[Verse 1] Sixteen eighty-eight, the Crown signs away its claim, Parliament holds the purse now, nothing's quite the same, North and Weingast wrote it down, a tidy little tale, Constrain the king, the lenders trust, and interest rates derail— downward, that's the thesis, credible as stone, a monarch bound by statute isn't ruling all alone, creditors exhale, they figure risk is low, lend your gold to Whitehall, watch the Treasury grow [Chorus] Commitment, commitment, lock the royal hand, Glorious Revolution writes the credit of the land, But trust ain't automatic, don't take it on a hunch— check the yields, check the years, before you swallow lunch Commitment, commitment, that's the mnemonic cue: Bind the king, bonds get cheap—but is that really true? [Verse 2] Sussman and Yafeh pull the ledgers off the shelf, decades roll by, interest rates don't drop down by themselves, high for years past eighty-eight, the timeline doesn't fit, if the settlement's the hero, why's the premium still lit? Stasavage counters with a sharper, partisan design: it's not the walls of Parliament, it's Whigs along the line, a creditor coalition sitting cozy in the House, guarding their own bonds like a cat protects a mouse [Chorus] Commitment, commitment, lock the royal hand, Glorious Revolution writes the credit of the land, But trust ain't automatic, don't take it on a hunch— check the yields, check the years, before you swallow lunch Commitment, commitment, that's the mnemonic cue: Bind the king, bonds get cheap—but is that really true? [Verse 3] Pincus and Robinson say forget the quiet frame, sixteen eighty-eight was fire, not a gentleman's game, a political-economy shake that rattled every wall, revolution with a ledger, not a peaceful tea-time call, meanwhile Brewer's looking elsewhere, not at oaths or pacts, he's counting excise men with ink-stained fingers, clipboards, facts, the Sinews of Power, he says, were bureaucrats who'd tax, a fiscal-military state built on stamps and wax [Bridge] So was it trust, or was it Whigs, or muscle in the clerks? The Stop of the Exchequer shows how fast a promise shirks, the Bank of England rises where the royal word once broke, and Hamilton in Philadelphia hears the echo when he spoke [Chorus] Commitment, commitment, lock the royal hand, Glorious Revolution writes the credit of the land, But trust ain't automatic, don't take it on a hunch— check the yields, check the years, before you swallow lunch Commitment, commitment, that's the mnemonic cue: Bind the king, bonds get cheap—but is that really true? [Outro] Institutions, coalitions, clerks who count the till, every fiscal state's a puzzle creditors must fill, remember North and Weingast, remember who said no— that's the sound of credit forming, centuries ago
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