Amazon.com: Early English Furniture & Woodwork. 2 volumes.: Herbert & GRIBBLE, Ernest R. CESCINSKY: Books
Time for an extended history lesson. I choose to look backwards a great deal because the only way we can illuminate the way forwards and make predictions is to look into the past. This is why I fear Ice Ages much more then global warming, for example. The Past is the Future with some slight alterations and they are few indeed since there seems to be natural ways things work and we can’t undo this no matter what tricks we try.
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Nature operates this way: relentlessly, always moving in the same circles, the wheel of fate grinding mercilessly along. Attempts at making things happen, magically, do seem to work for a short while but then always boomerangs badly in the long run. This is why we have to conscientiously review history with grace and humbleness. That is, the past is prologue to the present and we must heed our ancestors who learnedtheir own harsh lessons.
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One lesson in history is, confederations flounder the minute contentions break out. The US slave state confederation was a total, roaring failure. When things went even slightly badly during the Civil War, they turned on each other and refused food, money and troops to fellow confederate states that were being invaded relentlessly by General Grant and General Sherman.
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The EU is the latest attempt at building a vast confederation, this one based on a joint floating fiat currency regime while the military operations were all exported to the US which funds and runs the entire defense of Europe and NATO anti-Muslim expansionary wars. The 90 day war in Libya, for example, has been extended another 90 days, 90 days ago and now is being expanded yet another 90 days and onwards to infinity like all the previous 90 day wars. Europe has to help the US empire bankroll this while ruthlessly cutting services and spending at home. This is a major crisis in Europe and populations are getting very, very restive.
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We know from history what happens next! The Austro-Hungarian style of empire building will collapse into ethnic warfare just like when Germany and Austria went bankrupt due to war costs during the 1920s. Meanwhile, as world stocks plummet due to the complete collapse of the EU as a political and economic entity, China buys gold, challenges US dollar.
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In March 2011, China held $3.04tn US dollars in reserves, Xinhua news agenecy reported. It is the largest holder of US treasuries, or government debt, with $1.166tn as of June 30, 2011, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Thus, major devaluation of the dollar would hurt China, as it would be left holding wads of worthless paper..
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“If you owe the bank $100, that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100m, that’s the bank’s problem,” American industrialist Jean Paul Getty once remarked, in a parable that sums up China’s predicament.
.“China is locked into a position where they cannot sell a big portion of their dollar reserves overnight without hurting themselves,” Aizenman said. “It is too late for now to diversify rapidly the stock they have already accumulated.”
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The answer: Buy gold. Everyone seems to be doing it. The value of the glistening commodity, useless for most practical purposes, increased almost 400 per cent, from less than $500 an ounce in 2005 to about $1,900 in September.
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“Gold has risen in value because of uncertainty in the world economy,” said Mark Weisbrot, the co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, a think-tank in Washington. “Normally, gold would rise due to high inflation. It is a store of value that increases if there is inflation. But in this case it is going up because nobody knows where else to put their money.”
Good lord! Inflation is hammering us all to death and there is no inflation? The rise in the value of gold reflects the fact that there is great inflation and when I go shopping for food or buy fuel, I am hammered by inflation! My dollars are increasingly worthless while the Fed announces $400bn Operation Twist in bid to boost US economy which is moving inflation into the far future by buying all those 10 to 30 year ZIRP bonds and selling off short term ones.
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This near half trillion in a wild attempt to keep the 30 year bond market from shooting up towards 6% or greater interest rates was supposed to keep interest rates low but it devalues the dollar further as all Fed actions this last three years has destroyed the value of the dollar. Far from ZIRP, we have ‘stagflation’ whereby necessities shoot up in value while assets plummet in value. This is a war economy whereby people need to hoard tires, food, fuel, medicines and such. These Fed rescue operations only make things worse and History laughs at this since we know for a fact, running a ZIRP banking system is a failure since we see it in Japan which is drowning in ZIRP debts with the government’s share shooting upwards while industries flee Japan.
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The currency is stronger than the dollar, for certain but the government there wants is much weaker so it pursues destructive policies since the only way a currency can go down in value is to either flood the home state with confederate dollars or crush wages so if prices drop, wages drop even faster. Which is what is happening in the US: to save ZIRP banking, they are forcing down wages so the lower and middle classes get poorer and poorer.
