-onion-creek-identified-as-runaway-teen

Newsom said there's no reason for the public to fear for their safety. But they hope for his mother’s sake that people will come forward with new information. “We do hope that anyone that sees this, that knew Darian, or knew any of his associates, or have any information about the robberies, come forward, cause we need that for his mother, so she can have some peace, what little she can get. No matter what the young man was involved in, he's still a 16-year-old child. His family still deserves closure and he did not deserve to die in the manner that he did.”

http://www.fox7austin.com/news/local-news/71367958-story