Money as Debt
5.80
Ratings: 5.80/10 from 135 users.
Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal, there is no human relation between master and slave. Debt- government, corporate and household has reached astronomical proportions. Where does all this money come from? How could there BE that much money to lend? The answer is…there isn’t. Today, MONEY IS DEBT. If there were NO DEBT there would be NO MONEY.
If this is puzzling to you, you are not alone. Very few people understand, even though all of us are affected. This fast-paced and highly entertaining animated feature by artist & videographer, Paul Grignon explains today’s magically perverse DEBT-MONEY SYSTEM in terms that are easy to understand.
This is more remarkable as Grignon was years before the 2008 Lahman brothers collapse resultant to or which caused the Global Economy breakdown . It was in 2002 that I saw this video ,little realisng that I was actually foreseeing the mecahanism of how the breakdown happened. I did NOT have the eyes nor the traininng to see it, but those who did have established economic theorists, Nobel laurates , Harvard and Yale professors of economy , all turned a nelson's eye to it speaks volumes of their lack of professional integrity and in a way their crroked mind which was obviously hijacked by the filthy rich 1%.It aws sad that they on whom we had placed our trust let us so badly down. The fall was many times over worse than the fall of Twin Towers which some say and I tend to beleieve them was engineered by these crooks only to take the heat off their backs , the wolves of Wall Street and the socially and morally irresponsible bankers. These scoundrels are still playing their game of distraction by recently brining out a video where they throw the blame squarely on to the shoulders of the victims whom they deliberately and knowingly seduced , by telling that it was all the fault of the naive public that they went for the ride up the primrose path , due to their own "irrational exhuberance " and emotional imperatives ! Can bastardliness have any limits with these 1%-centres ? here is the link to their latest ploy , harvardians, Nobelists Adam Smith et al Shameless devils !
Their ill gotten wealth need to be conffiscated and they be tried pulically not under the law they made for their own safety but under the law that people make for them now.
frac reserve lending is what caused the major upset, until the fed is ended many lives will be lost i the perpetual debt slavery system we coin as "fair banking practice".
If government issue their own money how will international trade be done?
The way they did before the Federal reserve bank took over the Government. The Federal Government issued treasury bonds that were backed by gold and silver.
and thus an evil invention was born, man learned how to change worthless paper into gold.
It's hard for the average person (me) to know if any of this is true. I'm glad the author isn't a tin foil hat wearing nut, con-man like Alex Jones or one of those supporters of Ron Paul but is he right? Dunno! From what I've very briefly read, he describes the mechanism of money well but draws the wrong conclusions i.e. that the machine is inherently flawed and can ONLY lead to catastrophic failure. Many learned people (for what it's worth) disagree with Grignon.
Let’s says this film is correct. Other than a Greek style protest, what can I/we do about it? Probably very little right now and not nearly enough by the time it's too late. But if the film is wrong, all is well, economies will continue to grow and the only downside will be the tiresomely incessant conversations about how we remember when a glass of beer was only $1 and you could drive all the way around to world on a single tank of petrol.
I certainly feel there's a better way to do commerce than our current system so that at least the PERCEPTION of unfairness is reduced. Even better would be to achieve an ACTUAL fairer world (sorry to sound like a beauty pageant contestant). Calling for a fairer world though only raises the question: what is fairness? You can’t change a great deal without a strong moral imperative so for me, for quite some time now, fairness is the real question. It’s seems to be what all the economic debates you see in the media boil down to.
Here is what you do- eliminate money from your life- leave the city that you live in- learn how to grow your own food. And how to handle a firearm. Because there will be millions right behind you. Watch the first episode of Jame's Burke's Connections- "The Trigger Effect".
The way they did before the Federal reserve bank took over the Government. The Federal Government issued treasury bonds that were backed by gold and silver.
First of all its Called Fractional Banking, and it's very real. And the Federal Reserve Bank (As federal as Federal Express) explains it very well in a free pamphlet called Modern Money Mechanics.
and thus an evil invention was born, man learned how to change worthless paper into gold.
fairness is doing trade without interest, if money was issued backed by gold the whole world would benefit, gaddafi knew this and sadam hussain knew this and tried inventing somthing called the goldino, but look what happened to them,
Taxes are a form of slavery too. PBS does not complain about that!
