Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Today's link at naked capitalism: Dung loaming: how llamas aided the Inca empire, at the Guardian:

The Incas may have created the biggest empire in the Americas and built Machu Picchu, among other wonders, thanks to a previously overlooked ingredient: llama dung.
Manure from llama herds provided fertiliser which enabled corn to be cultivated at very high altitudes, allowing the Inca civilisation to flourish in the Andes and conquer much of South America, according to research.
The "extraordinary plant-breeding event" about 2,700 years ago transformed the region's political economy and enabled the Incas to emerge centuries later, said Alex Chepstow-Lusty, of the French Institute of Andean Studies in Lima.

"This widespread shift to agriculture and societal development was only possible with an extra ingredient – organic fertilisers on a vast scale." The study, published in the latest edition of the journal Antiquity, found corn pollen in the mud of Marcacocha lake, near Ollantayambo, showing the cereal could be grown at least 3,350m above sea level.

The reason llamas were so helpful?  They all crap in the same place, so it was easy to collect.  This story is just one more reminder of how agriculture was the building block of every society in the world.  The links also include a story on the connection between high finance and sex, which includes a bit of New York sex trade history.