All language subtitles for Four Horsemen-Feature Documentary-Official Version(2012)

People are awfully forgiving

They just don't understand what's been done to them

We are at an epochal shift,
there's a point where the west

could tip into a complacent
and quite well off redundancy

or we could play
a decisive role in the future

what the banks did was reprehensible

that was why there was the outrage
of the greed of the bankers

when we gave them money that was
supposed to help them lend to others

but they decided to use that money to pay themselves bonuses,
for what? ....For record losses?

We are governed by corporations today

often by corporations that don't
have very much interest in the USA.

I don't know what happened man,
what happened to the the USA

it was so far in the ditch, you know what,
in what moment did it all go bad?

Was it disco,
was it Donna Summer,
is that what killed America?`

We are entering the age of consequence

A rapacious financial system,
escalating organised violence

abject poverty for billions,
and the looming environmental fallout

are all converging at a time when
governments, religion, and mainstream economists

have stalled.

War, conquest, famine and death

The Four Horsemen are Coming!

This is not a film that sees conspiracies

It's not a film that mongers fear

It's not a film that blames bankers or politicians

It's a film that questions the systems we've created

and suggests ways to reform them

Over centuries systems have been subtly modified,

manipulated and even corrupted.

often to serve the interests of the few

We have continually accepted these changes

and because man can adjust to living
under virtually any conditions

the trait that has enabled us to survive

is the very trait that has suppressed us

Most societies have an elite,

an elite tries to stay in power

The way they stay in power is

not merely by controlling the means of the production
(to be Marxist),

i.e. controlling the money,

but by controlling the cognitive map,
the way we think.

and what really matters in that respect

is not so much what is actually said in public

but what is left undebated, unsaid.

For centuries,
gatekeepers have manipulated our cognitive map

but in 1989, a computer scientist
by the name of Tim Berners Lee

implemented the first successful communication between

an http client and a server,
the www was born.

It has since unleashed a tsunami of

instantly accessible,
freely available information.

Just as Gutenberg's printing press wrestled control of

the cognitive map
away from an ecclesiastical and royal elite,

today the internet
is beginning to change governments,

finance and the media

We are at the cusp of change

But to enact it
we must first understand the things

that have been left unsaid for so long

to do that, we need context
from people who speak the truth

in the face of collective delusion.

Because, to understand something,
is to be liberated from it

At the end of world war 2
we had 50% of the World's GDP

we were making 54,000 airplanes a year,
7000 ships etc.

and we were the new Rome
and we recognised it.

We devised a power-management scheme in
the 1947 national security act

to we thought manage it,

it worked fairly well during the cold war

but we haven't done anything since,

and I think that's another sign
of our inability to grasp

the new world,
if you will.

Empires do not begin or end on a certain date

but they do end.

And the west has not yet come to terms

with its fading supremacy

At the end of every empire,
under the guise of renewal,

tribes, armies and organisations appear

and devour the heritage of the former superpower

often from within

In his essay, "The fate of empires",
the soldier diplomat and traveller,

Lt.General Sir John Glubb
analysed the lifecycle of empires.

He found remarkable similarities between them all

An Empire lasts about 250 years
or 10 generations from the early pioneers

to the final conspicous consumers who
become a burden on the state

6 ages define the lifespan of an empire

The age of Pioneers

The age of Conquests

The age of Commerce

The age of Affluence

The age of Intellect

Ending with bread and circuses in
the age of Decadence

There are common features to
every age of decadence

an undiciplined, overextended military

the conspicouous display of wealth

a massive disparity between rich and poor

a desire to live off a bloated state

and an obsession with sex

But perhaps the most notorious trait of all

is the debasement of the currency

The US and Great Britain both began on a gold/silver standard
long since abandoned

Rome was no different

So it started on a principle that was very sound

and it was on a silver standard

but as it corrupted further and further

the Roman Dinaris got to the point
where it was basically a copper coin

and they learned how to plate it

It was washed in silver,

and in circulation the plating came off

At the end, all the senators that really did at
one time represent the people,

only were interested in representing how much
wealth they could steal at the top.

Great Empire wealth always dazzles,
but beneath the surface

the unbridled desire for money,
power and material possessions

means that duty and
public service are replaced by

leaders and citizens
who scramble for the spoils.

Historically all the signs of the demise of

the empire are beginning to develop,

some are more trenchant than others

this current economic and financial crisis,

that sort of thing always accompanies
the demise of Empire

the people of Rome were constantly
being distracted by the gladiatorial events,

and the politicians knew that they did this.

whenever there was unrest,
there was a huge event going on

The politicians created new events,
with lots and lots of gladiators

and everyday we are doing
that very same thing.

That is a common trait of declining empires.

So today in the US for example
you'll find a tremendous emphasis on all kinds

of TV-programmes that distract
people from what's really going on.

Sports is a big part of that,
as it was in gladiator times.

In essence we've been
lulled into a lethargy

and we've accepted that

Just as our sport stars today earn vast sums,

so did Roman charioteers

in the second century one by the name of

Gaius Appoleius Diocles amassed a fortune of

35 million Sesterces in prize money

equivalent to several billion dollars today

Strangely perhaps,
there's another profession that is

disproportionally hallowed
as an empire declines

The romans, ottomans and the spanish
all made celebrities of their chefs

This again is typifying the end of an empire

where things were so great we
have this last oomph of momentum

that we used to be great,

we felt great, we don't feel it anymore

so everyone is out searching for it.

Maybe it's in the best food or the best clothes

or the best music or the best movies
or reality TV-show or another magazine

but you can never get enough
of what you don't need

what you need
is a strong moral conviction that is

pervasive throughout the society
and integrity reigns.

there's a vast apathy, there's a vast
amoralism, even a political nature to it

that is to say there are vast numbers of people
who don't give a damn

So, there's this natural entropy,

any living organism,
which an empire is of course,

over time dies.

The question is how does it die?

Does it die devoured in a
cascade of events or,

does it die over a long period of time

The babyboomer generation were
born into this age of decadence,

perhaps unwittingly they've broken
the unspoken intergenerational contract

through unfettered consumerism,
spiraling house-prices,

and a desire for eternal youth

the babyboomers have squandered
future generations' inheritance

My generation and the generation
right after my generation

I think we forgot that little phrase
in the preamble to our constitution

which says, "and our posterity"
All of a sudden it became "us", period.

The babyboom generation
which I'm a part of is gone

and the biggest mis-allocation of
capital in the history of mankind.

