Friday, November 19, 2010

The Money Masters

My good friend Contrairimairi sent me this video. I am watching the first of twenty episodes now. In 1836 Andrew Jackson abolished the national bank.  I disagree with the video's claim that we need a central bank. The nation's economic growth exploded between 1836 and 1913 when there was no central bank. There were deflations but the real hourly wage increased two percent per year over the 77 year period. Since 1971, when Nixon took us off the gold standard and placed as much power in the Fed's hands and Roosevelt had in 1932, the real hourly wage has increased two percent over the 39 year period.

In the 19th century Americans fought the central bank. Today, Americans with college "educations" cannot understand how the Fed operates. Need we know more to conclude that America is a nation in decline?


2 comments:

Mairi said...

Hey, Mitchell,
I'm very anxious to get your take on the full series. I always appreciate your thoughts on these matters. I know it's long, but hopefully you will have some great comments when you finish!

Doug Plumb said...

This movie is great, another one in a much more compressed format is "Money As Debt" by Paul Grignon in Canada. This movie is in cartoon format and I found it to be the best overall of all the documentaries on banking.

The only downfall of The Money Masters is its length IMO, it is well worth its time though.

I look at both of these movies, and all others that I have seen in the descriptive rather than prescriptive sense.

I have not yet heard of a monetary system that I completely agree with, and do not think that I will. I believe the only possibility of a just monetary system is a knowledgeable population on the topic of law. That would fix things today, but I do not believe it will ever happen - public education would have to be completely re-designed and re-purposed.

"Money As Debt" and "Money As Debt 2" can be found and watched for free in the usual places.