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We should call the Fed operation, ‘Operation Oliver Twist’ with workers and orphans begging for just one more serving and getting roughly rebuffed. Here is so paragraphs from a 1922 book about English carpentry which illustrates all of this clear as day since it was written during WWI and the effects of that war (England losing the gold standard and then rotting away entirely) were barely felt, when this was published. The author casually explains how inflation and money works and how this affects carpenters and I find it most illuminating since the author assumes everyone understands the obvious here: The Early Woodworker: His Life, Tools And Methods. Part 2
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The third class of (Medieval) artisans were those engaged in work for the laity, from the yeoman farmer to the belted knight and baron, under the guidance, and subject to the dominion of the Trade Guild or the Lord of the Manor. No artisan could leave his village or locality without sanction from the Lord or the Guild, and a strange workman without employment was a rogue and a vagabond, a “masterless man” who could be arrested and summarily hanged without trial. In this regard the laws regulating labour were harsh and stringent. In other particulars, the workman had an easy life, one of plenty and of reasonable leisure. His hours were long, and holidays were few. Thus in 1408, at Windsor, four carpenters received 6d. per day, and six received 5d. for 365 days in the year. Even at the present day, on the Continent, it is customary (or was until the last fifteen years) to work on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday morning….
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…A marked distinction appears to be made between the hours of labour in summer as compared with winter. Five o’clock in the morning to eight in the evening, in summer, was the general rule, but liberal allowance had to be made for “non-schenes” (the midday meal, hence the modern word luncheon), for “drinkynges”1 and for “sleepynges,”-occupying in all from three to three and a half hours.
The Guilds protected labor and wages. They worked with the barons to prevent workers from coming in from other places and displacing the present workers, driving down wages. Control of the workplace includes, most emphatically, control of movement of labor so that foreign competition is reduced as much as possible. When the King wanted great works done, this was overridden since extra workers had to be brought in and this is one reason why barons were often supported by their own people when defying kings, for example.
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I come from a line of barons in England who meted out rough justice and who were often little more than parasites on the community but their desire for comforts and power meant protecting their own peasants and supporting the local clergy mainly by installing extra sons and daughters in the various religious establishments. Note that, prior to King Henry VIII’s rupture with the Popes, the carpenters had siestas in the middle of a long work day. Imagine taking off two to three hours for ‘drinkynges and sleepynges’! Today, it is all work, work, work and in the carpenter’s trade in the US, it has been totally destroyed by illegal aliens who flooded into that labor sector, killing wages, big time, for native carpenters whose working wages fell by over 50%.
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The standard wage of the country artisan, in the fifteenth century, appears to have been 6d. per day. In London this was increased from 25 to 30 per cent, but living there was proportionately dearer. His hours of actual labour cannot have exceeded eight in the day, although in the next century this number was extended to ten and even more. Comparisons of wages, reckoned in money, however, are misleading, as the actual value of the currency alters..
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Before 1543 (when Henry VIII first began to debase the currency) silver contained 18 dwts. of alloy to 12 ozs., and the pound was coined into 45 shillings. In 1546 it was debased to the extent of 8 ozs. in 12 ! It would be out of place here, to trace the far-reaching effect of this iniquitous procedure on the part of the King to swell his private revenue, but one of the results was to destroy the East Anglian woollen and textile trades with the Low Countries. Payment, at that date, being made by weight instead of by tale, the exchanging of this debased coin for commodities constituted a fraud of the worst kind on the Netherland merchant, a fraud to which the English trader was an unwitting accessory, with the result that when the cheat was discovered, the English currency was not depreciated in exchange value; it was refused absolutely, and the English trade with the Continent was ruined.
The actual value of all currencies in the world are vapid and shift and change constantly. This instability was hidden for quite a while by all traders hanging onto US dollars via various central banks in key countries holding their excess trade dollars in their FOREX accounts and buying up excess US debt at ridiculous interest payment levels.
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The game always was to make one’s own currency as cheap as possible against the US dollar and thus, keep up a trade surplus with the US. The euro did this, too, but unsuccessfully since there was no central bank run by a dictatorial group like it is in the US or Japan (yes, we have no say in who runs the Fed!) so individual countries like Germany or France held bigger and bigger US dollar FOREX accounts but not big enough for the entire EU because it is the world’s #1 economy and the US is smaller!
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So, the euro grew stronger and stronger over time and went from being a 1:1 ratio or less to being a 1.5:1 ratio which meant, exports became expensive and imports from the US, little as that was, cheaper. China and Japan could sop up as many dollars as necessary, the EU couldn’t do this at all. So the euro became very expensive against the Asian currencies, too, as everyone piled in to raise the value of the euro so they could export to the world’s biggest economy, the EU!
