Sept. 30, 2008 (LPAC)--For the second time in a few days, a European newspaper has compared the ongoing banking crash to the great 14th-Century civilizational disaster, cited for many years only by Lyndon LaRouche in this connection--and this time, quoting LaRouche organizers currently visiting Scotland.

The Scottish Daily Record, in a Sept. 30 article "Financial Crisis and Scottish History," briefly quotes LaRouche associates Bill Jones and Marsha Freeman--in Scotland at a conference--as saying Americans massively reject Paulson's bailout of banks. "Throughout every corner of the United States people are appalled utterly at the consequences of much fewer teachers, police officers, social provision, infrastructure repairs etc to rescue corrupt bankers." The Daily Record identifies Bill and Marsha only as "Democratic Party activists from the USA."

But then the Record continues, obviously based on its discussion with the LaRouche organizers, "There was a similar crisis to this in the 14th Century and it heralded in a dark age of warfare and disease.

"The investment banks of the Lombard banking system during the 14th century, led by the House of Bardi, looted all the kingdoms of Europe in the way the banks are trying to do now. Edward 1st of England was under the most pressure from them as a consequence of his long wars against France and Wales. The wool trade, based on the Scottish border abbeys, were a source of state revenue, and were keeping the Scottish monarchy afloat in what for our country has been defined by historians as a golden age of prosperity.

"It was all too tempting for Edward Plantagenet, deeply in debt to the international bankers. The rest we know. The rest is history. But it is an object lesson on where financial crises can lead."

LaRouche for many years has warned that the consequence of globalization and deindustrialization would be a crash comparable only to that of the Lombard banks in 1345-48, causing civilization's descent into a dark age of plagues and depopulation.