The Money Pit

 

The thing about money is, it’s not even real. Not really. We make it up, like the monsters under our childhood beds. But God help us when those monsters crawl out and show their teeth.

I was thinking about this the other day, reading about economic collapses. History books, financial journals—the kind of stuff that puts most folks to sleep. But not me. Because in those dusty old accounts, I could hear the screams.

Two thousand years. That’s how far back this particular nightmare goes. At least.

In Rome, 33 AD, Emperor Tiberius—a hard man with cold eyes, the kind who’d make you lock your doors if he moved in down the street—faced a financial collapse that threatened to tear the Empire apart like wet paper. Banks failing. Land values in free-fall. The whole economic system wobbling on stick legs.

(And don’t you remember how it felt in 2008? That cold sweat trickling down your spine when you checked your retirement account? The way people whispered at the supermarket, as if speaking too loud might bring the whole thing crashing down faster? Yeah. That feeling. It’s familiar as an old nightmare.)

It started, as these things often do, with greed. Roman senators and rich folk borrowing money hand over fist, buying up property like it was going out of style. Interest rates had dropped from 12 percent to 4 under Augustus. Felt like free money. Always does, until the bill comes due.

Back in Rome, there was this outfit called Seuthes & Son from Alexandria. Lost three ships in a storm on the Red Sea. Suddenly their fancy ostrich feathers and ivory weren’t worth the crates they came in. Then Malchus and Co., a Phoenician firm, went belly-up when workers decided they’d had enough and walked off the job.

(The dominos were falling, one after another after another, each with a sound like bones snapping.)

But the real trigger—the match tossed onto gasoline-soaked rags—was when some rich jackass named Publius Spencer yanked 30 million sesterces from a bank. Just pulled it right out, like a kid snatching the tablecloth from under the good china.

The bank collapsed. Then another. Then another.

Sound familiar? It should. In 2008, we watched the same horror show. Different characters, same script. People buying houses they couldn’t afford, with loans they didn’t understand. Prices climbing higher and higher, like Jack’s beanstalk. Until the giant came down, and his name was Reality.

Lehman Brothers. Bear Stearns. Names that once meant power, reduced to ghosts. Banks that were “too big to fail” turned out to be just the right size for a coffin.

(And who paid? Who always pays? Not the big shots who caused the mess. No, they got golden parachutes while the rest of us got anvils tied to our ankles.)

The thing about Emperor Tiberius, though—and this is where our story takes an unexpected turn, like finding out the hitchhiker you picked up has a pulse after all—is that he didn’t make the little guy pay for the mess.

Instead, he pumped 100 million sesterces into the banks. Told debtors they could take a breather on payments. Kept the grain flowing to the people. Made sure the average Joe in his toga didn’t have to choose between feeding his kids and keeping his tiny apartment in the Subura district.

Fast forward to Greece, 2009. Their national debt was a monster, 170% of GDP—a number so big it doesn’t even make sense to normal folks. Like trying to count the stars.

The European Union and IMF swooped in like vultures offering a helping hand. “We’ll save you,” they said, smiling with too many teeth. “All you have to do is cut everything. Healthcare. Schools. Pensions. Everything that makes life worth living.”

(And the people of Greece learned what we all learn eventually: that help often comes with hooks that tear the flesh when you try to wriggle free.)

You want to know the real horror story? It’s not that we have economic crises. It’s that we keep solving them the wrong way, over and over, like a record with a scratch that keeps jumping back to the same terrible note.

The Romans—who crucified people for entertainment, mind you—understood something we’ve forgotten: that a society isn’t measured by stock markets or GDP or whatever fancy economic indicators the talking heads babble about on TV. It’s measured by how it treats its people when the chips are down.

Two thousand years separate us from Tiberius and his banking crisis. Two thousand years of progress, of enlightenment, of technology that would seem like black magic to those ancient Romans.

And yet.

And yet we still haven’t learned the simple lesson that Tiberius knew in his bones: When the house is burning down, you save the people first. Not the furniture. Not the fancy drapes. The people.

But maybe that’s just how the story goes. Maybe we’re caught in a loop we can’t escape, like those poor souls in the Overlook Hotel, doomed to replay their tragedies forever and ever and ever.

Or maybe—just maybe—we could try something different next time.

(But I wouldn’t bet on it. Not with my money. Not in this lifetime.)