Jews

Pot Head

I thought it was all Obama's fault.

Nick Biskinis

There have been lots of pseudo arguments linking religions with economic systems. Jews historically were bankers in Medieval Europe especially Germany because at the time Christians were somewhat restrictive in business exploits. However, the modern banking system owes more to the Italian city states like Genoa and Venice, or the Netherlands.

In regard to America, capitalism evolved as a natural instinct rather than any one ethnic/religious group 'creating a system' per se, other than perhaps the rule of law. A lot of guff is said that Protestantism 'created' American capitalism/finance, but capitalist fur trade in Quebec was set up by Catholics for example. And of course the Spanish settlements. But if you really are to 'blame' a religous/ethnic group for US financial system, then Hamas would ought to be blaming White Anglo-Saxon Protestantism - eg the early European settlers from England, Scotland and Netherlands. But then again why follow Hamas' warped version of history, when rational study would be more fulfilling for the genuinely curious?

Tommy Judd

Since The Guardian didn't offer a comment after Ed Pilkington's "Young make 'great schlep' to persuade a sceptical generation to vote Obama" this morning, I came here since I thought you'd appreciate it. According to Pilkington, "About 10 million registered Jewish voters live in Florida." This one state has 3 million more REGISTERED VOTERS than Israel has people! The Jewish population of Florida is 750,000, making the number of registered voters 500,000?

This may seem pedantic (although basic fact-checking is rarely a bad idea for a daily newspaper) but it plays into the old idea of excessive Jewish influence. I often ask people to guess the world Jewish population and even very well-informed people overstate it by a minimum 1,000%.