The next great leap ahead was the advent of double-entry accounting in Renaissance Italy.

FORBES: Europe's Debt Crisis Is No Failing Of Federalism

Banking and double-entry bookkeeping, first created 500 years ago, enabled proto-capitalists to hide their wealth in a myriad of ways.

FORBES: Malone's Musing

Once again, my more ponderous thoughts were featured in an essay being published tomorrow in The Los Angeles Review of Books, in which I analyse Double Entry : How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance by Jane Gleeson-White.

FORBES: Every Accountant Tells a Story