CityJournal/Allison Schrager/10-26-2022

“The earliest evidence that we’ve got for something as cerebral and complex as compound interest comes from the Sumerian civilization, which goes back about 5,000 years ago and also goes back to the origins of writing. So, it could be that ideas about interest and savings and so forth may have started earlier, but we didn’t have any record until people began to write things down and save records.”

USAGOLD note: Fascinating conversation between City Journal’s Alison Schrager and Yale School of Management’s William N. Goetzman on the role of finance in the advance of civilization. Good read……

Image: A Sumerian cuneiform record of a silver loan on a clay tablet, Metropolitan of Art Museum