The world is midway through a financial crisis. Many countries are on the brink of an economic depression with all the unemployment, inequality, stress and social friction that comes along with it. The crisis is one of economic uncertainty caused by sky high levels of public and private debt. The mathematics of the situation mean that there are hard times ahead if we ever want to pay this debt off. But the current economic mess was destined to happen. The logical flaws at the heart of our monetary system means that it is designed to fail.
If the terms “fiat currency” and “fractional reserve banking” are a mystery to you, chances are that you understand the concept of money as what it used to be and not what it is now. But the our political leaders and the mainstream media are operating off these misconceptions too. Given that money is one of the principle forces that drives human activity, it is essential that we understand what it is, how it is created and how this lubricant is injected into the engine that is the world economy.
The truth of how illogical the current system is will shock you. It will help explain why banks are so powerful, why house prices are so high, why we regularly have recessions and why the current wave of austerity driven government cuts are completely avoidable. If we choose to continue with the current system there will be a lot of unnecessary suffering as living conditions are continually squeezed and there will be an economic excuse to not deal with so many of the critically important social and environmental issues we currently face. We can create an economic system that works for all people and helps steer human activity towards an economy that operates within planetary limits, one that is actually sustainable. But we need to know how the current system works first.
This website has been designed so you can find the information that is relevant to you. So if you either find economics a total mystery or consider yourself well versed in the topic you will be able to find something that suits your level of knowledge. Click the buttons below to go to a page dedicated to that level or alternatively scroll down to browse the content.
Have no idea what this is all about? Look here for the best, most succinct, 5 mins or less explanations of what the topic is and why it should be important to you.
Have a vague idea? What you need to know without all the boring details. Look here for a good summary of main points in no more than 15 mins.
Figuring out this is really important? Look here if you want to understand the key details that make up the big picture. A few hours and you will be a bonafide expert.
Know the topic well enough to bore people at parties? Look here for your nerd fix – lectures, talks, docos. Hours and hours of stuff to keep you entertained.
Start here if you don’t know the first thing about economics and how it shapes your world. This level aims to explain the basics in 5 mins or less.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOa8U0yixgQ It’s hard to believe but banks have the licence to print money, or rather the licence to type it into a computer screen every time some one takes out a loan. It defies common sense but stop and think about it. If an economy grows, the money supply must grow too. Someone needs to […]
Want to know where money comes from? Victoria here has an excellent summary of how governments have given this power to the banks.
I love this video on so many levels. In the 11 mins I learnt more about all the financial crisis mumbo jumbo than i had with the hours of newspaper articles. And it’s so damn pretty too. My gold standard for educational videos.
Look here for a good overall summary of key points your should know such as what money is, how it is created and why this process is at the heart of our current economic mess. Material in this section should be around 5-10 mins long and no more than 15 min.
This isn’t the most riveting of short films but in amongst it is an incredibly important statement that would blow most people’s minds (mine at least). This fact is: banks create money when a loan is made. I’ll repeat that. In todays fiat money system, commercial banks are the main source of new money. They […]
This is a great little video which compares the US bailout spending to other major historical spends. We are spending a lot more than we did for all of World War II. Including the rebuild. Not that I’m sure this is inflation adjusted. And money isn’t as real as pretends to be. But still, it […]
Another good one with a nice flow about it.
by InformationIsBeautiful.net http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/debtris/ directed by: David McCandless animation by: Miles Tudor, Dom Del Torto music: Daniel Pemberton sources: NY Times, The Guardian, BBC data here: http://bit.ly/debtris
A great way to present data. by InformationIsBeautiful.net http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/debtris/ directed by: David McCandless animation by: Miles Tudor, Dom Del Torto music: Daniel Pemberton sources: NY Times, The Guardian, BBC data here: http://bit.ly/debtris
On first glance it would be hard to see why, but this talk by Professor Bartlett is one of the most utterly compelling things I have watched and makes you totally rethink what “reasonable growth” means. A must watch. Professor Al Bartlett begins his one-hour talk with the statement, “The greatest shortcoming of the human […]
This section is where many of the finer points surrounding economics, money, banking and government policy are discussed that help illuminate the fundamental flaws in our current economic model. This section aims to discuss those points succinctly, however as there are a lot of points it may take you a few hours before you cover them all.
