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The First, and Worst, Global Financial Collapse and How Venice Manipulated it.

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Fluffy_Fishy

Fluffy_Fishy

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Feb 16, 2014
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I stumbled across this article today, with some incredible claims, the article comes mostly sourced from Chapel Lane's "Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice" and Edwin Hunt's "The Medieval Supercompanies: A Study of the Peruzzi Company of Florence" and talks about how Venice manipulated the most dramatic financial crash of all time and the most significant implosion of the world economy. They did this by creating a gold and silver monopoly, through managing the mongol empire and carefully setting the price of the gold and silver standard before undermining the financial sectors of Europe and Eurasia whilst maintaining their own banking sector.

Its a fascinating read that has dramatic effects on European production and the effects of the black death. It is however a fairly long article that covers the basics, although its fascinating to think just how impressive the intrigue was spread.

Something that is worth pointing out however is that there are a few points made that probably wouldn't hold together under scrutiny but the general themes of the article, ignoring some of the stuff going on in china ect its an interesting take of the financial meltdown of the period.

Here it is, Enjoy :):
https://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_91-96/954_Gallagher_Venice_rig.html
 
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Just be aware that your source is from a Lyndon LaRouche publication (i.e. crazy conspiracy theorists who are prone to promote ridiculous claims about the world financial system that frequently skirt on anti-semitism).

So take everything you read in it with a ginormous helping of salt.
 
So before the House of Winsor it was Venice that were the villains? LaRouche continous to entertain.
 
I was going to write a critique of the article, but after reading the first dozen or so paragraphs I realised that virtually every one contained an exaggeration, political point unrelated to the history or an attempt to project modern ideas onto an earlier context. Just to provide some examples so people don't think I am rubbishing an idea simply because I disagree with it:

"The critical difference between 1345 and 1995, was that in the Fourteenth century there were as yet no nations. No governments had the national sovereignty to control the banks and the creation of credit; or, to force these banks into bankruptcy in an orderly way, and replace fictitious bank credit and money with national credit. Nor was the Papacy, the world leadership of the Church, fighting against the debt-looting of the international banks then as it is today; in fact, at that time it was allied with, aiding, and abetting them.

The result was a disaster for the human population, which fell worldwide by something like 25 percent between 1300 and 1450 (in Europe, by somewhere between 35 percent and 50 percent from the 1340’s collapse to the 1440’s)."

1. Somehow the banks are responsible for the Black Death in a direct way. As far as I can tell it was caused by a germ rather than bad lending practices.
2. The argument about what constitutes a nation is still strongly debated and there are many historians who would argue that claiming that there were no nations in 14th century Europe is a very strong claim to make with no evidence.
3. The leading role of the Papacy in fighting against the 'debt-looting of the international banks' in the modern world (particularly as this article was written during the reign John-Paul 2) is a proposition many of my socialist friends would find objectionable to say the least.
4. The Papacy was not the world leadership of the church. Only the leadership of the Catholic church, and sometimes only that in theory.
5. A population decline of 50% for Europe is simply wrong. Wikipedia gives a growth in population of around 13 million for the century from 1350-1450. Whilst demography is a contested area with often wildly differing values, to claim a massive decrease in population of 35-50% when the consensus position is slow/stagnant growth is an extraordinary claim which the author supplies no support for.
6. The idea that a banking crisis in Europe could cause serious problems to the economy of China or India, to the extent that they suffered a population decline, given that Europe at this point is an economic backwater, is again an extraordinary claim that runs against everything I know about economics in that period.

And that is just the obvious problems in 2 paragraphs. This is not bad history. This not even really history at all.
 
treating it with a pinch of salt is good with me, venice did have the largest salt monopoly of the period :D

it made for an interesting read for me all the same. The irony is that Venice and a few other of the Italian and German states are probably the first places you might consider as to what is the modern meaning of the word nation.

I'm sure the information is much more elegantly handled in the original sources and the article I posted is obviously a bit crazy but again it threw an interesting perspective and brought some attention to the economic melt down of the period.

Even while there is some crazy and gross distortion of truth there is still some useful underlying factors within the conspiracy theory with regards to monopolies and manipulating gold/silver prices to drive an incredibly aggressive collection of trade policies over the late 13th and the 14th centuries from Venice.

Geriander said:
So before the House of Winsor it was Venice that were the villains? LaRouche continous to entertain.
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Where do the evil Rothschild family come into being the world supervillains? I thought it was them who pulled the string of house Windsor ;)
 
Fluffy_Fishy said:
treating it with a pinch of salt is good with me, venice did have the largest salt monopoly of the period :D

it made for an interesting read for me all the same. The irony is that Venice and a few other of the Italian and German states are probably the first places you might consider as to what is the modern meaning of the word nation.

I'm sure the information is much more elegantly handled in the original sources and the article I posted is obviously a bit crazy but again it threw an interesting perspective and brought some attention to the economic melt down of the period.

Even while there is some crazy and gross distortion of truth there is still some useful underlying factors within the conspiracy theory with regards to monopolies and manipulating gold/silver prices to drive an incredibly aggressive collection of trade policies over the late 13th and the 14th centuries from Venice.
Click to expand...

It really isn't. It's vaguely interesting if you want to know about mid-1990s conspiracy theory craziness, but not really anything else.
 
The loutish English tourists who invade Venice every summer are simply extracting reparations on behalf of poor King Edward III.
 
Is this another version of the Venetian Conspiracy meme that was floating around here before?
 
The sad part is...

It wasn't even the first global(ish) financial collapse either.
 
Fluffy_Fishy said:
Why are you guys taking it so seriously? its a bit over the top
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We are all history snobs here.
Stuff like this happens when you conquered Russia for a dozen times, turned Brazil into a Turkish colony and knowing that if Guderian had not turned south everyone would speak German now.
 
Graf Zeppelin said:
We are all history snobs here.
Stuff like this happens when you conquered Russia for a dozen times, turned Brazil into a Turkish colony and knowing that if Guderian had not turned south everyone would speak German now.
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With the exception of the Swiss... in order to force the Swiss to speak proper German Guderian had to turn south in the direction of Bern instead of West towards the Channel.
 
bz249 said:
With the exception of the Swiss... in order to force the Swiss to speak proper German Guderian had to turn south in the direction of Bern instead of West towards the Channel.
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10 or so IC was never worth the trouble. *nods*
 
bz249 said:
It is not about IC, it is about principles. They should speak High German, because that is the natural order.
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Well high German is my secondary language so I dont see the appeal. I am Swabian.
 
bz249 said:
So member of the evil organization which conspired to oppress and exploit Baden?
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They are ex Swabians and Swiss rejects. I also doubt there is something to exploit there.
 
If the glorious Norse Hindu empire hadn't stepped in, you'd all be speaking Venetian by now.
 
That said my dear Op, Venice/Italian history is always appreciated on my side. If that article is bollocks or not it is quite interesting.
 
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