>From Charles Mann's 600 page tome, "1493," published this year. It is ironic that todays list of "porcos" in Europe, Greece excluded, is constituted by states that are remarkably free of institutional rot, and are driven by a single minded determination to better the lives of their people. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Americas produced a river of silver - more than a 150,000 tons between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Spanish silver washed around the planet -- overwhelming governments and institutions everywhere it landed. The Spanish silver peso became a universal and main currency, linking Europe's nations, much like the euro does today, There was an uncontrolled jump in the money supply: inflation and financial instability was the result. After sixty years of frenzied production, the value of silver began to fall: to a third of the old worth by 1640. Spain collected the same amount of taxes in silver, but the plunging value threw the government into crisis. The economies of a dozen other states, equally dependent on silver, also turned to ash. Ruin was followed by riot and revolution. Silver was not the sole cause of the upheaval: still, thr threads link the revolt against Spain in the Netherlands and Portugal and the ruinous civil war in France. The turbulence in Europe, though devastating, was a kind of sideshow -- most of the silver actually went to Asia, with a disproportionate share ending up in a single port in a single country: Fujian.
