This website is currently undergoing a major transformation that will hopefully be ready before the end of the year. The current election cycle has absorbed a great deal of my time and has caused, as a consequence, enumerable delays. I am not a professional code writer, but what is coming down the line has impressed even the IT dilettant that I am.

In the end, the difference between Republicans and Democrats is truly different this year, and the up-coming general election is consequently worthy of every American's attention. Accordingly, I am spending much of my time encouraging reluctant others to vote. This said, there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that the Uni-Party is also very real, and what underpins it is statutory counterfeit -- the very topic of Mount Cambitas.

I have provided an outline of the first of two volumes that are already completed and currently undergoing their final revision. The second volume deals principally with the United States of America and its struggle against the usurpation of our nation's money supply up until the formation of the Federal Reserve System in 1919. It also takes a close look at Germany between World War I and II and the formation of the Bank of International Settlements.

There has been plenty written about the Federal Reserve System, but it is the struggle before its formation that is truly worth highlighting. For, it is a struggle similar to the one that lies ahead.

Volume I

Table of Contents with Quick Summaries

Chapter 1 - The Origin of Real Money in the West 1-15

Real (sound, hard) money does not work in the same way as soft money (inflationary counterfeit). In fact, it works much better.
Chapter 2 - Time, Money, and Obligation 16-22

The world is filled with uncertainty, and our dreams are relentless. There must be a mechanism in place by which we can reach a balance between what we believe ourselves capable of achieving and the resources that are available for its achievement.
Chapter 3 - Funding the King 23-32

There are few things of very much social worth that do not follow a tortuous path of error and correction. Looking to where we are and comparing it with where we were with no understanding of the path taken is both flattering and deceptive. It is flattering because it shows our genius, and it is deceptive because it conceals the enormous sacrifice that was made.
Chapter 4 - The Formation of a Republic, A New Bank, and the VOC 33-42

The formation of the La Casa de la Contratación greatly facilitated the development of overseas navigation. When the Ottoman Turks arrived on the shores of the East Mediterranean, the spice trade between India and Europe was interrupted and new trade routes were sought. At the same time, Martin Luther appeared and challenged the Catholic Church at its foundation. A great religious reformation was ignited followed by war and mass migration on the European Continent. These changes gave rise to the Dutch Republic.
Chapter 5 - The Murmurs of a Stock Exchange 43-50

Markets do not just happen. They are the result of a myriad of decisions and motivations on the part of those who participate in them. The individual is confronted with a problem and experiments with different solutions until one is finally found, or he abandons his idea altogether.
Chapter 6 - The Portuguese Jews and Usury 51-56

Religions such as Christianity and Islam are messianic. There door is open to all who would enter and listen. Other religions are more cult-like in nature. They are secretive and membership is tightly restricted. When membership is closed double standards can easily arise: one set of rules for you, and another set of rules for us.
Chapter 7 - Religion, War, Trade, and Migration 57-61

Buffeted by the political circumstances of the age the Jews took advantage of their international contacts and strong family ties to establish themselves as financial traders on Amsterdam, Exchange.
Chapter 8 - Jean Calvin, Usury, and the Catholic Church 62-69

Opposition to the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire dominated by the Hapsburg Dynasty arose in several forms. In addition to Islam from the outside there was Lutheranism and Calvinism from the inside. Unlike Martin Luther who sought to maintain the divide between the sacred and the profane, Jean Calvin sought to merge the teaching of the Christian Church with the political and economic reality of his day.
Chapter 9 - The Price of the Future 70-73

In a world of sound money the purchasing power of our money today will typically be the same or of greater value tomorrow. This is because the number of goods and services in the world grows faster than the money supply. This increase in the number of goods and services does not just happen, however. For, we must sacrifice consumption today for more or better consumption in the future.

This sacrifice has a price. Is there some way that we can know it? It is the story of Sylva.
Chapter 10 - Effort, Luck, and the Right Decision 74-79

Markets do not just appear. They are the result of a large number of decisions, made by a large number of people — each doing what is best for himself, each in voluntary cooperation with everyone else. Each decision comes with a risk and some decisions turn out better than others. This said, without sacrifice and effort no decision is very likely to be the best, but it is yours for having made it.

