The crisis was by this time fairly under way, and nothing could check it till a nation's ransom had been wasted.
"A cause, also inherent in your system, which often produced and always terribly aggravated crises, was the machinery of money and credit.
Money was essential when production was in many private hands, and buying and selling was necessary to secure what one wanted.

It was, however, open to the obvious objection of substituting for food, clothing, and other things a merely conventional representative of them.

The confusion of mind which this favored, between goods and their representative, led the way to the credit system and its prodigious illusions.

Already accustomed to accept money for commodities, the people next accepted promises for money, and ceased to look at all behind the representative for the thing represented.

Money was a sign of real commodities, but credit was but the sign of a sign.