Dear Reader,

We meet our Economy in its repose,

we see its citizens and see their polity.
One community under usury,
a life under the liberty of the yoke.
A country Estate.
Around a fireside after a day of work and sport,
a father and two sons talk and reflect.
A loved first Son speaks.
''Tell me this wise father how much money is there in the world. Tell me where i
t comes from and where it goes to die?''
''Son I can not answer your questions, for truly I do not believe that any man h
as the answers. Men have pursued money and in the pursuit lost sight of the prey
, for it seems that one mans pursuit seems frustrated in the victory and anothers
object of pursuit, is only real during the chase?
Father I am your second son. I also wonder as my elder brother does, what is t
he meaning of money.
Should I lay suit for it and pay its high price, when we have all that we want a
nd need here on your estates?
Dear second Son we have our life and family here and we have the extra hands a
nd mouths that all help to feed ourselves and each other. In these treasures we
have no need of money. Others have been divorced from their estates and live in
cities this is where we send our surpluses.

Our Neighbours also help to feed the cities the king asks us that we accept t
okens from the citizens in return. Our tokens buy the favours of the king and pa
y the dues he calls taxes. In this we may as well act willingly, as in truth we
have no choice.
The Bakers Kitchen Table.
Around a fireside an artisan baker sits with his two daughters after a long day.
1st Daughter. Tell me this wise Father. How much money is there in the world a
nd how do customers
who buy our Bread get their money. What of citizens without a token for a loaf ?
Father Baker . The money we are paid is a token from the Government treasury w
ith Authority from the king. These are the same tokens with which we buy our flo
ur from the Estates and our firewood for the ovens.
2nd Daughter . Father this Bakery has been with the family for generations how
would a new Oven and a new Shop be possible for the Orphaned Son of the bakery
that burnt in the other village, destroying the family and the Shop . Somehow th
e Young boy survived, now he starts from nothing,how can he hope to provide his
needs in the future?
Father Baker. That poor boy will be alone with nothing in the world , a sad ca
se and a story told a thousand times. No one to teach his trade to him and no fa
mily business left to carry on, no plot of land from which to raise sustenance a

nd a surplus to trade.
In the Soldiers House.
A soldier sits alone he is of high rank and of proud deportment he is served by
his batman. Both bachelors and both veterans of many campaigns.The soldier has r
eturned from the palace where he has received another decoration the Medal and t
he prize are being admired by the Batman.
Batman. General, the king is very grateful for our campaign abroad this past year,
a medal of solid gold encrusted with valuable jewels and many tokens in the pri
ze. Enough to buy all the bread in all the bakeries in the kingdom.
General.
Yes the King is pleased his campaigns re furnish the treasury, to re
pay the usurers his international debts and interest.
In the Bankers House.
The Banker sits in luxury footmen in attendance and Wife and mother seated in eq
ual pomp and finery. Business is being discussed...
Wife,
n ?

Tell me dear, didn t the king look un-well at the ceremony this afternoo

Mother. He always was a nervous boy. When your Father and I used attend the Ol
d Kings ceremonies, the Young prince as he was then, never seemed as right.

Wife. Mother in Law when you and father in law knew the old king and we were n
ot as rich as we are now. Now my husband has prospered as the new kings ambition
s have overstretched his purse and I wondered if my Banker Husband had such conc
erns.
Banker. My Father did much service to the old king, the new king does much ser
vice for us now in return .
Wife. Tell me my banker husband where did your father and his fathers father,
find the wit to have the king grant you privilege to create the tokens, how many
of them do you have where were they found?
Banker. Its a long story, let us take our leisure in the drawing room, that I
might Smoke and have a brandy. My great Great Grandfather Sailed away to Xanadhu
the year was 1249 and the Captain on board ship ship was Marco Polo...
We lived in venice when Marco Polo returned
He told of Kubla khans riches.
Khans riches flowed from a strange Alchemy,
Money from Trees, Bark from Mulberrys.
Denominated and sizes, under seal of the Khan.
Fein deafness to the khans bark on pain of death!
They serve as good as gold, a fraction of the weight.
All foreign merchants sell to khans monopoly,
the merchants trade with paper in the kingdom
Such power as this with a twist of usury,
we innovate Marco Polos discovery.

