Dear Sir,

It was during the second half of 1989 that the crisis came to a head.

No one, nor any government, had enough money to pay for all of their necessities.

No one, nor any government had enough money to pay for all the debts they owed to everyone else.

The Summit Council had no alternative but to mandate that all commerce be suspended, and that every inhabitant bring all of his money and his books of account to the Great Hall of the Council.

This was done and all of the money on earth was placed in an enormous heap in the courtyard of the Great Hall. The most skilled and trusted accountants were then instructed to count the money.

At the end of their count, they confirmed that the grand total was exactly the same as the records of all the money that had been issued by all governments.

These most skilled and trusted accountants were then instructed to process all of the books of accounts through the most powerful atomic computers.

In an instant, these remarkable computers presented their findings, saying:

Artificial Money

“Before you is a heap of all the money that you have issued and it is all and well accounted for. However, your books of account reveal that, for reasons of trade, industry and commerce, you all owe to each other in the form of the device known as interest several times more than all of the money that was issued in the first place.

“The device called interest has created in your books of account, an enormous fund of imaginary money. This is artificial money as you clearly see, because even as you stand assembled around all of the money of this planet, that interest keeps growing on your books of account.

“When you leave here, the amount of that imaginary money called interest shall already be much greater than it was when you arrived.”

Hearing this simple truth, the assembled inhabitants turned as one away from their heaped up money and books of accounts and returned with great relief and renewal to their daily labours. Then the Summit Council took the print-out from the atomic computers and they read:

Simple Interest
Ten dollars each had five young men and five young ladies too.
Ten dollars each young lady loaned to one of five men true,
And charged each Simple Interest, one dollar for each day,
Now forty full days later, no man did yet repay.
One hundred dollars still they hold between them as before,
But now in Simple Interest they owe 200 more.

And so the Summit Council, without a word of debate, set fire to the great heap of money and books of account.

Buddie G. Miller
First published: December 1988
Just 20 years early.