Book Review: The Great Taking

Title: The Great Taking 

Author: David Rogers Webb

Date: 2023

Web site: thegreattaking.com

Quote: "[T]his book...is about the  taking of collateral, all of it."

David Rogers Webb worked in the "investment" business. He observed what went on in the money-handling business. Basically, people who handle other people's money want some of it. They want more than their original contracts with their customers allow. When they're allowed to work with governments, as in the Federal Reserve, they find ways to take their customers' money by setting up crashes and crises that devour what credulous people have "invested" with them. They will no doubt find ways to take money that's been invested in gold, in real estate, or in less blatantly unethical businesses, too. What can we do about it, having a Federal Reserve Bank? We can remind ourselves that money isn't everything.

Webb is preaching to the choir with me; I was brought up to despise the idea of money-handling being a business, to recognize all offerings of credit cards and sales pitches for "investment plans" that amount to lending money at interest as strictly things to light fires with. For that reason I don't think I even understand some of his detailed explanations of the scams and schemes Webb has observed in the money-handling business. I get the point of the stories: Some people paid other people to handle large amounts of money for them, and the money handlers stole it, or other money handlers stole it from theirs. I don't follow the details of how each heist was accomplished. 

I don't think this book is as well written as it could possibly be, and neither does Webb. He encourages readers to check for updated editions at the book's web site. But his point is clear. He's been a money handler. He wrote this book for his conscience's sake. If you trust any kind of money handler, even a bank owned by neighbors you have personally found trustworthy, you are at risk. And, really, what you can do about it is accept that the treasures of this world are, by nature, things moth and rust corrupt and thieves break in and steal.