Babylon Woes

I’ve got the banker on the phone
He wants money for the loan
The mortgage is due
The car needs service too
What the hell are we going to do?
I won’t give up, that’s not my style
I just wish they’d all ease up for a while
Give us some room, some air to breathe
I’ll make good on it all, the intent is there
I’m not one to cheat or deceive
I wish that all our problems
were much smaller than they are
The house paid off, perhaps a new car
If I could
You know that I would
change my life
In whatever way
To suit our every need
With a little more we’d be in the black
Almost at lightning speed
Is it bad luck we’re having now
or perhaps bad timing
put us in this kowtow
The taxes, the visa
Bills for this
Pay for that
Life just costs too much
We’re constantly paying a toll
I wonder how our parents ever made it
I feel so out of control
The harder I work
the less I get paid
At the end of the week I search
for the money I made
I want the best for the family
Cars, food and clothes
But to get from here to there
is what puzzles me
living in Babylon woes.

The Sumer civilization developed a large scale economy based on commodity money. The Babylonians and their neighboring city states later developed the earliest system of economics as we think of it today, in terms of rules on debt, legal contracts and law codes relating to business practices and private property. These law codes dated 1760 BC formalized the role of money in civil society. They set amounts of interest on debt... fines for 'wrong doing'... and compensation in money for various infractions of formalized law.
In 604 B.C.E, the Babylonian ruler...Nebuchadnezzar...decreed that gold would be the medium of exchange in his empire. The Babylonian temples contained strong rooms where people brought their gold and other precious items for safekeeping by the temple priests. The customers were given small clay tablets as receipts for their valuables.
The priest-bankers demanded that the people pay twenty percent interest for guarding their valuables--not a bad racket. Some Swiss banks today charge interest for securing deposits. But most modern banks pay depositors interest on the money they keep in their accounts.
The Babylonian priests, never letting the grass grow under their feet, discovered that most of the people depositing valuables for safekeeping seldom came to reclaim their gold and other precious items. Instead, the people began using the clay receipt tablets as a means of exchange--money.
Now, thought the priests, the people believe that the clay tablets are backed by gold and other valuables, yet the deposits are seldom if ever claimed. We can issue ten times as many clay tablets as are backed by gold and grow rich. The priest-bankers issued clay tablets unredeemable by gold, loaned out the clay tablets at interest and were soon living the life of luxury.
The crafty Babylonian priests had invented all the features of modern full-service banking:
-Custody of money: gold and other precious objects in safekeeping in the temple vaults
-The issuing of currency (something in circulation as a means of exchange): clay tablets
-The charging of interest: money charged by banks for securing a depositor's money or money charged for a loan
-The loaning of money: loaning of clay tablets at interest
-The issue of fiat money: money not convertible into a commodity (such as gold or silver) of equivalent value--un-secured clay tablets
But let's not forget old Nebuchadnezzar, he invented two important stratagems which have lasted through the centuries: The technology of war & State fiscal policy