Creating the money but not the means to meet the usury
all wealth guaranteed to flow back to the issuer.
Money newly grown on trees, with usury sportingly absent.
Surely a creature whos Bark is not worse than its bite?
kings now borrowed for rivals to smite.
Bankers became emperors. Usury were the real fangs.

In the priests House.

The priest sits at high table with the other clergy of the court.
Deacon, to the priest.
Holy Father the King seemed distracted today, the Gene
ral seemed well rewarded from the latest campaign, how though do we reconcile th
e kings distraction with the claimed success?
Parish Priest. Yes holy father an orphaned child in my parish will be without
hopes of starting afresh without usurious debt. How are the people to bear the c
osts , the bounties of their labours are ever increasing and yet for want of mon
ey there is no traffic in the market square. Yet people are cold and hungry in t
he workhouses.
The Holy Father . The King is seduced ! my office is no longer to hear confess
ions and give guidance. But we are grew rich in the indulgences we must proffer
on our monarch and his aide the banker.
For usury makes a gain out of money itself.
Not used merely for exchange but increasing at interest.
A price paid for nothing exchanged for something.
The price of the receipt eats the value of the thing exchanged.

In the Courtroom. A usurer demands his deserts.

When shylock petitions the Duke

can he exact a pound of flesh and spill no blood.
The Judge must honour the contract,
how many others does the forfeiture doom?
Neither brassy bosoms, rough hearts of flint
nor stubborn Turks and tartars feel obliged
to temper the harshness of usury or forfeiture, when the price can not be met.
The Quality of mercy is most definitely strained.
It flattens crops like hail.
Truly only the usurer is twice blessed
and the throned monarch is unthroned.
Usury the usurers crown of gold, our crown remains of thorns.

New suitors of title Masters of the Universe.

Not Belmont s fair Portia sought.
Porches and financial instruments of many more horse power,
torque of Twisted vigour.
No longer metaphors of Gold for gaining mans desire,
Or of Silver and its just deserts.
Always Lead and usurious alchemy,
hearts now made of stone.
failed
return
Failed
beware

suit of Morocco,
and count revenues from the Sookes.
suit of Aragon,
robbers from Flanders with heavy dennier stockinged masques.

Seek inside your own Bossanio,

rejecting usurys gold, hard food of Midas.
Tween Man and man no usury.
Plain lead and recognise moneys deceit.
As Portias counterfeit, redeemed in marriage.
So too should all value tokens declare the
facsimile of exchange they truly be.
Money a true handshake in honour alone.

The courtiers of the Exchequer address the king;

We economists beholden as we are to the princes of usury and as the false
ts of usury.
We fit the horse foot to the shoe that suits us best. It matters not that
rse becomes lame and less furlongs are ploughed. As we deny the poison in
n usurious medium. We also deny that what ills our patient, could be from
nacea concocted in our own alchemists crucible.

prophe
the ho
our ow
any pa

Our unit of account, that is to say this store of value.

Not to leave unsaid, this medium of exchange.
Our scarlet pimpernel which no one quite pins down.
We say; we give you something , always the same
fungible with each the other. The one whole. Held in safe keeping, returned. Wha
t we call these claims or, definitions of claims. These bundles of demands, is m
oney.
Insinuated into civil intercourse,
ubiquitous in the machinery of community,
deployed as a lever and pulley in affairs of state.
A measure of nothing, conjured to divine what s important.
Counsel for the people charge usury of its crimes.
This baron abstract that claims fruit.

