Re: [Pen-l] the era of free banking

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Oct 24, 2008, at 5:42 PM, Michael Perelman wrote:

> Peyton, John L. 1869. Over the Alleghenies; extracted in Warren S.  
> Tryon,
> ed. A Mirror for Americans, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago  
> Press,
> 1952): III, pp. 589-607.
>  605: Visiting Chicago in 1848, Peyton objects to taking wildcat notes
> from an obscure Atlanta bank.  The hotelkeeper responds, is discussing
> notes: "Why, sir, ... this hotel was built with that kind of  
> stuff ....  I
> will take "wild cats" for your bill, my butcher takes them of me,  
> and the
> farmer from him, and so we go, making it pleasant all around.  I  
> only take
> care ... to invest what I may have at the end of a given time in  
> corner
> lots ....  On this kind of worthless currency, based on Mr. Smith's  
> [the
> issuer's] supposed wealth and our wants, we are creating a great city,
> building up all kind of industrial establishments, and covering the  
> lake
> with vessels -- so that suffer who may when the inevitable hour of
> reckoning arrives, the country will be the gainer, Jack Rossiter [the
> speaker] will try, when this day of reckoning comes, to have "clean  
> hands"
> and a fair record ....  A man who meddles, my dear sir, with wild- 
> cat banks
> is on a slippery spot, and that spot the edge of a precipice."

Aren't people spouting a lot of piffle about how unprecedented the  
current melodrama is? This country was built on bubbles and security  
fraud.

Doug
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