China on the Brink of Bankruptcy is a recent article on The Catholic Reporter, of all places, where we can read about “Politics and Culture from a Catholic Perspective.” The article clin
cher? Not what you might expect in a traditionalist Catholic voice-on-line:
Go here to read [the original article on Chinese money woes] at The Epoch Times. If the Obama administration is thinking that the Chinese will buy our increasingly worthless debt as far as the eye can see, they had better readjust their options. Perhaps Gringotts might be in the mood to buy paper from Uncle Sam?
H/T Peony!
One of the weirder ways in which the wizarding world diverges from muggle society is on the monetary front. Goblins (with the consent of wizards) have kept the magical world firmly on a gold standard, apparently also with fixed exchange rates between gold, silver and copper.
I used to wonder why wizards ceded to goblins the power to run their central bank, then after HP7 came out I realized that a wizard’s ability to use the geminio charm to duplicate golden objects created a huge risk of debasing the currency (if you can just make supremely realistic fake money with a wave of a wand, how would anyone know what a Galleon was actually worth). But goblins seem to have the ability to detect forged precious metal and so it’s logical that wizards yielded central banking authority to goblins so that the integrity of their currency might be preserved.
Goblins love precious metals — and if the above analysis is correct goblins are also fearful of currency debasement and probably deeply suspicious of paper currencies that are not backed by a gold standard. I don’t think Gringotts would touch US dollars (or the Euro for that matter) with a ten foot probity probe!