This heavy invisible burden,

a yoke. Fashioned in language,
felt but never seen.
inflicting scars as deep as any lash,
claiming lives as real as any canon.
This nightmare device of imagination.
Who are the slayers of this mythical dragon?
Coleridge saw beauty in nature where sweet amaranths bloom. And Shakespeare comp
ared his summers day.
What of this hamlets ghost of a spectre?
something is rotten in the danegeld,
many more promises are written than can be kept.
So much nectar strained from thin broth,
which bargains can be made?
When the music stops and the dancers
sit down. Chairs are our metaphor for the real.
Always too few.
Rascals become clothed in robes
and honesty is reduced to rags.
Elisabeth lease had a purchase on truth.
When people starve how can overproduction stand charged. It is money promises,
kept short in supply that causes starvation. The consumption in the lungs of th
e community, is the usurers confection.
A counterfeit Nobel laureate, theres an irony.
Denies that in money there can be a place that gertrude stein called there, home
once but no longer there , there in Oakland. A precursor to some sub prime heri
tage.
A speaker of truth to power could follow Pauli Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, e
s is nicht einmal falsh!
Not even wrong, not even there.
All counterfeit, yet to counterfeit the counterfeit? a crime.
What of the shepherd of this unruly nothing,
where will they pen and fence this pack of wolves.
Will they dress this pack of cards in sheeps clothing.
Limit the herd a need for Golden standards.

Prudence of sound Money and even sounder usury.

Fix the price and patronise those who will honour the thievery. A mechanism to h
armonise silent ballot boxes.
A gentlemen from belgium would complement his single currency. Unruled and unrul
y sets a course for austerity on a continent many times at war. A fight of 11 ro
unds.
Spread like a cancer through the development of continents, enabling the killing
called wars. That increase the debt and centralise the money power.
Quiggly shewed the tragedy, little hope it seemed,
blind faith in capitalisms harlot. That babylonian whore.
At first a mere money trick for ragged trousered philanthropy. With usury, take
away whats not even yet been paid. Ruskin would see wealth as that which is valu

able in the hands of the valiant. Real goods sustain and wealth succours. Usurio
us money is but an unmade claim and worse. No banker has earned that newly minte
d note that hangs discordant in the air, as apt to rob as to pay.
How obscure this obscurant cult of mammon.
What smoke screened hall of mirrors.
How obese and gluttonous the leviathan of usury.
Austerity for the likes of you and I.
More banqueting and evacuated vomit spews from the sceptred top table. Corrupt i
n patronage and jealousy of power. Overstuffed with greed and thirsty for more.

How mean the jealousy of greed grows.

As more wants more and demands all.
The truly poor are those who desire much,
oppressive wealth no longer is, it only has.
Usury consumes the usurer, no self just an exponential nothing. Growing ever mor
e grotesque in a shadow of what never was and never could be.
A doom laden ring of the nibelungs slained by teutonic nobles and routed by hero
ic Norsemen.
The paper money shrouds the rock of prometheus and
still he forgets in whose promises the usurers truck.
A Semiotic Turn Wenzels genuinely fake.
A language of abstract form commemorates brotherhood.
Van Meegrans supper at Emmaus implies Vermeers intention for experts to divine. A
counterfeit of that which never had been, claimed as real and must be from the
brush of the master. A looting tyranny coveting the genuine fakery like so much
gold pulled from the mouths of corpses. Like so many rabbits out of so many hats
and the goldfish does not know the water it swims in until the surface is broke
n.
The beauty of dying lilies, the artist petrifies the fleeting moment and time is
solidified.A promise solidified in time measured in life and non existence. Cel
ebrate Les miserables of L Argent . Hugo, Zola and Proudhon scream.
A promise wrapped up in a lie claiming existence where no air remains to breathe
or, food to sustain. Asking everything for giving nothing. A mountebank by natu
re, a swindle made official by the state. To enslave the masses and keep them in
want.
Concluding prayer.

A central lack of fibre. Either moral or physical around which myths of debt are
spun. As spiders spin webs and weavers warp clothe. Spartan Ephors of prudence
pass judgement on all and stand above and astride the law. Dispensing injustice
and taking clothes off the backs of The freezing and food out of the mouths of t
he hungry. Passing judgement on those who perform real work, asking always for m
ore and demanding to pay less.
So draw the bow of truth with intentness in the eye,
Seek out the irreducible posits, the epistemological gods of homer. If there be
one free miracle let the ephors explain the rest. What is this power of usury? W

here did this power come from ? Who is it exercised for and to whom do you ephor
s of usury answer to ? And now let me ask. How do we take this power away? Only
then we shall see good faith and brotherhood restored to the commons.
RogerG Lewis 2016