In this great little talk Dr Susan Krumdieck speaks about our energy conundrum through a lens that is rarely used: financial return. Presumably talking to business leaders she quickly dismisses the relevance of peak oil, climate change and sustainability as reasons to change and goes straight to the formula for a resource base that is […]
This almost 30 minute interview from In Conversation with Allan Gregg economist Jeffery Rubin talks about his book “The End of Growth”. His basic thesis is that high oil prices (100+ a barrel) will cause economic growth in the developed world to flat line (while China and India will slow to 4-5%) and the world […]
Another great animation on the staggering amounts of money spent by military forces.
Another Vlogbrothers quick-fire diatribe in which John discusses the U.S. public debt, our dangerously high debt to GDP ratio, the S&P’s downgrade of America’s credit rating, and why our debt may not be as unmanageable as it seems. There’s also some general discussion of economics, currency, the gold standard, and the worldwide financial system’s dependence […]
No idea of this guys credentials but I liked the video.
A good little video which explains the links of extreme debt with the debt cycle and printing money (economists use the term quantitative easing) with inflation. They are all interlinked and we have no hope of really eliminating our debt. What does that mean exactly? Well good question. Lots of governments have never cleared their […]
A shortened version of the Crash Course with information tailored for a United Kingdom audience. Chris Martenson explains the predicament the UK and world economy is in from the perspective of economics, energy and the environment. He discusses concepts such as the nature of money, debt, exponential growth, natural limits, peak oil and energy yields.
This is the first video of many in a video series explaining much of what is going on in the world today with regards to the economy and it dependence on energy and the environment. At around 3 hours in length, it’s not an easy thing to sit down and watch but I highly recommend […]
Here lies all the nerdy material you can ask for. Talks, lectures and documentaries from a variety of sources often over an hour in length. There are many other shorter videos in here as well that cover various elements in the world of money. A kind of catch all for the worthwhile videos that didn’t make levels 1-3.
In this talk at Google HQ, serial big picture author Jeremy Rifkin talks about how the internet is changing our society and our economy. More specifically, how the internet surrounding information communication has radically changed how our economy functions and how this will spread into a future “Internet of Things”, doing the same thing to […]
As one of the few to have predicted the 2008 financial crisis, Australian economist Steve Keen has something real to say about the un-sustainability of our current financial system. “Debt that can’t be paid off, won’t be paid off” is essentially the focus of this interview and he talks about how the financial system has […]
This 77 min pseudo documentary “The Crisis of Civilization” is based on the Book by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed of the same name. It goes through multiple parts each exploring various elements of our interconnected world, namely Climate Catastrophe; Peak Energy; Peak Food; Economic Instability; International Terrorism; and the Militarization Tendency with some final thoughts on […]
Frontline spends 54 minutes examining why no Wall Street execs have been prosecuted for any fraud related activities despite their clear knowledge of the toxicity of the bad mortgages contained within the complex financial products they were selling. There seems to be little political will to go to trial and win the tough to prove […]
In the final instalment of this four part PBS special the culture of Wall Street and investment banking is explored. It was a culture of making money and everyone was in on it. Bankers, really glorified salesman, were encouraged by management and a system of lucrative bonuses to sell derivatives to everyone, from municipal governments, […]
In the third of a four part series, Frontline takes a look at how freshly elected President Obama dealt with the incredibly daunting task of fixing up the worst economic mess since the 1930′s. A key part of this would be the selection of the economic team that would ultimately deal with the situation. Would […]
In the second of a four part series, Frontline examines how the financial top brass dealt with the dilemma that this systemic risk caused. The basic survival of the fittest ideals of a market system were continually discarded as the reality of the “too big to fail” situation was revealed. Being backed further into the […]
In this rather excellent 4 part series the Frontline team from PBS documents the events surrounding the global financial crisis told through the lens of 17 interviews from insiders to give a unique first hand view of how it all unfolded. The first part covers the build up to the 2008 crash. The repeal of […]
Before the financial crisis I never really understood what all the business bits in the news really meant, the whole economy was a bit of a mystery. Since then I have learnt a few things, one of which is that money is largely an illusion. As an individual it is very real, how much I […]
Terry Karl, Gildred Professor of Latin American Studies and professor of Political Science at Stanford University, discusses overcoming the resource curse. Also known as the paradox of plenty it is the fact that most resource rich, in this case oil rich countries are performing far poorer than non resource rich countries in terms of development […]