We've had cheap oil
or cheap energy is a better way to phrase it

we've had an abundance of ideas,
and we've chosen a system and perpetuated it

That is probably one of the worst ways
to use the blessings

that were bestowed upon us
and we're going to pay a price for that

Human beings are inconsistent and paradoxical

we hope for peace and immortality

but continually invent new ways to destroy each other

we're capable of the kindest, most noble acts

and the most horrific atrocities

Human beings are complex creatures

We're capable, right now,
at this minute, of acting in such a way

as to make it likely if not certain

that our grandchildren are
going to face terrible disasters

and we're consciously acting to
accelerate that likelihood

even though we all love our grandchildren

How can it be more contradictory than that

In spite of all the economic activities of
the last 50-70 years

since the World War 2
and all the industrialization

we have not yet managed to
solve the problem of poverty,

depravation, hunger or malnutrition..

Millions of people,
every night go to bed without food

and millions of people are throwing away their food.

Waste on one hand, and poverty
and depravation and hunger on the other

Malnutrition on one hand,
and obesity on the other

What kind of system have we created?

Why with such brilliant knowledge on the planet

are we still struggling to distribute wealth fairly?

How has the human race
developed a flawed system of

government and economics that serves
the few at the expense of the many?

And with such poverty in an age of plenty,
why have we not had the will

to change such a vicious social structure?

Greed is the fundamental kind of
ingredient for the immoral economy

The problem is not that there's
not enough in the world

people say that poverty...
that we have to create more wealth

"There's enough in the world for everybodys need"

as Mahatma Gandhi said
..."but not for anybody's greed".

But is it just greed,
or does it go deeper than that?

Is the problem systemic?

As a civilization,
we've obviously had a great run

we've done very well,
we had the industrial revolution

having survived that
we built a lot of modern military technology

we've survived that so far.
We built a banking system,

and we're still struggling with that part

We've had a good run...

It's kind of like when
I was working at wall street for 7 years

I had the experience some people would have
say, working at a meat processing plant...

...they become vegetarian

When you work on Wall Street and
you see how these banks like Goldman, JP Morgan,

how they make money,

when you see money,
it kind of makes you sick.

I think if the people knew what
the banking system is up to,

as Henry Ford said
there would be "a revolution tomorrow morning".

The fact is most people think is,
that what a bank does is lend you money that

someone else has put in the bank
previously.

But what a commercial bank actually does,
is to create money from nothing

and then lend it to you at interrest.

If I do that, if I manufacture money in my own home,
it's called counterfeiting

If an accountant creates money out of nothing
in company's accounts,

it's called "cooking the books".

But if a bank does it,
then it's perfectly legal.

So long as you allow
fraud to be legalised,

then all kinds of problems are gonna pop up
in the economic systems,

which you can't do anything about.

Private banks create money out of nothing

and lend it at interest.

Now that sounds absurd, but when i teach
sophomores about money and banking

they never believe it,
so you have to go through it again and again...

Yes! Banks do create money,
here's how it happens

And it's absurd and they're right to doubt that
that could possibly be what's really going on

but it is

Now if the banking lobby is very strong
they're going to say

"well we dont wan't to change the system,
we're making so much money out of it,

what we have to do is:

A: Try and convince the people that it's their fault;

that "Their wage claims are too high,
that's why we are having lots of inflation".

Or: "People are speculating on housing,
that's why housepricing is going up..."

what they're not going to say is;

"This is happening because the banks are
creating money out of nothing,

and pumping it in to the system,
that's why the prices are going up".

But how is it we've ended up with a system
in which banks have the power to create money?

Since 1971 when president Nixon took the US off
what was left of the Gold standard,

the world has operated under a system of money
known as FIAT.

The dollar, pound and euro are all
government FIAT currencies.

FIAT is a latin word,
meaning "let it be so".

It's the law that this government currency be money.

Indeed, without that legal enforcement,
and the fact that we must pay taxes with this money,

that dollar bill, or that computer
digit that represents the dollar,

would be pretty much meaningless.

Only the government has
the power to issue FIAT money.

But banks can create it through lending.

Over the last 40 years, since this system of
FIAT money became the global norm,

the supply of money has grown exponentially.

In fact we've seen the greatest
growth in the supply of money in history.

But who benefits?

Of course those who have
the power to issue the money,

governments and banks.

Then those companies and individuals
that get this money early,

they can spend it before the prices of
the things they want to buy,

have risen to reflect
the new money in circulation.

In other words they get services,
products or assets cheap.

But prices soon rise.

So, holders of assets such as houses
or shares will then see gains

without there necessarilly being any improvements

to the company or the house in question.

Often this can lead to speculative bubbles.

But what about those
at the bottom of the pyramid?

Those on fixed wages or incomes,
those who live in remote areas or those with savings?

By the time this newly created money
has filtered down to them,

the prices of the things they
want to buy have increased.

Their savings buy them less however

and their wages remain largely unchanged.

In some cases they have to take on debt,
just to be able to afford the things

they were previously able to buy.

which means they have to go back to the banks.

In reality this process of creating money,
only redistributes wealth

from the bottom to the top of the pyramid.

And thus that ever increasing gulf
between the rich and poor

gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

When you get off the gold standard
and switch to FIAT currency,

combined with a fractional reserve banking system,

you end up compounding debt
faster than you can ever

possibly produce to support that debt.

So eventually you're going to
find yourself back into debt slavery

and that's what's happened in the US.

For every dollar of GDP, you also
create something like 5 dollars and 50 cents worth of debt.

This is what happens when our
economy flips over and basically capsizes.

The government solution now
to address all the problems, is to create more debt.

You can never get enough of
a currency that doesn't work.

You can print it to kingdom come.

You can't print wealth, and you can't
get out of debt by making more debt.

If you could print wealth, Zimbabwe would be the largest
most prosperous country on the planet,

we know it doesn't work.

Of the money in the world today
97% of it is debt.

The french philosopher Voltaire once said:
"All paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value,

Zero!"

For three generations the world watched
the fight between capitalism and communism,

but in the 1980s the Russian economy
started to collapse.

The Soviet Union capitulated,
and "so called" capitalism reigned supreme.

Before 1989 we had a battle between
communism and the market.

And in that battle there was a sense of;

"Let's not expose the flaws in the market economy".

"This is too important of a battle;"

"you don't criticize our team
while we are fighting their team".

And their team; social with authoritarianism,

with their failure to deliver well being to their society...

It was very clear that if you had to choose between these two,

which one was better.

Communism failed first,

for various reasons, it was inefficient,
human rights, lack of respect...

