ke anyone’s land. By contrast, the Soviet Union incorporated huge swaths of post-war Poland and Germany. If we compare the United States to Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome—or for that matter, Ottoman Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Russia, Britain, and France—we can only conclude that the Unite

entered the region from the Germanic lands. While the origin of these eastern Jews is not certain, historical evidence places Jewish refugees from Babylonia, Palestine, the Byzantine Empire and other Jewish refugees and settlers in the lands between the Baltic and Black Seas that would become part of th

ed, and they evolve to take on the role of protecting the wealth of their citizens. In Babylon. by 1000 B.C., private deposits were accepted at the Babylonia temple. Even the Code of Hammurabi set out the rules for those deposits. Officials issued receipts to depositors and allowed them to transfer their

ed, and they evolve to take on the role of protecting the wealth of their citizens. In Babylon. by 1000 B.C., private deposits were accepted at the Babylonia temple. Even the Code of Hammurabi set out the rules for those deposits. Officials issued receipts to depositors and allowed them to transfer their

Information entropy has always been important to human economies once they moved beyond subsistence to agricultural markets. Writing was invented in Babylonia as a way of recording storage and sales of crops. Numbers and calculation were invented for the same reasons. Since the oil shocks of the 1970s inf

catastrophic when times are bad. Homer and Sylla describe normal contracted rates, not realized rates net of those costs, as 10% — 40% in Sumer and Babylonia, 6% - 18% in ancient Greece, 5% — 24% in Egypt, and 4% — 12+% in Rome and the Byzantine Empire.* After higher rates in the dark ages, European mortga