States have claimed the right to manipulate money for thousands of years. The results have been disastrous, and this is particularly so with the repeated experiments with inconvertible or fiat paper currencies such as those of medieval China, John Law and the Assignats in 18th century France, the continentals of the Revolutionary War and the greenbacks of the Civil War and, most recently, in modern Zimbabwe. All such systems were created by states to finance their expenditures – typically to