It is the story of Jozef and Ans.
Chapter 11 - Hendrik, His Broker, and a Trader 80-86

Markets are the result of many human beings coming together and making decisions about themselves and others. Each individual enters into the market place in an effort to obtain something that will better his lot. In exchange he surrenders something that will benefit the lot of others. It is, potentially speaking, a win-win scenario for both the buyer and the seller so long as it is voluntary.
Chapter 12 - The Negotiation 87-89

Before you enter into a market negotiation you ought to have some idea of what you want, the most that you are willing to pay for it, or alternatively, the least that you are willing to accept for what you are trying to sell, and a reasonable alternative should the negotiation fail. It is also of value to know something about the person with whom you are negotiating and what it is that he hopes to obtain.
Chapter 13 - Voluntary Free Markets 90-93

Voluntary free markets are self-regulating. They become distorted and lead to perverse outcomes when governments interfere. It is one thing to settle disputes between particular market agents. It is quite another for governments to actively engage in the manipulation of prices of certain goods and services. This latter kind of interference is especially pronounced when the commodity whose price government seeks to manipulate is that of money itself — the unit of account by which all other prices are determined.
Chapter 14 - A Special Place in History 94-97

The United Dutch Provinces are very special in the modern history of Western civilization for several reasons. For example, they were the first republic since the ancient republic of Rome to form an empire that spanned a wide area of the globe. More important to our own discussion, however the Dutch Republic was the last Western nation, not only founded on the principle of sound money, but became great because of the principle.
Chapter 15 - The Estates of Holland 98-102

Holland was the largest province of the United Dutch Provinces. It would quickly become the principle and most developed developed province. Its system of public finance played an important role in both its development and prominence. It introduced an entirely new market-based form of public finance — public finance based solely on real (sound) money.
Chapter 16 - Profound Economic Growth During a War 103-104

Always there is someone who profits from war, else war would not be fought. If it is not those who start the war, then it is those who sustain it. The role of the state in the conflagration of war is to defend the state and destroy the enemy. It is good to be friends with one’s neighbors especially during the time of war.
Chapter 17 - Families of Intrigue and Political Competition 105-110

The Dutch Republic was a powerful economic outlier, a nail sticking out that needed to be pounded down. The English were torn by religious strife and confused about how they should be governed. The French, though largely unified around the Catholic Church and their king were decidedly autocratic, little uninterested in republican government and religious tolerance. The Dutch were caught in between.
Chapter 18 - Two Different Kinds of Landlords 111-116

As trade expanded, new markets arose, and from these town and cities grew. The landlords of the noble aristocracy were ill-suited for the management of these municipalities, and a new kind of landlord arose — the property owner.
Chapter 19 - Looking Up and Looking Down 117-119

The state grew out of the need for order and defense. The municipality grew out of the desire to trade and manufacture. Money-in-use contributed in part to a naturally occurring wealth gap in the municipality, and the upper echelon of the municipality eventually merged with the landed nobility. There existed upward social mobility in the municipality that did not exist in the country.
Chapter 20 - Money in Alms and Per Vim 121-124

Money given voluntarily and money extracted with force are two very different ways of redistributing wealth. Each has a very different purpose. When the two are merged in the state the purpose of each becomes blurred and the effectiveness of both to achieve their respective tasks is diminished.
Chapter 21 - Kings and Republics 125-129

In addition to its success with real money public finance what made the United Dutch Provinces so very different on the world stage from the United States of America was that the Dutch were unable to rid themselves of Dutch royalty. This failure would eventually bring the Dutch Republic to its knees.
Chapter 22 - Money-ad-prodigo 130-135

As the still young Dutch Republic grew in wealth so too did the depth and the breadth of the state. In order to finance this enlargement money-ad-prodigo — a money-generating as opposed to a wealth-generating form of money-in-use was introduced.
Chapter 23 - The State, Society, and Taxation 136-140

The state arose through the imposition of one society on another. And, from this imposition there grew a set of rules that were alien to both cultures. In order to sustain the apparatus of the state taxation was introduced — a kind of theft to which everyone reluctantly or more readily agrees.
Chapter 24 - The Formation of the State 141-146

How states are formed reveals much about their nature, the reason for their existence, and why America was founded on the principle that the state, although seemingly necessary, is inherently evil.
Chapter 25 - Future Value and Debt 147-152

The principal reason for a state to borrow is to defer taxation. Because borrowing means a higher tax bill, the state will often seek to pay back only the interest on what it has borrowed, and incur more debt when it is time to pay back the old. In this way it maintains a permanent pool of debt, and the burden on the taxpayer is lighter.
Chapter 26 - Dutch Financial Innovation153-156