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This is causing the EU to collapse because the world runs on the US dollar system and the dollar is collapsing. Oddly enough, this means energy is cheaper for Europeans than Americans but this boon does little for the EU since it is a confederation, not something like China which is an empire, not a collective. The US is an imperial collective which always threatens to collapse under stress and we are very stressed right now with Congress occupied by Zionists who ignore America and focus entirely and mainly on stealing stuff in the Middle East.
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The honest book written nearly a century ago mentions how debasing a currency can lead to trade collapses. This is due to the metal monetary system in use until half a century ago. Today, debasing the currency is all the rage as freaked out bankers do this as much as humanly possible. Note in the US story at the top here, how the mythology that holders of debt are in trouble, not the debtors, is due entirely to this floating fiat currency system.
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Due to not having real money, we have the absolute reverse of the old system: now, debasing the currency increases exports! Back then, it caused it to collapse. As everyone does this more and more, it builds up its own dynamic energy which we see today in the form of a global depression that gets only worse and worse, the more people debase their currencies and the more they struggle to increase exports while furiously trying to prevent imports. We are in the dark depths of a global trade war far worse than the ones where people put up tariffs and barriers to protect domestic industries.
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To estimate the real value of this depreciation in wages, though accompanied by a currency increase in rate, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, it is necessary to formulate a subsistence table, to include the food which a man with a wife and two children would require for a year, and to calculate the number of weeks of the man’s labour at the various periods which was necessary to purchase this year’s provision. It is of little moment whether the list be complete or no, providing that it remains constant in all the estimates.
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As stated before, food during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, although plentiful, was coarse and lacking in variety. The artisan of the eighteenth century had accustomed himself to greater variety, and, possibly, could not have existed on the fourteenth-century monotonous dietary scale, but this fact does not affect the point at issue here.
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Let us take, for purposes of comparison, a list comprising 3 quarters of wheat, 3 quarters of malt, 2 quarters of oatmeal, with the necessary amounts of beef and mutton for the family, before referred to, for the space of one year. It will be found that, in the late fifteenth century, fourteen weeks’ wages of a skilled artisan were sufficient to purchase this amount, whereas in 1530 it would take over twenty weeks’ wages, and in 1564, after the proclamation of Elizabeth regulating wages, forty-four weeks’ wages would scarcely buy the same amount.
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In 1593, fifty-two weeks’ wages were required, and in 1597, a year of severe famine, when wheat rose to 56s. 10 1/2d. the quarter, wages were only from £5 10s. od. to £6 5s. od. per year. In 1593 (not a famine year) with wheat at 18s. 4 1/2d. the quarter, as we have already stated, one year’s wages only bought that for which the labour of fourteen weeks was sufficient in 1495. In this year of 1593, also, we see the first indication of a year being paid for as one of 312, instead of 365 days, at rates varying from £10 8s. od. to £11 2S. od. per year.
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In the famine year of 1597, with wheat at 56s. 10 1/2d. as compared with 18s. 4 1/2d., wages only advanced by 10s. to 15s. the year. Privation, during this year, among the workers must have been extreme. In 1651, with wheat at 51s. 4d., the sawing of a hundred of planks (six-score feet, always calculated as a day’s work) is paid at 15s. per week, the top-sawyer receiving 8s., the under man 7s. (See Fig. 6.)
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In 1661 the wages are substantially the same as ten years before, but wheat advances from 51s. 4d. to 70s. 6d. In 1682 wheat is only 43s. 8d., but wages are reduced.
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Back when Nixon finally cut the gold standard and started the flood of foreign workers and imports, he tried to stop inflation in wages via wage controls. Gradually, due to the many wars with Spain and meddling in European crown affairs, England basically taxed the working poor via inflation due to literally changing the mineral content of the coinage. The carpenters had to be more productive, which meant, working longer hours, no more siestas, and paid as if the money was worth what it was in the Medieval days so they worked more and more for food and accumulated less and less assets such as being able to live in a house and raise a family.
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The victory of the Crown over the barons meant a collapse of the guild system. This, in turn, led to a reduction in local economies and an expansion of London so the smaller communities became very poor and the capital became much richer as labor moved there in hopes of some sustenance and lived there in teeming, crowded slums while basically begging for work.
