Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Katrina Gulliver
“‘Imagine money falling from the sky. Would you slip a tenner into your pocket before you told anyone? Chances are, most of us would trouser a few notes rather than inform the authorities.’ This is the opening of economist and banker David McWilliams’s rollicking history of money, and his description of Operation Bernhard, the Nazi campaign to destabilize Britain by flooding the country with counterfeit cash. Lenin tried a similar ploy in Russia. Despite having different political beliefs, they ‘both understood the phenomenal power of money: undermine money and you undermine the fabric of society.’ That right there is McWilliams’s underlying theme: money is the fabric of society. He wants people to understand how cash shapes our world.” (11/13/25)