With the coming of still another war liquidity was an important problem for The Estates. This problem was overcome with the final emergence of a thriving bond market. This market was not the only Dutch financial innovation, however. There was also the Dutch withholding tax.
Chapter 27 - Temptation and Corruption157-161

For 60 years the Exchange Bank of Amsterdam was a noble institution that respected the property of its member-accounts. However, when the savings of a community is amassed in one place, it appears quite large, and one’s own personal needs seem so small in comparison — especially when those needs can be made to appear for the good of the general public. This was the temptation, and theft on a grand scale was the outcome.
Chapter 28 - Softening the Soil 162-168

The introduction of fractional reserve banking was not a stroke of genius to benefit humankind; rather, it was a corrupt, practical response to a nagging shortage of money brought about by endless warring and historical circumstances that opened the door to corruption
Chapter 29 - A Moral Interlude 169-173

No lending money into existence was not a stroke of genius; it was a highly corrosive act of theft whose grievous shadow we have lived under for more than three centuries. Important is that we expose and finally bring an end to it.
Chapter 30 - The Glorious Revolution 174-177

The Dutch Long Century ended with the English Glorious Revolution. The English struggle for independence from the Catholic papacy was not yet over, and blinded by his own hatred for the Louis XIV William III from the Dutch House of Orange-Nassau would usher in the demise of the Dutch Republic.
Chapter 31 - A Tale of Two Cities 178-181

Charles Dickens once wrote about A Tale of Two Cities that highlighted the French Revolution — what gave rise to Napoléon Bonaparte. There was, however, a more important tale of two cities that preceded French Revolution by more than a half-century. Rather than a tale that transpired between London and Paris; it was a tale involving London and Amsterdam. Indeed, it was this former tale that paved the way to the latter tale and initiated not only the demise of the Dutch Empire, but also gave rise to the greatest theft in the history of humankind.
Chapter 32 - The Abomination of 1694 182-185

Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been lives in a dream, Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door who is it for? All the lonely people … etc.

Father McKenzie, writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear no one comes near, Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there’s nobody there, what does he care? All the lonely people … etc.

Lyrics for the song “Eleanor Rigby” Paul McCartney, 1966
Chapter 33 - Patterson’s Design - A Tale of Means and Ends 186-190

Throughout life we are tempted by our goals to adopt means that we know to be wrong.
Chapter 34 - Falsely Attributed Attribution 191-193

We often point to Great Britain as a source of financial enlightenment. We are naïvely told and so believe that the English invented money. What they invented is statutory counterfeit — how to steal, as if theft were somehow moral.
Chapter 35 - Bimetallism and Coin Debasement 194-197

The monetary discipline that had been established in Amsterdam never found its way to London, England, and the introduction of anonymous deposit receipts were never given a proper chance to develop into a sound monetary system. The English system was plagued by a variety of coin failures.
Chapter 36 - Money, Currency, and Coin 198-201

We are often told in school that the money that we use today is the genius of Medieval goldsmiths who realized one day that they could do good for everyone by fooling their customers into believing that they had more gold than they actually did. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The story of fake money is a tale of woe and sorrow for most of humanity
Chapter 37 - The Great Facilitator 202-206

For too long we have chased after the wrong dragons, and another is about to bite us. It is time that we distinguish clearly between money-in-use, what was promoted by Jean Calvin, and the money-ex-nihilo introduced in 17th century England and promoted today by eager capitalists who are all too ready to perpetuate the theft.
Chapter 38 - Crossing the Channel 207-209

As the light of the Dutch Republic dimmed, the darkness that underlay the rise of the British Empire took hold.
Chapter 39 - Funding the King 210-212

Kings were warriors. They did not till the soil; rather, they moistened it with blood. It was the peasant farmer and his noble landlord who fed, clothed, and sheltered the king, and the king insisted that it were so through the imposition of taxes that were sometimes freely given, and sometimes not. For with the taxes the king could purchase what he thought he needed.
Chapter 40 - La fronde I 213-216

The period of transition between the reigns of Louis XIII and his son, Louis XIV, was tumultuous. Within less than two years Cardinal Richelieu, Marie de’ Medici, the mother of Louis XIII, and Louis XIII, himself passed away. This left an important power vacuum at the top of the French state. A struggle ensued that would greatly influence Louis XIV as he was being groomed for his future role as France’s next king.
Chapter 41 - From Valois to Bourbon 217-218