Capitalist West has been continuing
in a triumphalist mode thinking,

"Our adversary has failed
that means we are doing everything right"

Both systems are trying to do something
which is fundamentally impossible

grow forever...

And they are both going to fail,
one failed first.

Capitalism is going to fail later,
or it's failing now.

America now is in an interesting position.

In the past 200-300 years of its history,

it's a culture and country
which has almost always existed on

the assumption that
the resources could be expanded.

If there was a problem,
you always try to deal with it by expanding the pie

go west young man,
make the pie bigger...

...so that everyone's got a bigger piece.

Now it's facing a world where possibly
resources are beginning to be more constrained.

It's going to have to divide up that pie
and inflict pain on people.

That's something which it's
not well prepared for.

How has the country moved so far from
the intentions of its founding fathers?

How has the American Dream
become so distorted?

Over the last 30-40 years,
capitalism has taken this extreme form

and a lot of it goes back to the economist

Milton Friedman from the chicago school.

Ronald Reagan and Margret Thatcher
and others buying in to these policies

They really encouraged people
to take on huge amounts of debt

encouraged privatisation,
smaller governments supposedly although, bigger military.

It's about deregulation;

getting rid of rules that govern
the people who run our institutions

especially our corporations.

It's as though we're suddenly supposed
to believe that human beings that sit

at the top of corporations
don't need to be regulated,

that they're some sort of Gods.

Milton Friedman; his proteges,
the Chicago Boys and the neoclassical ideology

beat the classical approach to
economics and became the framework

for what we today call capitalism.

There are 2 main competing economic
approaches, which determine how

we humans manage the world
and distribute wealth.

These are the classical and neoclassical schools.

The classical school favours
less government interference,

more personal autonomy
and recognises that humans cannot

function without natural resources

The neoclassical school which has a
more dissmissive view of natural resources

thinks government should rule the economy,
solve social problems and

leave the free market to
look after the distribution of wealth.

The neoclassical school
emerged around 100 years ago

due to vested interests' desire to protect their assets.

This meant that neoclassical mathematical
models and assumptions

were divorced from reality.

They're based on what ought to be, instead of the
classical model which are based on what actually is.

It's these neoclassical models
which favour large corporations,

that have been used to legitimise the
financialization of the global econonomy,

Championed by Reagan and Thatcher, neoclassical
economics still dominates policy making today.

The Reagan/Thatcher Revolution,
was a big change in power-structure

and a big transfer of opportunity and wealth.

It's not that the poor it gave to the rich,

it was a transfer within the well-to-do.

So the financial sector in the US,
UK and other places

became vastly more profitable
and wages in that sector went up a lot.

We would focus on bonuses
but also base salaries went up.

So it's a transfer from the non-financial
to the financial part of the economy.

That is unprecedented as far as we can see
in any of the available data to us.

I'm talking of all the recorded human history.

In 1932, in the aftermath of America's
great stock market crash,

a piece of legislation was passed to protect society.

The Glass Steagall Act was introduced to
separate ordinary highstreet banking

from investment banking.

67 years later in 1999 under the
influence of treasury secretary Larry Summers and

his predecessor Robert Rubin,
president Bill Clinton repealed the Glass Steagall Act,

Once again banks could take
ordinary depositor's money and

speculate with it on virtually anything they liked.

Wall street has become a very
particular type of Casino...

Unfortunately not the kind of casino they have in Las Vegas
which is perfectly legitimate form of entertaiment...

It is a Casino that has massive negative
repercussions on the rest of society.

It's not just losing your money on a few wild nights,

it's about the way in which those
organisations lose their money

impacting the whole of society,
leading to massive loss of jobs.

This unfettered gambling pushed the entire
global financial system to near collapse

with balances and debt obligations
larger than the GDP of entire countries.

The banks had become too big to fail,
the west was unprepared,

and bankers met their reeling and
disorientated governments.

"You have to bail us out!"
"We need money."

"If you don't give us the money
the whole thing goes down".

"What are you going to do with
millions and tens of millions of people

who have lost everything in
their bank accounts?"

"You will have a revolution on your head!"

"So fork over the money!".

"Borrow, create it out of nothing and give it to us,

so that we can face our problems and
not go under, or otherwise".

This is what Mr Hank Paulsen did in the US congress,

he went there one day and told them:

"We need 700 billion dollars,
and we need it now!...

Or else...."

Is this system we call capitalism really capitalism?

In a capitalist system,
government is supposed to be small

but today the state is more bloated
and invasive than it has ever been.

Individuals and companies are
supposed to operate in a free market,

good enterprise is rewarded with profit,

and flawed enterprise with failure.

But during the 2008 banking crisis

the people saw the western
economic system divided in a way

they were told could never happen.

Socialism for the rich

Capitalism for the poor

In America for example the banks that got in trouble

got bailed out by the government

That's socialism.

And people are arguing against
socialism in america and yet this is probably

the most socialist country in the world right now.

We have a system which isn't even
a proper capitalist system

rich people make mistakes,
they don't get punished

poor people make misstakes
they get punished, yeah?

or even worse,
that they even don't make any mistake,

and they are being forced to...

...pay for the mistakes of the rich.

When the taxpayer is footing the bill for
the mis-placed speculation of the bankers

then suddenly instead of the
economy serving the human being

the human being is now in perpetual service
to amoral financial organisations

It was the head of the Federal Reserve Bank
Alan Greenspan who after 9/11 slashed

interest rates to encourage lending

Bankers needed new participants
to keep cash flowing into

a system that had become a global pyramid scheme

All this newly created money
entered the housing market

and created unprecedented inflation

houseprices rose and rose

new mothers were forced back into the workplace
to service huge home-loans

and the anglo-american dream became
all about land speculation

The housing market in the west isn't about ownership

Because it's the only way
ordinary people can get ahead

and ordinary people can't get ahead by wages

What we've created is a mass bubble
economics around housing

that sucks in a huge amount of capital

takes capital meant for genuine innovations in the economy
and puts it into a speculative use

that has no genuine productive outcome

If you talk to people in germany,
they don't see any connection

between owning a piece of property
and then being inclined towards being democratic

there's lots of people who rent their housing there,
and they're perfectly comfortable with that arrangement

But it is true that in a somewhat different
context Reagan & Thathcer pushed

for more people to own housing

and this is part of the problem because

if you push people to buy
housing before they are ready,

if you push dubious loans on them

and they don't understand
what they get themselves into

You could have huge adverse repercussions.

