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| | Location: Home » Mortgages » General AAS » The Grip of Death: A Study of Modern Money, Debt Slavery, and Destructive Economics | January 9, 2009 |
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| The Grip of Death: A Study of Modern Money, Debt Slavery, and Destructive Economics | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Rowbotham
Publisher: Jon Carpenter Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $34.95
Buy New: $18.92
You Save: $16.03 (46%)
Buy New/Used from $18.92
Avg. Customer Rating:  (19 reviews)
Sales Rank: 954089
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 1897766408
Dewey Decimal Number: 332
EAN: 9781897766408
ASIN: 1897766408
Publication Date: August 1, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
A lucid and original account of where money comes from and why most people and businesses are so heavily in debt. It explodes more myths than any other book this century, yet it's all about subjects very close to home: mortgages, building societies and banks, agriculture, transport, global poverty, and what's on the supermarket shelf. The author proposes a new mechanism for the supply of money, creating a supportive financial environment and a decreasing reliance on debt.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 Out of Thin Air October 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Kevin W Lomas & ClivKno are sadly mistaken about the source of the money loaned to borrowers under our current fractional reserve system.
Money deposited in banks which can be removed at any time (more properly demand deposits) only fraudulently can be loaned out. Time deposits, for which the banks agree to return the deposit at a future time with interest, become the property of the bank and could be properly loaned out. (See Murray Rothbard's The Mystery of Banking for a much more complete explanation.)
What ClivKno fails to mention in his claim that banks extend loans backed by the assests of the bank is that THE ASSESTS BACKING THE LOAN DID NOT EXIST BEFORE THE LOAN WAS CREATED! When a borrower promises to repay the loan with interest, the banks's double entry bookeeping creates an asset in the amount of the principal of the loan based on the borrower's promise to repay and a balancing liability based on the principal of the outstanding loan. It should be noted that the interest to repay the loan was NOT created along with the principal.
This is explained in Ellen Hodgson Brown's book Web of Debt, especially in her recitation of the court foreclosure case of FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF MONTGOMERY VS. DALY, in which defendant Jerome Daly argued that there was no consideration (a legal term) for the loan, i.e., that the bank had put up no real money for the loan.
When the president of the bank, Mr. Morgan came to the stand he admitted "that the bank routinely created the money it lent 'out of thin air', and that this was standard banking practice."
Much more follows, and I highly recommend the book WEB OF DEBT by Ellen Hodgson Brown, along with this book.
 The Grip of Confusion June 18, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The thesis of this book is:
1. Debt/credit and borrowing/lending are very bad things; and
2. Banks around the world are engaging in a conspiracy to damage mankind
There is no credible evidence presented to support either proposition. To the contrary, the author damages his credibility by engaging in speculative conspiracy theories. All evidence of the benefits of the financial system is ignored by the author.
Ultimately, this book is just another anti-capitalist rant with little substance.
Causes a bit of contention this one, doesn't it! January 11, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I read this book myself a couple of years back. I am not an economist. I recommend the book whole heartedly - please buy it today. If Rowbotham's basic arguments are correct, the subject matter is a vital issue for us and our children. For me the book appealed on both an intuitive and rational basis - it rang so many bells, struck so many chords with me that I will refuse to believe that the key ideas proposed are fundamentally incorrect until someone gives me some specific counter arguments. I have read the reviews on this site, and have not found persuasive arguments anywhere in the negative ones (see below). I would agree with the reviewer(s) who say Rowbotham is weak on solutions to the problems he outlines. But this does not mean that there is a pressing need for the issues he raises to be highlighted and better understood.
A couple of negative reviewers do put opposing arguments together - "He doesn't understand that it is actually depositors' money that is lent out, limiting the amount that any bank can lend!" and similarly "Credit is not created out of thin air, but has to be backed by assets of the bank issuing the credit..." - I find it hard to believe that these reviewers have really read the book because this point is answered very clearly. "He also makes a huge point about the limited amount of cash (notes and coins) circulating in the economy and seems to think that this is some kind of banking conspiracy to enslave people into debt" - Rowbotham refers to the limited amount of notes and coins in circulation just to set the scene to help us to understand a banking system which allows the "new money as debt" scam to be perpetuated. This is covered early on in the book - pp10-11.
Other detractors say variously "Poorly written, poorly researched, full of errors of fact and logic..."; "This book is a good case study in getting the wrong end of the stick and swinging it wildly in all directions"; "...this is twaddle of the lowest order - full of first-year undergraduate errors"; "The conspiracy theories advanced stand no scrutiny and would have easily been explained to Mr Rowbotham had he taken the time to get his drafts read by someone with an iota of understanding of banking before he published" - but none of them produce a specific argument against the basic tenet of the book.
Buy the book. See what *you* think!
READ SILVIO GESELL July 27, 2005
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Anyone interested in the topic of money and credit (debt), and the associated topic of economic crises, poverty etc, please
(...)
Although I very much like the work of Murray Rothbard and other austrian economists (von Mises) on monetary economics, they never understood the matter like Silvio Gesell did.
The solutions of the Austrian economists (free banking, without the cartel of the central bank) will not liberate the world. They just propose to go back to the system before monetary policy existed, which has rendered poverty for thousands of years.
Silvio Gesell on the other hand tracks down the very source of the problem. The solution he provides can easily be adapted to compete with our current system. Moreover, the system he proposes will always beat our current system, if the two will be allowed to compete. In the past it has already proven itself in Germany, Austria and the USA, and it has been cancelled each time for being TOO SUCCESSFULL!
Please people, read the pdf file, read the work of Silvio Gesell!
Also try to find a copy of his endearing and educative story about the island "Barataria".
 Partially right but mostly wrong... June 28, 2005
11 out of 16 found this review helpful
The Grip of Death is a 326 page attempt to blame our current economic ills on the banking system. While the book makes many valid points about the evil of the current debt based monetary system the author's statist tendencies causes him to propose a solution that is no better than the system that he criticizes. It seems that Mr. Rowbotham has no real problem with irredeemable fiat currency that destroys the purchasing power of savers by continual expansion of the money supply as long as that destruction is directly caused by governments and not a banking cartel such as the current system. Of course, the problem with his solution is that the saver simply trades one unaccountable master for another.
As far as I am concerned the best book about money that has been written is Murray Rothbard's, What Has Government Done to Our Money. While he agrees with Rowbotham's critique of central banking, Rothbard presents a workable blueprint for a return to a stable monetary system that preserves the purchasing power of savers and elevates individual liberty over state greed and recklessnes. If your tendencies run towards Green Party socialism Rowbotham's book is for you. If you prefer liberty you will find Rothbard makes much more sense.
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