With the death of Henri III in the late 16th century the French royal dynasty of Valois-Angoulême came to an end. This resulted in a heated religious war between French Catholics and Protestants. With the crowning of Henri IV it was clear that the Protestants had won. In order to restore peace, however, Henri IV married Marie de’ Medici, an Italian catholic who was a very talented woman in matters of royal and political intrigue. The pendulum swung back in favor of the Catholics under the reign of Louis XIII, the first Marie de’Medici six children.
Chapter 42 - Monarchie à la française 219-224

La Fronde marks a troubled time of civil war between the French monarchy and the French state. The legacy of Cardinal Richelieu was strong and enduring, but neither Cardinal Richelieu, nor Louis XIII was present to carry it forward. It was a period of transition overseen by Cardinal Mazarin, an Italian, and the Queen Regent of France, Marie de l’Autriche, of Austrian-Spanish background. King Louis XIV had not yet come of age and assumed the reigns of power. Moreover, the rise of La grand bourgeoisie and the expansion of La paulette brought about a period of financial and political enmity that required strong, accepted leadership to overcome
Chapter 43 - La fronde II 225-230

By the beginning of the 17th century the French state was administered by the king’s royal court, a large, powerful, state bureaucracy largely resident in Paris, France, and numerous noble landlords who maintained a variety of relationships with the king and the bureaucracy. With the appearance of La grand bourgeoisie the administration of the French state changed considerably. Money began to play an increasingly important role in the choice of administrators selected by the monarch. This ran contrary to the bureaucracy that held the king in check.
Chapter 44 - Jean-Baptiste Colbert 231-235

La fronde des princes concluded with the coronation of Louis XIV, the banishment of Le grand Condé from France, and the reconfirmation of Cardinal Mazarin as the first minister of the French state. With the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661 Nicolas Fouquet became the second most powerful member of the French state
Chapter 45 - A Man of Integrity 236-238

It takes only one with integrity to lead those who might otherwise run afoul.
Chapter 46 - With the Passing of a Giant 239-243

What helped Louis XIV at the beginning was not with him in the end. Although he desired full control of his own reign, he lacked the fiscal self-discipline to manage it. With the passing of his mother, Anne de l’Autriche, Cardinal Mazarin, and Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis selected those who would not oppose him and settled instead for fiscal mediocrity and economic ruin.
Chapter 47 - The Divining Rod 244-248

Bad ideas that are poorly thought through can quickly spread, if they appear useful.
Chapter 48 - Discovery and Invention 249-254

If money-ex-nihilo were a discovery, then it was one of the most sordid kind. We went from money-in-use — what was the lending of a real thing — to an industry of promises in which one knowingly promised what one, at some point, could not deliver.
Chapter 49 - Pandora’s Box 255-256

Once the French monarchy realized that its phony money would be accepted by French merchants, there was little that it did not do to put ever more of it into circulation. After all, to the French merchant phony money was better than no money at all, and in the end they had little choice.
Chapter 50 - Money and Trade Considered 257-261

The musings of John Law in his 1705 treatise entitled “Money and Trade Considered” exhibited a could deal of market understanding, on the one hand, and completely misguided market advice, on the other hand. In all cases they were prescient for what the future would bring, and the monetary chaos that would result.
Chapter 51 - A Monetary Authority 262-267

It is sometimes said that a little knowledge is dangerous. This did not seem to be the case with John Law, for he appeared to be very knowledgeable about the nature of economic activity. Unfortunately, like many other prominent people of his day, he suffered from certain blindspots about the true nature of money.
Chapter 52 - John Law's Ascent 268-272

Within five years John Law rose from a complete unknown within French society to the financial right-hand of Louis XV’s regent, Philippe II, Le duc d’Orléans. It was a miraculous rise in political and financial power that reflected the monetary disarray of the French monarchy and its desperate need for financial guidance. John Law’s Banque générale privée sent a shock wave through France’s financial robe de noblesse.