exactly what led to, in part,
the subprime housing crisis in the US

It's not anything to do with democracy,
it's just a bad economic idea

The breakthrough that occured around 2000 in the US

was when bankers found out that the poor are honest

they realized that if you are poor...

if you are not rich,
you have a different set of values

and you'll think that a debt is a debt,
and that it's something that has to be paid

and that people will try to pay the
debts that they're stuck with

even if the debts aren't valid,
even if the debts are much more than expected

even if they really can't pay the debts

When lending, them banking institutons...uh,
when they drew up contracts

with flexible interest rates, I think they knew
in the beginning that these problems

were going to come back later on
where folks wouldn't be able to

afford the mortgages
as the interest rates increased

They put a lot of people in situations where they

were taking food out of the refrigerators,

taking kids out of higher education

They were not able to afford college anymore,

and it's making a really bad situation worse

The banks engaged in what was a criminal conspiracy

they charged more to the blacks and the Hispanics

The banks got together,

backed the Bush administration
to block the state proscecutions of

racial lending in order to charge more
and to exploit the minorities

These were loans made by one of
the major lenders in this city and in the country

Wells Fargo.

They targeted minority communities in the city,

put borrowers into loans that they could not afford,

and put borrowers into loans
of the subprime variety,

therefore more expensive and less
advantageous to the borrowers

Hiding predatory lending practices in the
small print of complex financial products

was only ever going to enrich one set of interests

Many of the communities in which
African-Americans live in the city

were establishing momentum.

There was development activity that was occuring.

We were seeing signs of vitality
in many of these communities.

The results of the Wells Fargo forclosures,

and the subprime lending practices
of that lender and others,

has significantly impaired that progress
and brought it to a halt.

They don't worry about it,
they dont come in to the heart of it

like, you are in the heart of it,
so you see,

they really don't see the struggle
if they stay outside of it

That's like looking at the cover of a book,

but if you don't go inside the book
you'll never know what the book is about

So they're not worrying about
anyone except themselves

and I think it's wrong.

Because, if they come into the heart of it
and if they'd see, they'd be willing to help.

What happened in Baltimore is just one example of

what's happening all around the world.

One way to frame this injustice is by branding it a

race issue, but when we look really closely,

we can see that there's something at play here
that transcends race...

Profit!

It's not an accident for instance,
that we had the de-regulation on the financial industry

that was such a disaster.

The lobbyists of the Finance industry
amount to 5 per congress person

They pay 5 people for every
congressman to explain to them,

persuade them that they should
pass legislation that is favourable

to the financial industry

The poor people that are devastated
don't have the money.

They couldn't hire 5 per congressman.

So the way our democracy works
is on an unlevelled playfield

The financial sector has aquired enormous power,

partly through political contributions
by buying favours,

but mostly through ideological control

convincing people that finance is good,

more finance is better and

unregulated finance without limits is best

that's the cornerstone what we call in the US,
the Wall-Street-Washington-corridor

I mean if people need any proof
as to who is controlling Washington,

when the bail out came after
the Lehman Brothers collapsed

80% of the poulation was against the bail out

Not withstanding that, the congress
passed the bailout just showing in my view

that it's really under the control of banking interests

It's not a reflection of good democracy,
when a company or group of companies or an industry says that

our interests are more important
than the national interests

How can that happen?

Very easy.
thanks to the role of campaign contributions, lobbying,

in america's political structure.

We have a flawed democracy

There's an advanced oligarchy in the sense that
it's main mechanism of control

is through convincing people that
you really need the six biggest banks in the US

in the particular form they exist today,
with a very light level of regulation

and if you don't have them if you try to change that
all kinds of awful things will happen.

And this is not really blackmail, it sounds like blackmail,
they convince you it's not blackmail,

it's just the way the world is
there's nothing you can do about it.

You just have to cooperate with them.
It's very clever

The fed is essentially the lobbyist for
the commercial banking system

When you say you want to turn regulation
over to the fed you're saying that

the financial sector and wall street
should be self regulated.

Wall Street has veto power over
whoever is going to be the

head of the federal reserve.

As long as you give veto power over
the regulators to wall street,

as long as you pick the bank regulators
from the banking industry itself

you can forget any thought of calling it regulation.

It's deregulation...

and to call it regulation instead of
deregulation is using Orwellian double-think

Democracy is government by the people,
Plutocracy is government by the rich

In a typical plutocratic state
economic inequality is high,

social mobility is low, and because of
continouous exploitation of the masses

workers find it nearly impossible
to climb out of poverty.

The equal voting rights movement
in the early 20th century

abolished a system where the rich people
had more votes than the poor

But today lobbying has put paid to that
and reduced the American political system

to a mere clearing house
for the concerns of the rich.

The Goldman Sachs machine is one of
using profits to buy influence in Washington

to change laws to make it easier to
make money on wall street to be used to buy

influence in Washington.

So it's a self-reinforcing
malfeasance-machine that is continuing to grow

as a parasite in the economy
and continuing to kill the host

Famous for claiming it did God's work,
Goldmann Sachs is one the most influential

investment banks in the world.

Its alumni often occupy positions of
great influence in governments and central banks.

In september 2008, barely a month before
the stock market crash

Goldmann, supposedly a pillar of the free market,
changed its banking status from investment to commercial.

This meant it was now elligible for state protection.

Socialism for the rich right there.

Golman Sachs are extremely efficient at what they do.
Their task is to make money.

They make bank robbers like Willy Sutton
look like modest amateurs.

They are huge bank robbers, but it's legal,
the system is set up so they can do it

In the recent years they've been selling securities
put together from mortgages

that they knew were worthless,
selling these things to unwitting consumers,

making a ton of money on it,

meanwhile they're betting that they're
going to fail because they know what they

are peddling is rotten,
so they placed bets with the credit default swaps

with a huge insurance company AIG, and
that was insuring Goldman Sachs against the failure of

the stuff they we're peddling

During America's Subprime collapse
Goldmans traders Michael Svenson and

Josh Birnbaum made a 4 billion dollar profit
by shortselling junk mortgages,

Backed by Dan Sparks
internally Goldman Sachs called their position the big short

and bet against their own clients.

Senator Carl Lewin called Goldman Sachses
chief executive Lloyd Blankfine to a

senate sub committe to testify under oath.

Much has been said about the supposedly
massive short Goldman Sachs had on the US housing market.

The fact is we were not consistently or
significantly net short the market

In residential mortgage related products in 2007-2008

We didn't have a massive short against
the housing market and we certainly didn't

bet against our clients.

