History

I found myself wondering the other day why almost everything seems to end in .99. Books cost 9.99. Electrical goods are 99.99. Cars are advertised at 19,999. Even software subscriptions seem incapable of charging a clean 10 or 100. One penny appears to have become one of the most valuable numbers in commerce. Most people…

I’ve been a little bit prolific in writing this year, what with two books in Pulp Finction and Intelligent Bank consistently in the top 10 on Amazon. Now, I have one more new book. It started with a question in my head: how come Pharaohs had so much power? It ended with the colonisation of Mars. The new book Who…

Over a cup of tea this morning, looking out into the garden, something struck me. Animals scale through evolution. Humans scale through institutions. Money is the operating system of institutions. It wasn’t a thought I’d expected to have over breakfast. Well, I was watching the birds in my garden. A robin was hopping around looking…

We often think wars are won with missiles, tanks and soldiers. In reality, they are won with banks. Every shell that is fired, every drone that is launched and every factory that shifts from producing washing machines to artillery shells has to be financed by someone. Governments issue debt. Central banks manage liquidity. Commercial banks…

For those who follow my blog regularly you will know that I am a notaphilist or, if you prefer, someone who collects old banknotes. I can’t help myself. As the Bank of England seeks to replace Winston Churchill with a fish … … and Alan Turing with a hedgehog … … I was fascinated to stumble across…

I’m not big on theology but did stumble across Mammon the other day and am surprised I didn’t know more about this ancient character. He appears in the Bible quite often, and Jesus makes clear that ‘you cannot serve both God and Mammon (Matt 6.24 as well as Luke 16.9, 11 and 13). Mammon promotes the ‘deceitfulness of wealth’…

It’s quite strange when you think about money as a lot of money has disappeared or been recreated over the years. 250 years ago, there was no US dollar as such; the Chinese currency called the renminbi (RMB) was introduced on December 1, 1948, by the newly founded People’s Bank of China; and the euro…

I just saw an interview with Tim Roth who appears in the new Peaky Blinders movie as Beckett, an East London fascist. The movie launches tomorrow on Netflix and focuses upon the Nazi plan in the Second World War to flood Britain with fake currency to bring down the economy. Codenamed Operation Bernhard, the goal…

You may know Wells Fargo, one of the largest American banks. I know them well, having worked with some of their key people over the years. Their brand is all based around the old Pony Express … Note: stamp is dated 1940 … but you may not know their real history, so here we go….

Being raised on an independent island, I learned lots about British history. For my GCSE’s, it was all about learning Henry VIII’s story of leaving the Holy Empire of Rome to marry Anne Boleyn and the story of the first and second World Wars. We knew nothing about Europe, let alone the rest of the…