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James Corbett appears on “Breaking The Set” with Abby Martin to discuss his documentary film, “Century of Enslavement: The History of the Federal Reserve.” James and Abby discuss what the Federal Reserve is, why it must be opposed, and how best to end the current system of debt servitude.
I’ve recently heard an economist (can’t remember his name right now) explaining that the way you describe fractional reserve system is how it’s supposed to work on paper. In practice they lend as much as they want, then the central bank supplies fractional reserves to match the proportion, so it’s virtually unlimited.
@mammique: I thought that’s the way James put it, but it’s a slippery enough concept that I suppose it warrants continued thought and consideration and fussing with the semantics etc.
Yes, this is precisely what the bailouts were about. QE3 for instance was an excuse to take toxic mortgage assets off of banks’ balance sheets, the theory being that that would free up reserve for them to lend out more into the economy.
Nice one James =]
I think breaking the set is a good platform and hopefully Abby will keep you in the mix on other issues as well.
Overall very nice presentation of ideas and good pacing within the time constraints. Particularly, I liked the suggestions about alternatives, including bartering. I don’t think bartering registers as a currency/monetary “policy” for most people and that’s probably one of the most important ones for us to be thinking about.
As a critique (for what it’s worth), I’d say on the “enslavement” concept, I think finding a way to cite a couple of specific examples of the way the financial structures limit the amount of freedom and choice we have in various aspects of our lives would help illustrate the concept in a way which is potentially more immediate and accessible for the audience. For example, the crappy job you have to take immediately after you graduate in order to pay back college loans. The time off you can’t afford, or are even permitted to take, to partake in an important family event. The limitation the amount of time you have to spend making money to support a child puts on the amount of time you have to play a more active role as a parent etc. There’s nothing wrong with the way you presented it and it’s not like you didn’t cover this, I just think these are a couple ideas which could make that presentation even stronger.
~Benny