Came across an American Term called ‘Boodling’ this morning while scanning one of the Investment newsletters that flood my email daily
‘BOODLING’ was a term used for ‘counterfeiting’ the Dollar
In 1865,there were thousands of Banks in USA…all went bust…. 1600 of them actually printed their own Dollar Currency,which in theory was backed by Gold Reserves…so with this variety of Dollars, the ‘Boodlers’ had a field day as detection was very difficult
Even when the universal currency ‘Greenback’ Dollar Notes were issued,Boodlers found it easy to counterfeit the currency…Interestingly the Dollar was called a ‘Greenback’ because only one side,it’s back, was printed in green ink
Amusingly,’Boodlers’ were held in awe and regarded as Ingenious Masters of Complicated Technology available near 150 years ago…just like so many view ‘Hackers’ in our contemporary world today !
So can we say that the Birth,Origin and Source of all woes and troubles associated with Capitalism and Democracy is the USA ! ?
Just to remind you that ‘Counterfeiting’ will debase your country’s currency and gives a friendly ,but evil,impetus to Inflationary pressures in the Economy
Just to remind you that India continues to be the victim of Rupee Counterfeiting with strong evidence of the source being at the highest levels across our borders
1 thought on “‘Boodling’…What a Word for Counterfeiting !…and yes it’s an American Term !”
Gaurav, I read that we have counterfeits to the tune of 160,000 crores. Across the border may be the entry route but actually these are released with the complicity of large traders who ‘buy’ these using their vault cash that is genuine and there is an exchange rate like 5 counterfeits for payment of 3 genuine notes. I read a detailed account of the messy banking business in USA you referred to in Galbraith’s ‘History of Economics-the past as the present’ published by Penguin. Actually, the central banks arrived due to the irresponsible and reckless behaviour of these private banks in the 18th and 19th centuries. They had started printing receipts(currency bills) far in excess of the gold that was deposited with them by traders. This eventually led to the modern banking based on fractional reserve mechanism. Who knows whether the idea of this aggregate money supply which we call M1, M2 etc. might change into something else!