A video on banking today

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy-fD78zyvI

 

I found this video called corrupt banking system.  It explains basically how banks are able to create money out of thin air.  It reminded me a lot of what was talked about in my banking class.  But some of the solutions I disagreed with(like nationalizing all banks).  I want to know what you guys think of it.  It is a 5 part series. 

Thanks for posting the link. I thought the video was interesting but I don't agree with a lot of what it says. Here are my main disagreements: -The author seems to think that a constantly growing money supply is necessary. -The film condemns all credit transactions where interest is charged, as opposed to only credits created out of thin air by the banking system. -All the stuff about ONLY using renewable energy sources and maintaining a stable population. -The author's main objection to the current monetary system seems to be that the banks charge interest on the new money they create. The proposed solution is to have the government create money interest free and spend it into the economy on infrastructure and other government services (he never mentions any guideline as to how much new money should be created and spent into the economy per period). He recognizes that this will decrease the purchasing power of the monetary unit but thinks that this hidden "flat tax" is preferable to the current tax system. He apparently doesn't recognize that not all prices are increased at the same time or to the same extent so that not everyone will be affected equally by fall in purchasing power.

    Money as debt is a good educational video of how the system works but it's socialized solution is something that could be compared to the FED itself. The amount of money created (liability) in the economy should equal to that of the production (asset) of a nation thereby offsetting each other and summing to zero. I do agree that the money should be created interest free by the US treasury.

    In 1863 just after Abraham lincoln was assaninated a dissastrous system was put in place for creating money whereby treasury bonds were purchased with a rate of return or at interest for the money that was created in the system. This was then amplified by the corrupt banking monopoly in 1913 where a private corporation not only cornered the US credit markets and eventually the world, but also was the benefactor of the the interest of all the money spent in to the system created from nothing and backed eventually by nothing as well.

    The answer to me for the short run is competing currencies backed by some medium of scarcity so far that the medium doesn't restrict the flow with the Treasury spending money into the ecomony a rate in line with production and of course abolish the IRS and the FED which are unconstituional.

86thefed:

    The amount of money created (liability) in the economy should equal to that of the production (asset) of a nation thereby offsetting each other and summing to zero.

 

money is only a measuring tool - as long as it's divisible, it doesn't matter how much is available. providing the quantity of money remains fixed over time, the distortions that the austrian school describes will be avoided.  anyway, production is measured in money, so must always be equal, by definition.

86thefed:

I do agree that the money should be created interest free by the US treasury.

 

why?  how is that not socialism?  if the government got out of the money game (as monopoly player), it would be obliged compete for funds in the market along with everybody else.  the interest rate paid would reflect its creditworthiness. 

re: the filmette -  starts off ok, exposing the rort of fractional reserve banking, but then draws all the wrong conclusions, and proposes ludicrous solutions.   hopefully, the curious bump into mises.org if they bother to investigate the field further.

 

re: the filmette -  starts off ok, exposing the rort of fractional reserve banking, but then draws all the wrong conclusions, and proposes ludicrous solutions.   hopefully, the curious bump into mises.org if they bother to investigate the field further.

That describes me.  I recently started looking into personal financial planning, which led me to look at exactly how banking works.  I was astonished at some of the things I found.  There are a lot of videos and web-sites out there that oppose things like the Federal Reserve system and fractional reserve banking, but have various spins and degrees of nuttiness about them.  Confusingly, many of them talk about the same things and even quote the same sources, and as one of "the curious," I found myself in the position of trying to "filter" good information from spin/propaganda.  "Money as Debt" was one of the films I found questionable, especially in the "solutions" part.  I had a similar reaction to the solution presented in the "Money Masters" documentary (i.e. government issued fiat-currency).