Before there were coins or bills, there was interest. Creditors have been lending money (and before that, seeds and animals) since the eighth century BC. The Mesopotamians recorded their loans on clay tablets, not unlike your credit card companies or the bank that services your mortgage.
The First Financial Crises
We don’t know exactly when the first recession hit, but financial crises were common in ancient history. More than 4,000 years before Joe Biden tried to push through student loan forgiveness in the United States, an ancient ruler named Enmetena offered debt forgiveness for the first time. Our latest Instaread summarizes the best business book of 2022 according to the Financial Times: The Price of Time.
