With the fallout of 2008 and now in 2020, the current structure of the financial system under scrutiny by people the world over, scores of books, documentaries, and videos were produced to explain what happened and what the future holds. Specifically, in the United States, inflation and debt, the profits of which are reaped at the highest concentrated levels, are in question. But in order to understand the complexity of the 21st-century political economy, the domestic divisions, and the possible outcomes, like any study, it must be done at the beginning, and at the elementary level.
Volume I, Part II of The Art of Political Finance is a further look into the history of the United States picking up with Resumption in 1879 - the resumption of specie-based currency which put an end to the Greenback Era. As banking and party politics were yet at the foundation of consolidated capital, industrial dominance augmented the concentration of power. While Capitalism and wealth were lauded and used to apologize for transgressions against humanity, the people of the United States ceded not only to potentials of wealth but to the peace that goes along with prosperity. Guided by more than 90 illustrations from the period which were much more prolific and colorful, the text continues to analyze root cause and expose patterns in the commercial and banking arenas known as panics and depressions. These events, which are euphemized as business cycles, greatly affect the human experience and still require a resilient population to absorb. As the velocity of money encompassed the country, it also engulfed the political parties; the "evolution" of which is covered tangentially, showing the formation of a more homogenous central authority that obfuscated societal issues and usurped both democratic participation and republican establishment.
The author has added over 90 full-color illustrations throughout the book.
Bill Pacello was born in 1963 and grew up in the 1970s in the small town of Audubon, New Jersey. Bill graduated from Audubon High School in 1981 and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in business from Rutgers University in 1986. While attending both of those institutions, he spent a significant amount of his energy on the baseball field toward a well-rounded life and achieved area and state honors. After working in the waste, construction, and electronics industries, Bill returned to Rowan University in 1993 where he received a public school teaching certification. During his post-baccalaureate study, he began to develop computer skills and found work in the information technology department at a chemical company in Philadelphia. There he began learning the SAP enterprise system and soon embarked on a consulting career at IBM. After a few years of travel and settling in at one of its service delivery centers, his assignment and his time at IBM had run its course. Although treated well, the life behind a computer all day in a cubicle, office, or boiler room with no natural light began to weigh on his soul and his psyche. So, in 2005, faced with the prospect of being on an airplane every week for a second stint, he left IBM for a new life as an entrepreneur trying to capitalize on the motorcycle, tattoo, and t-shirt embellishment trend. The irony was that he had to leave one of the most esteemed companies in the information industry that offered many opportunities within the IT-sphere to explore an untapped part of his brain. But creativity and business experience were not enough to compete with low international labor rates and distribution channels leveraged by the highly capitalized retail giants in the 21st century "go big or go home" commercial arena. These experiences, along with Pacello's non-political affiliation and effort to adhere to the Christian faith, have fueled a perspective that will cut into both sides of the mainstream narrative. His first two books, The Art of Political Finance Part I and II, show the unfolding and proliferation of fiat currency and debt in early America and how it began to undermine individual freedom, liberty, national independence, and spirit, prior to the establishment of the Federal Reserve. The research and analysis provide an alternative for readers and young Americans so that they may better understand the 21st century bazaar, especially in an America with ratcheted discord after events like 911 and the "Great Recession" where each generation seems to be more apt to consumption and predation than the former.