Unfortunately, the monetary theft did not stop. It merely changed hands.
Chapter 53 - La Louisiane 273-276

La Louisiane consisted principally of the Mississippi River Valley discovered and explored by Robert de la Salle during the second half of the 17th century. It formed an important part of La Nouvelle France. During the latter half of King Louis XIV’s reign it was unsuccessfully managed by Antoine Crozat, a wealthy French treasury-banker who had endeared himself to the king. When the king passed away Crozat became the target of political infighting and management of the territory was awarded to John Law.
Chapter 54 - La compagnie perpétuelle des Indes 277-280

John Law may have succeeded, but the nature of the means and the nature of human beings were not in his favor. He was in over his head.
Chapter 55 - La chute du système de Law 281-283

The collapse of the financial innovations introduced by John Law was not accidental, for the system was founded in corruption and destined to fail — in part, because of human frailty, in part because of the willful intervention on the part of those who were harmed by its introduction. Then too, all that is bad is not without a silver lining. And yes, there was a scapegoat.
Chapter 56 - The Dutch Settlements 284-288

The Dutch were traders, the English were colonists, and the Indians were hunters. Colonial farming was a more reliable source of economic livelihood. Just as it had dominated in Europe, so too would it dominate in North America. What made it so successful among the British was the right to the private ownership of land.

Money would be introduced through trade
Chapter 57 - Formation of the English Provinces 289-293

The formation of the various North American provincial settlements was by no means uniform. The overriding strategy was one of development and trade. Development necessarily preceded trade, and development necessarily included the clearing of forest land. This strategy put the colonists at odds with the hunters who inhabited the forests and depended on them for their livelihood. With the passage of time colonial governments evolved to negotiate and maintain the peace. These governments required funding and formed as entities largely independent of the English king.
Chapter 58 - Beggar Thy Neighbor 294-298

Institutional theft is the worst kind. For, it eats away at a society from the inside out. It is an asymptomatic disease that is only felt when the damage that it creates is so great that the system breaks, because it has been structurally weakened and can no longer function as it should. Its discovery is often too late.
Chapter 59 - Colonial Land Banks 299-302

The colonists were a rugged inventive lot who used whatever means worked and could be reasonably accommodated by most. This is not to say that the colonists were not principled, for a good many of them had come to America in order to practice their respective interpretations of the Holy Bible free of political imposition. In the end, it was not as if their lifestyle were not already difficult enough, but it was completely unacceptable for highly privileged, wigged lords and parliamentarians sitting in London, England, to dictate to them with the king’s approval how to overcome the constraints placed upon by the same who imposed the constraints.
Chapter 60 - Tobacco Sine Nominé 303-304

In the British province of Virginia tobacco was both a source of indulgence and a medium of exchange. It was far better than either corn or wampum, but not as good as specie. Until the mid-18th century it served as the province's principal unit of account.
Chapter 61 - The French and Indian War 305-309

The British subjects of North America were ordinary neither in their character, nor in their way of life. They owned their own property, and their assemblies were comprised of elected officials. Although loyal to their king and deferential toward their governors they demanded the same respect as the landowners who occupied the British parliament. Similarly, they were not immune from the politics of the Europe, and Great Britain had married into the Hapsburg Dynasty that ruled the Holy Roman Empire. It was a matrimony that could not endure, for the French were Catholic, and the French did not answer to the dictates of the Holy Roman Empire.
Chapter 62 - A Tale of Two Republics 310-314

We were not the Dutch Republic, and the Province of Virginia was not the Province of Holland. In times of crisis one could fund the state through forced lending or the issue of statutory counterfeit. The Dutch had chosen forced lending — what was already a more than century old European tradition; the Americans, in contrast, chose the more “modern approach” of issuing statutory counterfeit.
Chapter 63 - Funding the War Effort 315-318

The American War for Independence was not accidental. Indeed, it was fought for many reasons. Among these was the mismanagement of our colonial money supply. Unfortunately, little is ever said about the matter in our history books. Equally unfortunate is that this egregious omission is surely not by accident. For, a thorough understanding of the early role that money-ex-nihilo played in our nation’s founding would explain much about the current financial dilemma in which we find ourselves today.
Chapter 64 - Government Loan Certificates 319-321

Even before the war's end the Continental was deemed worthless, and Congress was desperate for new funding to support the war effort. The impressment of merchants' wares and farmers’ foodstuffs was frowned upon by most Americans, and quickly became a problem for Congress. A temporary fix came in the form of government loan certificates, but even these would not be sufficient. America had no bond market, and its money-ex-nihilo was neither proper, nor effective.
Chapter 65 - Desperate Means 322-328

As the war dragged on and our financial situation worsened desperate means were undertaken to secure a victory over the British empire
Chapter 66 - It's Just a Game 329-330

Counterfeit is a form of theft, no matter who engages in it.

Volume II

Chapter - (Pages -)

Mount Cambitas

The Story of Real Money

Volume I

Table of Contents with Quick Summaries

Volume II

Table of Contents

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