Section II. A Crash Course on Money, Chapters 9-10 The Secret Science; The Mandrake Mechanism Summary and Analysis

Summary

According to Chapter 9, the city-state of Venice was considered to have started banking as known today by establishing the Banco della Piazza del Rialto in 1584. By 1619 this was changed to Banco del Giro. A host of other followed, all with the same fatal flaw of lending out more money than they held in reserves. In 1609 the Bank of Amsterdam was formed and restricted from making loans with its deposits, but this did not last. The Bank was closed in 1790. The Bank of Hamburg did better. Formed in the early 1600s, it stayed solvent until Napoleon captured it in 1813 and took the millions of German marks, minted from precious metals, for France. The...