mortify ii Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 Yes, it's really that stupid and self defeating [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5ayg3hbhoM[/youtube] [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5yfTAFzYz4[/youtube] Still believe in a Right vs Left paradigm? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify ii Posted July 10, 2014 Author Share Posted July 10, 2014 Full documentary... educate your self [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbvCxMfcKv4[/youtube] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify ii Posted July 10, 2014 Author Share Posted July 10, 2014 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ice_nine Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 wasn't zeitgeist the movie that spent an hour proving that Christianity was a bunch of bs and a copycat of ancient egyptian gods and whatnot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash Wednesday Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 1 Timothy 6:10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Credo in Deum Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 wasn't zeitgeist the movie that spent an hour proving that Christianity was a bunch of bs and a copycat of ancient egyptian gods and whatnot? Tried to prove, and yes. @Mortify II: Corruption in the government and it's money practices? Say it ain't so!! What should we do Mortify? Coup d' etat? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify ii Posted July 10, 2014 Author Share Posted July 10, 2014 wasn't zeitgeist the movie that spent an hour proving that Christianity was a bunch of bs and a copycat of ancient egyptian gods and whatnot? Yes, and I obviously don't agree with the author's conclusions there, but does that automatically mean this doc is flawed? If you feel so, prove it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify ii Posted July 10, 2014 Author Share Posted July 10, 2014 Tried to prove, and yes. @Mortify II: Corruption in the government and it's money practices? Say it ain't so!! What should we do Mortify? Coup d' etat? The system is intrinsically flawed and is bound to fail but of course I don't support a coup. The system we live in is too powerful to lend itself out to direct opposition. You can do what our Christian forebears did in the catacombs, prepare yourself interiorly for deliverance and let the epoch run itself out. In other words, stand back and let itself burn out. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUzpcEVQu6w[/youtube] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Ryan Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 I generally go to the post-Keynesian L. Randall Wray's Understanding Modern Money and Karl Marx's Capital for understanding the essence of money. Zeitgeist and Michael Ruppert play on a concept known in Marxism as money fetishism. Zeitgeist demonstrates the shocking fact that only 3% of money is physical, and therefore that 97% of money is somehow unreal. The ominous music that sounds in the background when the narrator talks about fractional reserve banking. "Out of thin air!" The discussion of inflation is infantile, to be quite honest. It plays on the belief that dollars have an intrinsic value. Yes, if you leave your dollars in a mattress, you will lose real value. However, if you save your dollars in the financial system, you can counteract the eroding effects of inflation. Many financial savings assets are inflation protected. The beneficial aspect of inflation for the capitalist system is that greatly encourages the circulation of value. Stagnation is death. The benefit of inflation should be clear in the current financial crisis. Private debt is a major problem in the economy as of now, and therefore we should be encouraging things like wage-inflation so that private debt should be assuaged. Money fetishists ignorantly try to create a bogeyman out of the necromancy of inflation which is based on childish misunderstandings. I tend to assent to the idea that money = debt, as I generally believe the modern monetary theory of Wray. It is the spin on it Zeitgeist gives that I vehemently disagree with. So, for example, yes the national debt keeps growing. However, it is all about proportions. The danger is not in a nominally high debt, but in a debt that is high proportional to the base of the economy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify ii Posted July 10, 2014 Author Share Posted July 10, 2014 All of it is unreal John, not just the 97% that exist solely as digital format. I'd like to engage in a discussion with you, but first if you don't mind sharing, are you full-time employed? Do you have and debt? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Ryan Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 All of it is unreal John, not just the 97% that exist solely as digital format. I'd like to engage in a discussion with you, but first if you don't mind sharing, are you full-time employed? Do you have and debt? I am unemployed at the moment, but come September should be part-time employed. And I do have quite a lot of debt from getting my masters degree. Let me just lay out my ideological predisposition from the beginning. I am a Marxist who believes that the foundational real category is human labor. The source of value is human labor. Money is an abstract representation of this labor-value. It is not unreal in that it represents something real, but it is a phenomenal form (displaying the features of externality) of the essential labor that becomes congealed in commodities. My criticism of Zeitgeist should not be taken as a positive appraisal of money. My criticism is solely based on my impression that Zeitgeist is critiquing the current system from an equally illusory position of money fetishism. The impression was that fiat money is somehow more false than commodity money. Whereas the truth of the matter is that the concept of money is itself a virtual representation of human labor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ice_nine Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 Yes, and I obviously don't agree with the author's conclusions there, but does that automatically mean this doc is flawed? If you feel so, prove it. I didn't watch the videos you posted but the zeitgeist brand makes me suspicious. I don't really feel like investing a lot of time into studying these broad economic topics as I have no illusions that I will ever be able to affect any change in this arena. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Ryan Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 I didn't watch the videos you posted but the zeitgeist brand makes me suspicious. I don't really feel like investing a lot of time into studying these broad economic topics as I have no illusions that I will ever be able to affect any change in this arena. While my M.A. is in political philosophy, much of my reading has been in political economy, so I feel comfortable with all the topics they discussed in the video. I learned all of that in economics classes. The only difference was the lack of conspiracy theories and ominous music. I mean, Zeitgeist didn't really say anything that a first-year econ. student doesn't learn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify ii Posted July 11, 2014 Author Share Posted July 11, 2014 I am unemployed at the moment, but come September should be part-time employed. And I do have quite a lot of debt from getting my masters degree. Do you currently live with your parents? And will they be helping you pay off your student debt? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winchester Posted July 11, 2014 Share Posted July 11, 2014 When the power to define what is money is not vested in the hands of a few, different goods will operate as money. In the past, demand for such things as tobacco leaves, or furs, was high enough that those goods traded as money. Coin has more consistently enjoyed this status. Paper notes representing money were a convenience banks and governments exploited in order to commit fraud. Bank notes are now unbacked by money, but required under threat of force to be recognized as legal tender. Devaluation of government papaer has been forbidden under threat of force more than once, but at least in colonial times the governments that did this "promised" to eventually exchange the paper for money. Federal reserve notes are not really "money". They're worthless paper backed by a threat of government violence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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