There's a very easy way of taking care of this problem: if everybody out there defaults on their debt at one. That's the way to starve the beast!
okay. but you go first!
this is my opinion, we can't trust a the banking system as it stands now nor can we trust a national currency built off of mostly debt it seems unsustainable. Eventually it will fail its starting to show huge cracks already also we can't be run by a government that is continuley digging deeper and deeper into debt, leaning on the people like someone who had a little too much to drink cause in the morning its gonna realize that it got a little too drunk on their own arrogance and clammers to turn back the clock. We need to make it clear that the government is cut off and needs to look at itself. My thoughts on a possible solution is to audit the federal reserve to see where exactly our bail out money went to eventually disband the federal reserve altogether. Have banks be clear and honest with both the people with savings accounts and the loan applicants to were they got the money and what they plan to do with the money. No big powerful banks or lobbiest groups in washington dc. No redistrabution of wealth just a structure that can have healthy competition. I'm probably way off but thats my thoughts on this situation
Barter and Tally sticks...
I always have a problem with documentaries with an agenda, however since I agree with most of this one I let it slip. I am convinced we will need to overhaul our economic/monetary system in the not so distant future and the alternative suggested here seems appetizing. But such a transition must go hand in hand with other reforms such as:
- better and more direct democratic system to make sure policy makers follow public opinion
- new incentive for technological progress
- to avoid being excluded from international trade pioneering nations must make any new system compatible with the old
and of course fill in the crude outlines drawn by some cartoon on the internet. What is important is not what exact path we choose to take but that we do not let the wheel keep spinning faster and faster.
I can't believe that there are detractors to this video's content. While I will agree that some of the camera angles were a little risky and these days I hate to watch anything that isn't in HD. Quite simply, this doc, "dumbed" it down for the least of our Intelligentsia, and yet there are those few who still don't get it. It's either that, or perhaps they take pleasure in ignoring facts, to foment arguments.
The information contained is not only true, but verifiable if only you had access to books (assuming you can read), other documentaries, and even our "Exalted" main stream media. Hopefully someone else can create an easier to understand documentary that will break this subject down to it's basic premise, and then everyone will be able to understand...
I always love documentaries that explain complicated notions in economy with cartoons and in a simple way. The more simple the way the narator explains you something the more it means that he has good knowledge. A good explanation is when even a child can understand what you are saying. I managed to follow at the begining but in the midle I got a bit confused. Maybe I will need to see it twice.
OMFG...is this "documentary" supposed to be meant seriously?
Sooooo. I think the video skips a couple steps. The creation of money doesn't start with gold. It starts with trade. Economy is based on the need or desire for trade. In the barter system, you rely on a tight knit community where everyone plays a role to support the whole. If you have a trade that requires a lot of time and is only bought once, like if you were a mason, then trade would be hard.
With money, you get a "fair" trade at true cost, to be able to buy the goods you need to get by - in an ideal world. What baffles me is why farmers are the poorest people, while they provide the most important good of all?! Exactly how can you justify telling me that you're gold is worth more than my rice?
The only gold is good for is conducting electricity. Pretty sure they didn't do that in the Middle Ages. So the farmers, who feed the cities, are forced into debt, and then while they are trying to recover, the market drives the price of grains down by buying stock piles.
I'm not exactly sure how this makes sense..but somehow in this economy, the farmers grow more to make more money, but the surplus grain cause the price per bushel paid to drop, and so they grow more which causes it drop again and yet somehow the price of grain continues to rise in the marketplace?
S@#$ is f@#$%^. But yea. Check out the Zeitgeist film series. new one coming out in January '11.
Kenneth Boulding, one of the US's more profound and forgotten economists of the late 50's, said, to this effect: "Only mad men and economists believe in perpetual growth". There is no reason to doubt this logic since the material basis to justify exponential growth runs in the opposite direction. More growth, more environmental destruction. It seems to me that whatever one's political persuasion, libertarian versus something else, all of this is irrelevant. Does economic growth actually correspond to the material cost of borrowing? Meaning, as demonstrated in the doc, there is a material cost both to the present and future to take from the environment to satisfy borrowing, from which a portion will be repaid to banks that have done nothing but create the fiction that debt is necessary for economic progress. Who pays the cost of externalities for economic growth predicated on the fiction of money? The solutions the doc presents are worth thinking about because the alternative is horrible to contemplate. Which is that as people are less able to find work, because the profit motive requires that technology and cutting labour to increase year over year growth, fewer and fewer people will be credit-worthy. If people are not credit-worthy, they cannot consume, therefore reducing the demand upon which growth is predicated. So what will happen? Let them eat cake. This means, I think, the material basis for the economy, the environment, will be spared because the number of people presently on the planet will be useless as consumers and producers. What other option is there when the cost of growth I (the environment) to debt remains hidden from us.
I'm not sure what to think of this video... I'm a libertarian and while this cartoon does warn about debt and the modern financial system, I'm not sure that it's suggestions for a solution are consistent with libertarian ideals.
