Posted on 11/06/2018 11:00:48 AM PST by jonascord
"[An] aspect of Villa's economic overlordship deserve[s] special attention: his attitude to the money supply. ... An economic simpleton, Villa saw no reason why he could not simply print the money he needed, and to an extent the American banks in El Paso colluded with this by accepting his currency at eighteen-nineteen cents on the dollar, on Villa's guarantee. Villa's assault on market orthodoxy was more difficult to handle, especially when he gave the poor of Chihuahua fifteen dollars each on Christmas Day 1913, and then fixed the price of staples: beef was to be sold at seven cents a pound, milk at five cents a quart and bread at four cents a loaf. Mexican currency from the Bank of Chihuahua"
"Mexican merchants tried to evade Villa's price fixing by pricing their goods on a two-tier system, one price quoted against Mexican silver money, the other against Villa's paper money. Villa retaliated by ordering a mandatory sixty days in jail for anyone caught discriminating against his currency. When that measure failed to work, and people continued to hoard silver and 'real' bank bills, Villa declared that all such money not exchanged for his currency at par within a week would cease to be legal tender and its holders treated as counterfeiters. This tough measure panicked the hoarders into disgorging."
(Excerpt) Read more at delanceyplace.com ...
He was also the armed invader of Col,NM back about 1916!
Just ask Gen Pershing........
;)
GyG@PlanetGotCha-22
This measure could be imposed today in modern-day America (or any other country).
And believe me: The beef you got would, indeed, be worth 7 cents / lb. The milk would have the quality you would expect of milk costing 5 cents / quart. And the bread would taste just like 4-cent-a-loaf bread!
Regards,
And his co-ethnic spiritual descendants like Kevin De Leon, Xavier Becerra and Ricardo Lara in California along with the Ocasio-Cortez nutcase in Nueva York spout the same nonsense which leads to the same result.
Just what America needs: Mexican Socialism.
Because it worked so well in Central and South America.
I saw the movie “Pancho Villa” starring Wallace Beery. I loved the scene where Pancho Villa tried to pay the printers who printed the new money with the worthless currency that they had just printed.
Villa was shot to death in the back seat of a Dodge Brothers sedan. That car is in a museum in ciudad chihuahua. You can see the bullet holes in the back seat and back panel of the car.
This is a bit unfair.
Recall that Villa was running a revolution, in a state of chaos, not a functioning economy.
Every revolutionary government ever has done similar things, often much worse. The Continental Congress and the Confederate government both issues worthless paper money, requisitioned supplies without payment, etc.
And plenty of established governments in wartime also.
Villa was a sort-of communist.
Or, at least, he played one for those communists in the press.
Worth a read - John Reed’s “Insurgent Mexico”
John Reed was a very fine writer, though a complete communist. His Mexico piece, full of humor both deliberate and inadvertent, sort of subverts his own ideas, because at every turn, reporting everything as he does, warts and all, it implicitly raises the question of whether these people can make a revolution work. And as Reed spoke Spanish well, it is unfiltered.
Reed met Villa often. And its completely clear that Villa would have got nowhere without extensive help (money) from Americans. For a couple of years there he was a sort-of American proxy.
He understood economics as well as any socialist/democrat. You just set a price and the market supplies the product. Isnt that how it works?
My husband’s GF was in the National Guard and there by the next morning. There were so many dead Mexicans that they stacked them like cordwood and burned the bodies.
Villa was about as far from communist as can be imagined. But in the Wilson era, opposing the Mexican president was “communist”
Villa was about as far from communist as can be imagined. But in the Wilson era, opposing the Mexican president was “communist”
Yes, Villa was a tool. A friend of mine who grew up in Columbus wrote a pretty good song about it.
I think I have a picture of him that my husband’s grandfather took with his Brownie. I will check it some day.
Yet Villa went on to appear in a Hollywood flik!
See Wikipedia.
He was burning dead Mexicans, not Pancho Villa.
Oh really now. Your husbands GF was in the National Guard, in 1916.
You must have some interesting stories. /s
Oh, grandfather. Not Girlfriend. Different GF.
Everyone remembers the raid on Columbus like it just happened out of the blue. Nobody remembers that a few months before, Pancho had Carranza’s forces backed into a very small 180 degree perimeter, with their backs to the US border. They were facing certain defeat by Pancho.
Woodrow Wilson allowed 5000 Mexican troops and 6 artillery pieces to cross into the USA at Eagle Pass and Laredo and take trains through El Paso and New Mexico into Arizona. The trains stopped in Douglas a few hundred yards from the border.
The Mexican army formed up in Douglas Arizona and walked across the border INTO Carranza’s perimeter with food, ammo, water, artillery, and water.
Pancho was defeated and had to withdraw.
In his mind, if the Mexican army could maneuver on US soil to his disadvantage, then he was just as free to do the same. So he launched the raid on Columbus.
It’s actually pretty sound reasoning.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.