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.Back when Nixon finally cut the gold standard and started the flood of foreign workers and imports, he tried to stop inflation in wages via wage controls. Gradually, due to the many wars with Spain and meddling in European crown affairs, England basically taxed the working poor via inflation due to literally changing the mineral content of the coinage. The carpenters had to be more productive, which meant, working longer hours, no more siestas, and paid as if the money was worth what it was in the Medieval days so they worked more and more for food and accumulated less and less assets such as being able to live in a house and raise a family.
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The victory of the Crown over the barons meant a collapse of the guild system. This, in turn, led to a reduction in local economies and an expansion of London so the smaller communities became very poor and the capital became much richer as labor moved there in hopes of some sustenance and lived there in teeming, crowded slums while basically begging for work.
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In 1684, at Warwick, with wheat at 42s.. 0 1/2d. (to cite Thorold Rogers again) skilled artisans are paid 1s. per day, free-masons (equivalent to our modern piece-masters) 1s. 4d. and plasterers 8d. The winter pay is 1d. per day less. The day is one of 12 hours, from 5 in the morning to 7 or 8 o’clock p.m., according to the season. From this is allowed half an hour for breakfast, one hour fornonschenes, one hour for “drinkings,” and, between May and August, half an hour for sleep.
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The yearly store, which in 1495 was purchased with fourteen weeks’ wages, in 1690 costs £14 IIs. 6d., and the skilled artisan’s wages are only £15 13s. od. and those of a farm hand are about £10 8s. od. or less. In 1725 the artisan’s wages are £15 13s. od. per year, but the cost of the 1495 subsistence standard is £16 2s. 3d.
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From 1805 to 1830 the wages of a skilled woodworker were insufficient to support himself, a wife and two children even on the most meagre scale. Pauperism, which is unknown in the fifteenth century, and only begins to be noticeable at the latter end of the sixteenth, now begins to be the rule rather than the exception.
The US papered over this by doing reverse systems. That is, as working wages fell, conditions at work grew more hateful, the ZIRP banking system handed out loans like candy to starving children who then were content with these empty calories while not eating meat and bread, so to speak. So, they ate and starved at the same time. US workers got to live as if they had rising wealth and rising wages but this was due entirely to cheap credit which put all of the workers very deep into debt.
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Now, to get a good job, one has to go to school many more years and pay off great debts. One relative of mine whose parents are very wealthy (private plane, fancy cars, maids, etc) went $100,000 into debt to go to school to learn ‘Hotel and Dining’ operations, something people learned via the older apprenticeship method (you land a job in a hotel and learn via working, how to do various things!) so she begins her work life deep in debt and has no certainty of a job, even.
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This is a huge problem! The debt on housing is similar: people thought, as housing became ridiculously expensive, they were getting rich since the value shot upwards, effortlessly, while banks handed out candy loans to all and sundry. Now, the banks are bankrupt and can’t do this anymore so in many US cities, the value of homes has dropped by over 50% which makes the paupers living in these places much, much poorer.
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The ones who loaded the most debt on their homes now face lifetime penury as they have to either continue paying off high loans on worthless homes or they have to vacate these homes and become tenants rather than owners. The handing out of free loans to the elites, as the Fed has done as it bails out only the bankers, leads only to more debasement of all currencies as the US dollar loses value and all others race to catch up and also lose value.
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This ridiculous situation can’t go on forever. This anti-metal system is collapsing. The stocks falling, the trade collapsing is a SYMPTOM, not a cause. The cause is simple: the US cannot print money forever to pay for imports. It can’t crush workers wages forever and still buy imports. It has to stop doing this and will stop doing this because it is impossible to keep on doing this. The collapse in wages in England from Queen Elizabeth to modern times was fixed by deporting masses of peasants and workers which is why English is spoken in many countries today.
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This army of dispossessed workers and peasants flooded into the New World, Africa and Asia. It took over whole continents. By deporting the masses, England’s power expanded even as its currency lost value! But we can’t do this anymore. Like all other systems, the floating fiat currency system is causing the reverse to happen: workers and peasants are being ruthlessly displaced from their homelands and forced to immigrate to the top paper money producing sectors such as the EU and US. Which drives down wages at home. A vicious cycle that is quite explosive.
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Specifically, the act provided for "...the dollar consisting of twenty-five and eight-tenths grains (1.67 g) of gold nine-tenths fine, as established by section thirty-five hundred and eleven of the Revised Statutes of the United States, shall be the standard unit of value, and all forms of money issued or coined by the United States shall be maintained at a parity of value with this standard..."