Fr John Jimenez has served the Archdiocese of San Francisco for 25 years as a priest, and 35 years helping parishes, while also teaching in local public schools. Soon he will be joining the Society of St James in their missionary work in Peru. Here is an article on how historically, the development of financial mechanisms and technology have had many positives, yet, we need to remove our blinders how each has fed war over the centuries, "creative destruction" as advocates would call it.

1. The Ascent of Money
and War's Pound of
Flesh
11/14/2023
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2. Fr John Jimenez has served the Archdiocese of San
Francisco for 25 years as a priest, and 35 years
helping parishes, while also teaching in local public
schools. Soon he will be joining the Society of St
James in their missionary work in Peru. Here is an
article on how historically, the developmentof financial
mechanisms and technology have had many positives,
yet, we need to remove our blinders how each has fed
war over the centuries, "creative destruction" as
advocates would call it.
11/14/2023
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3. "The Ascent of Money" is a very fine
historical analysis by Niall Ferguson from
Stanford's Hoover Center, with an analogy to
the classic of Anthropology, Bronkowski's
"The Ascent of Man", of how society has
evolved due to "Homo Sapien's"
inventiveness, be it with tools, (and the
venture capitalist Marc Andreeson makes a
similar analysis with more details on
technology's evolution in his "Technoptimist
Manifesto"), or with math based financial
innovations..
11/14/2023
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4. One example of Ferguson's insight is how the math genius Fibonacci, in
13th century Pisa, in the center of trade with Arab and Indian merchants,
developed the modern number systemand number theoryand his insights
became the basis of the Medici Banks that arose from being mafia style
loan sharking and enforcement through violence, to a rational system of
accounting, and the ability to loan money, with risk, through diversifying
these loans, especially in the building of ships and financing voyages, what
today has evolved to what is now called "fractional reserve" banking, and
protection against risk through "securitization" and "diversification of
investment", instead threatening to kill the person who has the debt, as we
see in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", where the shipmerchant
Antonio borrowsmoney from Shylock to help his friend on the collateral of
his ships, and on the promise of his "pound of flesh" (his life) if he fails to
pay the debt.
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5. Ferguson brushesover the point that Shakespeare'splay
alludes to, that, though fractional reserve financing allows
for development and economic prosperity that allows a
"rising tide to lift all boats", it still is a form of loan sharking,
there becomesa point when debts need to be repaid,
because actually the debt is based on money that does not
really exist, it is a belief, a credit, a credo, that one will be
repaid, and usually this happens, but, if not, then the only
way one will repay is if there is a threat that their life will
end, thus, the "pound of flesh", or, when it is a nation or a
large community, the threat that their land and way of life
will no longer exist. Wars of empire are simply larger
examples of mafia style loan sharking.
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6. This is not to say that the Medici's then, or later the
Rothschilds, or hedge funds today are "war mongers".
They have mostly made money through hard work, a
desire to fund enterprises that will grow, and they will
grow because people see them as beneficial,
particularly new technological innovations, and, in the
case of the Medici's or Rothschilds or current day
hedge funds, of being in various locations of trade that
enable them to make the trade quicker or take
advantage of changes in price or economies of scale.
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7. Yet, these innovations, and enterprising mentality are
blind, similar to the creator of the monster
"Frankenstein", Shelly's insight, to the destructiveness
of what they have created, a system that cyclically
seems to need to fund war, essentially because debts
are not repaid, or the system needs to keep growing
as empire, new markets for expansion of debt
financing, becomes the push for colonization of the
17th through 19th century, and became the World
Wars of the 20th century and the current conflicts,
that Shelly and the Romantics of that era seem to
foresee, or perhaps reacted to, like Beethoven (his
3rd, then 5th, then 7th Symphonies show this
progression), to the rise of Napolean's push from
idealism to empire.
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8. A modern take on this can be found in David Stockman's
"Warfare State's EchoChamber", an article that I
summarize elsewhere in this blog.
Yet, it is not usefulto call them "warmongers", for we all
participate in this systemthrough our pension funds that
invest in "emerging markets", or even government bonds,
the debt spending that is used for war's expenses. The
issue is blindness to how this debt financing, tech driven
systemworks, and ability to see another way. Many did
realize anotherway afterWWI seemed to unintentionally
grow to become so destructive, and we must realize how
much of the war today is rooted in the geopolitics of that
conflict then, and the globalist financialsystemthat
evolved at that time.
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9. I refer to another article that I summarized at this blog, "No
Globalist Room at The Inn" and the lessons of the birth of our
Lord, in the Holy Family, and raised and lived the community life
at Nazareth, where we see Distributist principles of freedom
and community responsibility written about by Dorothy Day,
Wendell Berry, HIllarie Belloc and many others, of local
community banks that lend on trust, like Jimmy Stewart in "It's
A Wonderful Life", and not fractional reserve financing that
must continue to expand and finance wars, or Grameen Banks
or Microfinancing, as done in poor communities. We apply a
moral conscience to what our investments are, as we did when
we divested from apartheid schemes in the 1970's, or nuclear
weapons in the 1980's.
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10. This can be done because our Lord tells us so.
"Seek and Ye Shall Find", through the essence of
the Beattitudes, poverty of spirit, live by what
God provides, purity of heart, disposed to God's
revelation, and Mercy, the ultimate step to the
peace of God's Kingdom.
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