Zeitgeist: Moving Forward Page #9

or any other major market economist

the basis of rationale

rarely leaves the money sequence.

It is like a religion.

Consumption analysis, stabilization policies

deficit spending, aggregate demand...

it exists as a never ending, self-referring

self-rationalizing circle of discourse

where universal human need, natural resources

and any form of physical life supporting efficiency

is ruled out by default

and replaced by the singular notion that humans

seeking advantage over each other for money alone

motivated by their own, narrow self-interest

will magically create a sustainable, healthy, balanced society.

There is no life coordinate in this whole theory

this whole doctrine.

What are they doing?

What they are doing is tracking the money sequences.

That's all it is, is tracking money sequences

presupposing everything that matters.

One:
There is no life coordinates...

whoa... no life coordinates!

Two:
That all the agents are

self-maximizing preferences seekers.

That is, they think of nothing other than themselves

and what they can get most for themselves.

That's the ruling notion of rationality:

self-maximizing choice

and the only thing that they are interested in self-maximizing

is money or commodities.

Well, where does social relations come in?

It doesn't, except in the exchange to self-maximize.

Where do our natural resources come in?

They don't, except to exploit.

Where does the family come in as being able to survive?

It doesn't. They have to have

money in order to purchase any good.

Well, shouldn't an economy

deal somewhere with human need?

Isn't that what the fundamental issue is?

Oh, "need" isn't even in your lexicon.

You dissolve it into "wants"...

and what is a want? That means

money demand that wants to buy.

Well, if it's money demand that wants to buy

it has nothing to do with need

because maybe the person has no money demand

and desperately needs, say, water supply.

Or, it may be money demand wants a gold toilet seat.

Well, where does it all go?

To the gold toilet seat.

And you call this economics?

Really, when one thinks of it

it's got to be the most bizarre

delusion in the history of human thought.

[Monetary System]

Now- so far we have focused on the market system.

But this system is actually only

half of the global economic paradigm.

The other half is the "Monetary System"...

While the Market System deals with the interaction of people

gaming for profit across the spectrum of labor

production and distribution

the Monetary System is an underlying set of policies

set by financial institutions

which create conditions for the

market system, among other things.

It includes terms we often hear

such as interest rates, loans, debt, the money supply

inflation, etc.

And while you might want to pull your hair out listening

to the gibberish coming from the monetary economists:

"Modest preemptive actions, can obviate the need

of more drastic actions, at a later date."

the nature and effect of this

system is actually quite simple:

Our economy has...

or the global economy has

three basic things that govern it.

One is fractional reserve banking

the banks printing money out of nothing.

It's also based upon compound interest.

When you borrow money, you have to pay back more

than you borrowed, which means that you, in effect

create money out of thin air

again, which has to be serviced by creating still more money.

We live in an infinite growth paradigm.

The economic paradigm we live in now is a Ponzi scheme.

Nothing grows forever.

It's not possible.

As a great psychologist James Hillman wrote

The only thing that grows in the human body after

a certain age is cancer.

It's not just the amount of money that has to keep growing

it's the amount of consumers.

Consumers to borrow money at interest

to generate more money and obviously, that's not possible

on a finite planet.

People are basically vehicles to just create money

which must create more money

to keep the whole thing from falling apart

which is what's happening right now.

There are really only two things anyone needs to know

about the monetary system:

All money is created out of debt.

Money is monetized debt

whether it materialized from treasury bonds

home loan contracts or credit cards.

In other words, if all outstanding debt

was to be repaid right now

there would not be one dollar in circulation.

And 2:
Interest is charged on virtually all loans made

and the money needed to pay back this interest

does not exist in the money supply outright.

Only the principal is created by the loans

and the principal is the money supply.

So, if all this debt was to be repaid right now

not only would there not be one dollar left in circulation

there would be a gigantic amount of money owed

that is literally impossible to pay back, for it does not exist.

The consequence of all of this is that two things are inevitable:

Inflation

and Bankruptcy.

As far as inflation, this can be seen as a historical trend

in virtually every country today

and easily tied to its cause

which is the perpetual increase of the money supply

which is required

to cover the interest charges and keep the system going.

As far as Bankruptcy

it comes in the form of debt collapse.

This collapse will inevitably occur with a person

a business or a country

and typically happens when the interest payments

are no longer possible to make.

But there is a bright side to all of this...

well, at least in terms of the market system

Because debt creates pressure

Debt creates wage slaves.

A person in debt is much more likely to take a low wage

than a person who isn't

hence becoming a cheap commodity

so it's great for corporations to have a pool of people

that have no financial mobility.

But hey - that same idea also goes for entire countries...

the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

which mostly serve as proxies for

transnational corporate interests

give gigantic loans to troubled countries

at very high interest rates

and then, once the countries are

deeply in the hole and can't pay

austerity measures are applied

the corporations swoop in

set up sweatshops and take their natural resources.

Now that's market efficiency.

But wait there's more:

you see- there's this unique

hybrid of the monetary and market system

called the stock market

which rather than, you know, actually produce anything real

they just buy and sell money itself.

And when it comes to debt, you know what they do?

That's right - they trade it.

They actually buy and sell debt for profit.

From credit default swaps

and collateralized debt obligations for consumer debt

to complex derivative schemes used

to mask the debt of entire countries

such as the collusion of

investment bank Goldman Sachs and Greece

which nearly collapsed the entire European economy.

So when it comes to the stock market and Wall Street

we have an entirely new level of insanity

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