A banking professor ran the test on a real bank to settle where money comes from. Almost nobody watches him show the result.
Richard Werner, Chair in International Banking at Southampton, Zurich, February 2018.
The textbook says banks take deposits and lend them on. The accounting says something else.
Watch the section where he lays out the 3 competing theories side by side, then shows which one the ledger supports.
A lectern, a conference badge, a dark screen behind him.
Central banks published the same answer. The textbooks never changed.
“The highest form of peace is having no desire to be seen, validated or understood by anyone.”
- Epictetus
Epictetus (c. 50–135 CE) was a Greek Stoic philosopher born into slavery in the Roman Empire. After gaining his freedom, he became one of Stoicism’s most influential teachers, arguing that true freedom comes from mastering your own mind rather than controlling your circumstances.
Although Epictetus wrote nothing himself, his teachings were recorded by his student Arrian in the Discourses and Enchiridion. He taught that we should focus on what lies within our control—our thoughts, choices, and character—and meet everything else with acceptance and resilience. His ideas influenced generations of thinkers, from Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius to modern psychology, particularly cognitive behavioral therapy.
Painting: Daybreak, 1922, by Maxfield Parrish (1870–1966)
“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
― Mary Oliver