Riding the big short in 2007
made billions of dollars for Goldman

And so far they've got away scot free
with this massive heist.

So they're now back bigger than before,
richer than before, biggest profits they've

had in history, huge bonuses,
they are doing great

A lot, if not all, of what they're doing
has nothing to do with the benefit of the economy

Can there be any objection to
genuinely talented people earning big money?

if they bring something new
and tangible to the world?

If they take great personal risks
with their own money,

and actually bring greater prosperity for all

In a free market If I have a brilliant idea,
that I can run an Automobile on grass-clippings

as an example

And i produce that car,
my motivation might be to make money

But if the market says
this is the greatest automobile ever invented by mankind

and I make a billion dollars,
I've not only served myself,

but I've served everyone else
that needs a transportation.

That is the brilliance of a free market,
there is that paradox, you can serve yourself

and simultaneously serve
others and that's what it's all about.

But how many of the general public have achieved

greater prosperity through a banker's bonus?

It was against the holy backdrop of
st Paul's Cathedral in London

that Goldman Sachs vice chairman and mouth piece,
Lord Griffith gave insight

into how certain bankers really think.

The devoted christian defended
extortioned bonuses.

The fundamental christian view,
and Islam as well, and certainly of Judaism is that

Wealth should be shared,
money has to be shared

you can't take it with you...
And from that develops stuff such as justice in the economy

And we've lost that,
instead we've got people accumulating more and more

I think that's disgusting that people have
lost their homes, lost their jobs,

they can't pay their mortgages

from bankers who made a big mistake
and got paid enormous bonuses,

that is simply wrong

And I can't understand
why we are not more vociferous about that

When rich people tell you that
they specifically have to be rich

through these egregious rip off mechanisms
that's just self serving propaganda

and you should be disregarding it.

It is true that when you organise human society
some people will get ahead and

some people struggle
that is a natural mechanism.

But to say we have to got to have inequality
therefore Goldman Sachs must be organised

along the following lines,
that's a complete non sequitur

At what juncture, what point does morality
enter into the economic calculus

In a way many people think that
Adam Smith gave us a free pass

A way not to think about morality,
because what Adam Smith said was that

individuals in the pursuit of their self interest
are led as if by an invisible hand

to the general well being of society...

To make it clear,
Adam Smith didn't really say that

Adam Smith was very much aware that
businesses, when they got together,

conspired against the public interest,
raised prices,

he was aware of monopoly

he was aware of the importance of education

that the private sector couldn't provide.

So he himself was aware of all the limitations.

But his latter day descendants
have forgotten all those caveats.

Adam Smith was the godfather of classical economics,
but since its publication,

his work has been used as a political football

financiers twisting his words to suit them

Lord Griffith advocates
ruthless individualism to push this idea that

if bankers get rich,
then we get rich too through a process

known as trickle down economics.

Or Horse and Sparrow theory

If you feed the horse enough oats

Some will pass through to the road for the sparrows

the idea is that extreme wealth
concentrated on a small minority

would eventually trickle down to everyone else

But it doesn't work.

Because,
by the time the money reaches the people

at the bottom of our money pyramid,
it's lost it's purchasing power

But the public are now confused as to
why our politicial leaders

have allowed this to happen,
and quite naturally now ask why?

Because our political processes
are badly flawed

because of the dependence on
lobbyism and campaign contributions

That's why a lot of people view
we have to restructure our political processes

to give more voice to the ordinary citizen
and less to the interest groups, to the monied groups

Those who have taken such a
large role in shaping our tax code,

our regulatory regulations and so forth

I stood on the front step of Collin Powell's house

And I looked at him and said:
-"Whats next boss?"

He said:
-"What do you mean?"

I said -"What next,
where are you going next?"

-"I know you're going to write your book,

but you're not going to do that for
the rest of your life"

-"What are you going to do next?"

He said:
-"Maybe a cabinet position, but first money"

I said: "Money?"
He said: "Yeah, millions"

-"That's the only way you can be a
cabinet officer in the american government"

The democrats and the republicans
are beholden to corporate interests

and until they become unbeholden
to those corporate interests

we will never have a well governed republic.

The inherent inequity in our system of
money, banking and politics

has not just had consequences domestically
but also on a massive scale globally.

Western leaders have presented
their military campaign in Iraq,

Afghanistan and Pakistan as a moral obligation

but are there other reasons for it?

The first financial beneficiary of
America's foreign policy is the military

in particular those who supply it
with arms and equipment

The military has won wars.

But how successful has it been
in its bigger aim to eradicate terrorism?

The drone attacks not only failed,
but they've created extra extremism

they've helped in radicalization of
youth in the north west frontier

and also in certain parts of
Punjab and Pakistan.

And because time after time,
there's a feeling that

America does this deliberately
to destabilize Pakistan.

I'm not so sure about that,
but I certainly think those people who

actually support this policy

every time you kill 10 so called terrorists,
you create 500 more

because they see the drone attacks as
an attack on the sovereign state of Pakistan

If they really wanted to flush them out,
there was no need for a huge military operation in Swat,

causing an entire district to
become internally displaced persons.

The population of Swat is 1.8 million
there are 2.3 million refugees in the country

The whole district has been emptied

This wouldn't have been necessary had they
carried out a surgical commando operation

To get the militant leaders.
But they allowed them to escape, all of them.

After the military,
the next financial beneficiary

are those who win the contracts to
conduct the rebuilding process.

In the west people, might even feel optimistic
when they hear that

the US is pumping tens of billions
newly created dollars into

develeping nations to build infrastructure.

But often this too doesn't seem to
achieve the publicized goals.

Is there another reason
we give these countries aid?

We Economic hitmen have created
the world's first truly global empire,

and we've done it primarily without the military.

We work in many different ways
but perhaps the most common is

that we'll take a third world country
that has resources our corporations covet

like oil,
and then arrange a huge loan to that country

from the world bank
or one of its sister organisations.

However that money never goes to the country.

Instead it goes to our own corporations
to build infrastructure projects like

powerplants, highways, industrial parks,
things that benefit a few wealthy families

in that country as
well as our corporations.

But it doesn't help the majority of people at all.

They are too poor to buy elecricity,
or drive cars on the highway.

They don't have the skills
to get jobs in industrial parks

but they are left holding a huge debt.

Infrastructure which has used heavy loans
from the world bank and the IMF

and made from grounds from western countries,
they've all gone into benefitting the elite

and the feudal classes.
They have not benefitted the people.

