MONETARY TIME TRAVEL
Journey back 2,000 years or look to the future in two books about money, greed and disaster
BY DOUG FRENCH

For most people, money passes through their hands so quickly they never stop to notice what is printed on U.S. currency. Now, with continued inflating by the Federal Reserve, dollar bills buy so little that they are becoming a nuisance to carry around, going the way of the penny. 

On the left-hand side of the back of a dollar bill is The Great Seal, containing the image of a pyramid with a shining eye in its capstone. The official word is that the pyramid represents strength and durability and that it's incomplete because so is the work of building the nation. The eye in the triangle is the all-seeing eye of providence. The eye and pyramid actually have links to Freemasonry. The eye is said to be a symbol of the Great Architect of the Universe, or God.

But conspiracy theorists believe the symbol has something to do with a shadow society that secretly rules the country. And this is the basis for Terry Krohn's novel Eye Of The Pyramid, a fast-paced thriller that takes the reader on a journey through 2,000 years of monetary history - from Egypt in 40 B.C. to the present.

The lives of three men from different periods in history are woven together by the author who cleverly builds suspense and anticipation throughout the book to keep the reader thirsting for the climax. 

Physicist Paul Malone has been aided by cryptic messages from his dreams throughout his life and when his work ventures into the realm of economics and financial markets he finds himself enmeshed in a plot involving the "Society," a group of powerful men dedicated to greed and the lust for ever more power. 

Esau was born in Egypt more than 2,000 years ago as the son of poor shepherds. Led by his dreams, he finds powerful artifacts under the desert sands from a race not seen on the Earth for 50,000 years.

Edward Leedskalnin, the creator of an amazing Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida, died in 1951. Ed mysteriously was able to move 50,000-pound stones by himself with powers unknown to modern man. 

The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA), an organization that believes the gold and stock markets are being manipulated, is touting Eye Of The Pyramid. Krohn's fiction dovetails with what GATA believes to be fact: Through the use of derivatives and other modern financial instruments, the United States' real physical gold supply supposedly held at Fort Knox is long gone, with painted lead bars taking its place. 

The coming economic disaster perpetrated by the use of financial derivatives and central bank shenanigans is the theme of Debt and Delusion: Central Bank Follies That Threaten Economic Disaster, authored by UK financial commentator Peter Warburton. 

The book, originally published in 1999, was out of print and nearly impossible to find until a new edition was released this past September. Warburton is skeptical that central banks can deliver on their promises of delivering low inflation, steady growth and continued prosperity through the wizardry of economists pulling interest rate and money supply levers. 

The author believes the world's central bankers have failed and that during "the past 20 years the reputation of central banks has expanded far beyond their true stature and accomplishments." 

Governments, businesses and consumers have become addicted to debt, Warburton argues, and the confidence in global financial markets is misplaced. "What is clear is that when the next global bear market in equities and bonds arrives," writes Warburton, "the unwinding of highly geared derivatives positions will trigger financial explosions in every corner of the developed world." 

Warburton is no libertarian. Debt and Delusion does not argue for a free market approach to avert the predicted disaster. He instead naively believes that central bankers should exert more control and even asserts that some inflation is preferable to no inflation. But in engaging fashion, Warburton shines a bright light on the immense amount of financial risk that central banking has engendered and warns us to: "Prepare for an explosion that will rock the western financial system to its foundations."

Thankfully, the climax to Warburton's story has yet to occur. But, how long do we have? LW

Doug French, associate editor of Liberty Watch: The Magazine, is an executive vice president of a Nevada bank. He is the 2005 recipient of the Murray N. Rothbard Award from the Center for Libertarian Studies.