Setting interest rates before there was a Fed

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: How Did Ancient Bureaucrats Set Their Interest Rates? (Michael Hudson). The answer is deceptively simple. It also explains a lot about ancient chronic debt, a problem noted often in the Bible.

BHD has a number of other essays posted on ancient taxation, but they are all re-postings that I have already noted. This one is a (new) reprint of a 1999 article from Archaeology Odyssey.

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