A lot of money goes to these consultants
and companies from the west who

charge huge amounts of money and
actually the real money on projects and

on ordinary people is very limited

The masses have very little already so
those landlords who have the infrastructure

who are going to make money because of
the infrastructure that is built through their roads

they will prosper,
but the ones who don't have any resources

that do not have jobs, there isn't any
economic activity for them in terms

of manufacturing goods so they can sell
and they could also prosper.

When you don't have that
what do they do?

They resort to joining the taliban
because they see the enemy coming in

and taking away what little bit they have.

President Obama I understand wants to
invest 7.5 billion dollars in

Pakistan's infrastructure
to alleviate poverty and to take away all the divisions

and all the
anti-American sentiment away over here.

Whatever his reasons are,
we can do without it.

In fact it's the worst possible thing he can do.

This kind of help is actually a hindrance
it's just going to make matters worse.

It will bring this contrived war on terror
into the rural areas.

How much of US foreign policy is genuinely altruistic?

And how much is it influenced by
the banks and corporations that

profit so tremendously from it?

America's evangelism of democracy
is riddled with contradictions not least

this idea of promoting democracy
at the point of a gun or opposing regimes

which are democratic but
not in the way that America wants

So too this idea that america have been
promoting free market capitalism has also

been riddled with contradictions

Because the reality is that american
firms tend to make the most money when

countries are at the cusp of change,
certainly american financial firms.

And in a sense they want the markets
to change structurally

but not too free and too transparent

Because they make money when
markets are a bit opaque

Is it any wonder developed nations are
fighting in underdeveloped countries

when so many are
making so much money out of it?

Without ever really having to face up to,
or even witness the consequences of their actions

So what if 5 million kids died in africa
because of debt last year?

"I got a bonus of a million pounds",
if I have that conversation..

I've had it with some bankers who
have been in the business a long time

they listen politely,
they're very polite, very charming,

and at the end they say
"well Tarek, it's lovely meeting you again,"

and then they get back to the office
and do another loan deal with Tanzania or something.

I've known a lot of "terrorists"
I've met them,

I've interviewed them for books,

I've known them since I was an economic hitman,

I've never met one
who wanted to be a terrorist.

They all want to be with their families
back on their farm

They're driven to terrorism
because they've lost their farm,

it's been inundated with water
from a hydro electric project

or with oil from oil derricks.

Their farms have been destroyed,
they can't make a living for their kids,

or in the case of the somali pirates
their fishing waters have been destroyed,

that's why they turned to this.

It isn't because they want to be pirates or terrorist,

now there may be a few crazy people,
people with their nuts loose,

there will always be serial killers,
maybe Usama Bin Laden was one of them,

but they do not get a following
unless there is a terrible injustice going on

and people are starving and
they're deprived

and then they will follow these crazy people

because they seem to offer an alternative

If we want to do away with terrorism,

If we want to have, what we in the Unites States call
'Homeland Security,'

We have got to recognise
that the whole planet is our homeland

What does the word terrorist actually mean?

Many terrorists would sooner describe themselves
as freedom fighters

Could it be that the charge of terrorism
could just as easily be made

against western corporations,
speculators and policy-makers?

When we talk about terrorism

it means what they do to us,
not what we do to them.

And what they do to us can be pretty ugly,

although it's a slight of a fraction of
what we do to them.

Take say 9/11
that was a pretty serious act of terrorism,

maybe the worst single act of terrorism in history,

but it could have been worse

Suppose for example that
Al Qaida had bombed Washington,

bombed the white house and killed the president

and installed a fresh military dictatorship,

and brought in a bunch of economists
who drove the economy into

its worst disaster in history.

That would have been worse than 9/11?

I am not making it up,
it happened.

What's called the first 9/11,
in south america namely in Chile.

On the 11th of september in 1973

the democratically elected president of Chile

Salvador Elende was overthrown in a coup,

a dictarorship under
Augusto Pinochet was established

that ruled Chile until 1990
there was the systematic suppression of

all political dissidents,
thousands were imprisoned and murdered.

Who was involved in that first 9/11?

It's not hard to find them...

Right in Washington and London and so on.

But that's off the agenda,
it doesn't count.

There is this principle of ideology,

that we must never look at our own crimes.

We should on the other hand
exalt in the crimes of others

and in our own nobility in opposing them.

The root causes of so called terrorism

will not be solved by
increasing economic inequality

If governments really are serious
about combating terrorism,

then they must start with
real structural reform back home

As long as banking empires
chase infrastructure and debt deals

in pursuit of profit,
the west will continue to

export injustice through finance

Millions more will be displaced,
terrorism will thrive,

and neo colonialism will continue to

end more and more lives around the world

What's happened is that we've
moved from a relatively empty world

to a relatively full world.

That is, empty of us and all of our stuff,

is now full of us and our stuff

In my lifetime
the world population has tripled,

and the populations of other things,
of cars, houses, boats,

all these other things
that put a load on the environment too

just like human bodies

those have vastly more than tripled,

so the world is very very full of what we might call,
man made capital.

And it's becoming more and more empty of

what used to be there,
what we might call natural capital

We are the first generation,

we in the rich developed world are
the first generation that

have got to the end of the real benefits of
the economic growth

For hundreds of years
the best way of raising the real quality of human life

has been to raise material living standards,

and that's what's driven the huge rises in life expectancy

and increases in happiness and
other measures of well being

But all those have now come
detached from economic growth,

although life expectancy continues
to rise in the rich world

it's no longer related to the amount of
economic growth a country has at all,

and the same is true of measures of happiness

and the measures of well being

The paradox is the more we grow
the more poverty we create

Our self interested economic system

seems to be continually missing a trick

So as we keep plundering the earth's natural capital

is it time to rethink our western definition of progress?

When I look at the world

I look at it much the way
royal Dutch Shell looks at it,

they have one of the
best strategic entities in the world,

private or public.

And Royal Dutch shell is posited two scenarios,

one is called blueprint and is obviously a

planned corporate structure
where the world leaders get together

and they think about things like
energy transformation,

planetary warming and
dwindling fossil fuels and so forth

The other is called "Scramble".

and Scramble is pretty much what it sounds like too,
it's a mess.

Interestingly enough in 2075

the ending year for these scenarios as I recall,

we get to about the same place.

It's just that blueprint leaves
a lot less blood on the floor

Scramble leaves a lot of blood on the floor

as people fight for these resources and so forth.