For one thing, its complaints against usury are pretty silly. If there is no interest, then capital will never be lent to any new ventures because there is no motivation for lenders to do so.
Second, taking on debt is not in itself a bad thing; taking on debt that you cannot pay back is a bad thing. I have no problem with debt per se, just irresponsibly taking on more and more without paying back the debt you already have.
Third, it mentions that a government should have sole control over the money supply of its nation. While I am no fan of the Federal Reserve and the current monetary system, the reason that the government currently outsources money creation is as a protection against rampant inflation... Every government will inflate into oblivion if given the chance to do so. This is one of the arguments in favor of the Fed and an "independent" central bank; it is a (slight) check against a government's inherent desire to debase its currency to pay for unlimited projects.
All in all, in my opinion the film introduces a couple interesting points about the current financial system, but the "solutions" it offers are a bit lacking and rather incoherent. The tone of the movie walks a fine line, but for the most part I would put this in the Alex Jones/global conspiracy theorist category rather than the Ron Paul/libertarian category.
I agree with BP's reading suggestions. I'd go with Mises, Hazlit, Hayek, or Ron Paul for starters.
"Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt
"Road to Serfdom" by Friedrich Hayek
"End the Fed" by Ron Paul
BP, thanks for the book recommendations. I was just wondering where I could get further reading on the subject.
oh and last but not least read some Mises or Hazlit. Id go with economics in one lesson to get you started. It will quickly show why "usery" makes sence. The concept that intrest is bad can be traced to Keynes.
oh and the part that banks control everything and we no longer have a democracy is ridiculous.( he said democracy when we are a republic, but w.e. he's canadian so it slides) I just wish everyone could have an internship working in the capital in DC...it would forever end b.s. like this.
Also, if you don't want to buy into the system, then don't take out a loan. If you do, just repay it. It's common sence, you don't have to go into debt if you don't want too. Sure, this means you'll live in a worse house than everyone and drive a worse car, but those are prices to pay and you can still be perfectly happy with what you have.
As for the nationalist pov, just vote in real conservatives, thats all you can do while the libertarain party remains weak.
'If you do, just repay it." <--- which exasperates the problem further
what part of borrowing money = creates money out of nowhere did you not understand simpleton?
This is not a libertarian video.Far from it. See part 4 where it goes on to mention that a good alternative system is where everyone works for the same wage. It then follows this up by saying that the gov is a great at spending $.
FL
October 31st, 2009 at 22:58
The financial system is not a fraud, or do you find it fraud that you can use your money any time you want, you can use it to exchange it for food or any thing else. The fact is that the financial system is based on the belief and trust of people over the currency and digital money.
Now a days you dont need to touch or see you money in order to pay what ever you want with it.
So in fact, there is very low development and growth without the financial system. There is something call the money creation as explained in the video the banker creates money lending money that does not exist in the beginning but just after you received becomes real, because then you can use it.
So with this constant creation of money the economies move faster and develop faster.
So if you think that the system is a fraud just because you cant see your money, then why would you trust in a peace of paper with a dollar name on it, it is just paper as any other. In fact it is just because everybody does, as everybody does on digital one
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Your totally missing the point..
Usury is disgusting-making money on the backs of others, same with the stock market, money for nothing at the cost of everything: we need a system that takes care of everyone and doesn't destroy our planet...our system is the same old same old-the few held up by the sweat of the many...when are we going to progress into something higher and nobler?????
The financial system is not a fraud, or do you find it fraud that you can use your money any time you want, you can use it to exchange it for food or any thing else. The fact is that the financial system is based on the belief and trust of people over the currency and digital money.
Now a days you dont need to touch or see you money in order to pay what ever you want with it.
So in fact, there is very low development and growth without the financial system. There is something call the money creation as explained in the video the banker creates money lending money that does not exist in the beginning but just after you received becomes real, because then you can use it.
So with this constant creation of money the economies move faster and develop faster.
So if you think that the system is a fraud just because you cant see your money, then why would you trust in a peace of paper with a dollar name on it, it is just paper as any other. In fact it is just because everybody does, as everybody does on digital one.
I have been looking but can't find an on going discussion of this information.
I am curious about how people think the system can be changed to a value based (instead of debt based) system, and how you factor in the risk of development and progress where there is only the possability of value being created, but no value yet.
What is up Austin? I love this documentary as well! I heard you are moving to Cali. you have to email me so we can discuss this stuff. I am Libertarian now after learning the truth.
This is one of my favorite documentaries. I watched this before I even considered myself a libertarian, and was the video that made me realize that the financial system we have today is a fraud.