The reason oil companies
are drilling miles under the sea,

is that the world's easily accessible oil

has already been found and largely consumed

Not only are our oil supplies dwindling

Major new metals' discoveries are
becoming increasingly rare

40% of the world's agricultural land
is seriously degraded,

and ever more volatile yields
continue to be unevenly distributed

It may be that the looming environmental threat

is not global warming,

but the exhaustion of the world's resources.

We are going to have struggles for

finding land sufficient to grow
the agricultural products

for what the UN says

is going to be a 9 billion earth population.

We are going to struggle over

non renewable fossil fuels as they run out

I think shell posit's about 2075 they'll be gone,

and we're going to struggle over things like water

and other precious resources that are necessary to

our life and to our economy

This could be as shell says,

a blueprint affair with world leaders
working together to share and share alike

or it could be a real mess,

and shell incidentally bets on the mess

Just like the babyboomers' failure
to look to the next generation,

our outdated competitive mentality
for a world of depleted resources

could have devastating consequences.

Our economic setup encourages
one upmanship, competition, and comparison

where as

the progress the humans have made over millenia

has been largely based on co-operation.

In any species, in almost any animal,

there is always the potential for huge conflict,

because within any species

all members of that species have the same needs

so they might fight each other for food and shelter

and nest-sites and territory and sexual partners

and all that kind of things.

But human beings have always had the other possibility

We have the possibility to be the best source of support

and love and assistance and cooperation.

Much more so than any other animal

And so other people can be the best or the worst

You can be my worst rival
or my best source of support

In a progressive society

to meet our common economic, social and cultural needs

we must move from globalization to localization

The benefits of a communal sense of fellowship,

responsibility and purpose in a life driven by production,

not consumption would lead to
happiness and satisfaction.

Indeed we must ask;

Have our modern consumerist lifestyles made us happy?

I think if one had been living in the 19th century

and somebody told you that a 100 years later

people were going to be living in this
extraordinary wealth and comfort

with central heating,

being able to throw away such a
high proportion of our food as we do,

we'd imagine that we'd be living in
a state of extraordinary social harmony

and everything would be rosy.

It's really quite remarkable

the contrast between, if you like,
the material success of our societies

and the social failure.

The growth economy demands that
we make consumption a way of life

He who dies with the most toys became the ambition,

and retail replaced spiritual satisfaction

Unsurprisingly, sales of anti-depressants skyrocketed.

The fact is that the world economy
over the last few years,

a good share of my lifetime has been built either on

the military or on producing items
that most people don't need,

and really don't even want.

Consumerism is driven by an extraordinarily social nature

that we want to have the stuff

so that we look good in other people's eyes.

It's because I experience myself
through other people's eyes

the feelings of shame and embarrasment

or pride and maybe feeling envied;
all those things.

The goods are just a way of mediating the relationship

between yourself and others in this
extraordinarily alienated hierarchy

What has really suffered is human relationships,

family life, the things that really matter to us,

and in the end

the only thing that makes
human beings happy isn't money

it's very clear that past a certain level
you only get marginal gains from wealth

What really makes us happy is other people,

it's our relationship with other people that

has really been damaged by the last 30 years

We trust them less,

we have less interaction with them,

we bond less than ever before,

we marry less and marriage is under
more threat than ever before

and all the associations that represent

sort of permanent unconditioned human affection

are being eroded or damaged.

And that's the real legacy of the last 30 years

in some sense we've got to
recover and rehumanise our lives

otherwise not only will they be nasty,
brutish and short, but we'll be lonely

The west is coming to the realization

that its human project is failing

the west was so convinced that

if you push people to achieve as individuals

the accumulated achievement of individuals

would make for a successfull society

And what the west is now beginning to realize

is that the individual achievement

without incorporating the vulnerable community
is a myth.

The idea was, make your own life,

be individually aspiring,

and then you'll be individually achieving,

and then you'll be individually prosperous,

and then you'll be individually happy.

You end up doing that in a glass jar

and the glass jar has a limited height

and it is encapsulating

and in the end you die of lack of oxygen

Human beings are alive because they seek attachment

and because they are propelled by affection

so the isolated achieving individual in the end implodes.

In order to find a purpose in life
it has to be outside yourself

It matters not how you're constructed outside yourself

as long as it is a positive value

added to the society pursuit

But it has to be outside yourself,
it can't be yourself,

if you're pursuing yourself
you're pursuing the abyss as Nietzsche said

You're going to wind up in the abyss.

One of the most powerful cultural frameworks

that shapes the way we think today in the west
is the hollywood film construction.

and it follows a particular cultural pattern

in that there's a beginning,
there's a middle and an end

There is drama, tension, there's resolution,

there's usually a goodie and a baddie

and it's usually a story told for the
medium of human beings

This Hollywoodisation of the way
that people communicate

and the way they tell stories about themselves

and view their recent history

has very much impacted how we look at
the financial crisis

in that people look at the beginning

and the middle and the end,

they look at the drama around the Lehman Brothers

and they want to see a resolution

and they wanted baddies

they wanted sacrificial victims as well

so people have focused on a few individuals

The idea that somehow it
wasn't just one or two individuals

who were the root of the problem,

it was a systemic problem,

that actually almost everyone who participated

was in some way guilty

either of outright negligence or

simply failing to ask the right questions

or simply failing to ask

why money was so cheap for so many years

The idea that it was a systemic flaw

is something which is very hard for people to grasp

and even harder to depict as a good story

Perhaps there's this feeling of helplessness

because we don't understand
what the real problem actually is.

Cleansing a few bad apples

will not rectify the flaws at the heart
of the western economic system

a system that should be protecting people

is in fact the very thing

that is enabling our four horsemen
to ride with such vengeance

The modern day Four Horsemen

our rapacious financial system,
escalating organised violence,

abject poverty for billions,

and the exhaustion of the earth's resources

are riding roughshod over those who can least afford it

They gallop unchallenged

because the cognitive map
that has been put in place by

our schools and universities and our media

does not encourage us to question accepted norms.

Instead there is apathy.

In a sense i think we're a rather depressed society,

we've got used to the idea that
there's nothing that can be done,

there is no alternative.

That we're never gonna deal
with these environmental problems

and we live in a dog eat dog society
and that's it.

I think what we have to take away from this
is a recognition

that most of these problems
can be very substantially improved

by making our societies more equal,

reducing the income differences,

and that also helps us to solve
the environmental problems

we can reach a society that is
qualitatively better for all of us

All the apathy is sort of engineered

because we don't have any discussion of this
in the public media

hardly by surprise,
the public media are owned by

the real estate and the financial interests

and they're not going to explain to people

the integration between the financial,
insurance and real estate sectors the F.I.RE-sector

There's this disinformation going on

passing the buck

denying what the real driving factors are

All of these are common strategies

in fact even in education
you can see that banks have helped to

set up universities, they funded them.

They fund think tanks,
they have educational foundations,

they own newspapers.

All of this stuff is going on as a
kind of propaganda excercise

so that the people
don't actually work out what the problem is.

You should not assume
because you don't have a background in economics or in law,

that these issues are too complex for you

They're not complex at all,

it's very simple,

it's about power and it's about democracy

and you understand that just as well as I do.

One source of this disinformation

is the neoclassical school of economics

These economists and academics
have been successful in

convincing the world that their models were gospel

but just as Gutenberg's
printing press was revolutionary in the 16th century,

today we're at the dawn of
internet enlightenment

which will remove the cloud of ignorance upheld
by academic and media gatekeepers.

Education can be a form of mass mind control,

and it's astonishing that today neo classical economics

continues to be taught in all ivy league universities

I do get letters from students
in economics departments

at other universities

they're in to some graduate program
or something

and they say;
"You know I just read such and such that you wrote"

This is the kind of thing that interests me,

"I am stuck in this program here in which"

"I can't even talk about any of that,
what is your advise?"

"What should I do?"

What they're teaching you
is what you're going have to oppose

A lot of it, well some of it is useful,
so go ahead and learn it.

and the other reason for learning the rest of it, is...

Know your enemy.

An individual might not be able to change the system

but they can change themselves

If we're not offered proper education,

we must begin our own

and a good place to start

is to become re-aquainted with the classical economists

and with something that so few question,

but that affects us all,

our system of money

If the monetary system of the world is not reformed

then we're heading towards the end
of industrial civilization

I won't say that we're going to the end of humanity,

but it's just going to be an absolute
collapse of our world as we have known it

Because it can't function on FIAT money.

None of those who are responsible for this

want to admit it, but that is the fact

The FIAT system of money is a man made law,

and it has been abused.

Is there a form of money
whose law is not set by man?

When you look at natural law and gold,

I sort of describe gold as being a natural form of money

All of the gold that has been mined throughout history,

still exists in its above ground stock
it's about the size of 2 and a half olympic swimming pools

if you put all that gold together in one place

The key is this that this above ground stock of gold

grows by about 1.75 percent per annum

which is approximately equal to
new world population growth

and is approximately equal to new wealth creation

So the net result of this is that

you have this very good consistency in
gold's purchasing power over long periods of time

because the supply demand equation
is very much in balance

To achieve human liberty
you really need to have sound money

and gold is the only way to do that

because only gold is outside of
the control of politicians

With modern man made monetary processes

a chronic excess of debt
is built up at every level of society

debt is now regarded as normal...

..it isn't.

It's a form of slavery!

But how much do we question our debt?

and what should we now do about it?

The classic example,
most recently of a debt cancellation

was the German economic miracle in 1947

The Allies cancelled all domestic and
international german debts

except for the debts that
employers owed their employees

for the previous few weeks.

And except for a basic working balance that everybody

was able to keep in the bank

in order to buy food for the next few weeks or so.

Essentially you would follow the five or six pages

that the currency reform of 1947 did in germany.

You would start with a clean slate,

that means that everybody would own
their own property free and clear.

And the problem here is

that you would wipe off the savings
that are the counterparts of that

That actually would not be such a bad thing

if you look at the fact that the
wealthiest 1% of the Americans

have concentrated an enormous
amount of wealth in their own hands,

more than at any earlier time
since statistics have been kept.

Our system of taxation also needs addressing

currently we're taxed on what we produce

perhaps it would be more progressive
to tax what we consume

How many american people realise that
the founding fathers never intended

for americans to be taxed on their labour

in other words they weren't meant to pay income tax

The tax system that was exported from britain,

a relic of colonialism, has duped the world.

The most important element of a tax system

is to do what everybody expected
to be done in the 19th century

and that is to base the tax system on land taxation,

on the free lunch of land value

and on what John Stewart Mill called

the unearned increment

The income that landlords made
in their sleep as he put it.

Who made oil in the ground? Coal or iron ore?

These are things which are not
the product of human effort

Of course extracting them is,
but their existence is not

and so the rents from natural resources
are a wonderful source of taxation

nobody made them so,

and when you do tax them,
you cause all of us to use them more efficiently

so this seems like to be an excellent thing to tax

rather than labour and capital

If the governments used this land site value
that is supplied by nature,

not by human labour.

not by a personal enterprise

then the government would not have to tax
wages in the form of income tax

it wouldn't have to employ sales tax
that add to the price of doing bussiness

and it wouldn't have to add the
proliferation of business taxes

This tax system advocated by all of
the classical economists

would begin to address global poverty

as it would allow citizens in developing countries

to keep their resource wealth

In developed countries
it would begin to address

our housing and debt crisis

and unleash the kind of entrepeneurship
needed to refloat our economies

perhaps we should also resurrect
another timeless principle for workers

that was promoted during the industrial revolution

The idea that people who work in a plant
ought to own it

is just deeply built in to working class culture

so right around here at the early industrial revolution

in the late 19th century, the working people
simply took for granted

that yes of course the workers
should own the mills in which they work

anything else is an
attack on their fundamental rights as free citizens

They also took for granted
that wage labour is hardly different from slavery

it's different only because it's temporary

then you can be free

one of the ways to be free is by owning your own plant

That was not an exotic view,
that was Abraham Lincoln's view

In fact,

it was a principle of the republican party
in the late 19th century

It has taken a lot of effort
to drive these ideas out of people's heads

but they're still there and they are very relevant

It was the greek philosopher Plato
who said the ratio of earnings

between the highest and the lowest paid employee
in any organisation

should be no more than 6 to 1

In 1923, banker J.P. Morgan declared
no more than 20 to 1 was optimum

Yet today's salary difference between

the top and bottom earners in global corporations

can be higher than 500:1 or a 1000:1

When you're up in the range of 500:1 inequality

the rich and the poor become almost different species

no longer members of the same community

Commonality of interest is lost

and so it's difficult to form community

and to have good friendly relationships across

class differences that are that large

When the public do vent their outrage
at inappropriate earnings

the common defence is to move the debate to
the psychological realm

and quote Mecurial British economist Herbert Spencer

He coined the phrase; survival of the fittest.

And his words are now used to justify excess

Competition in business is a good thing

but the playing field must be level.

Monopolists have too much because

the system they game is rigged

Under the current economic setup

the fitnes of the vast majority of the world's population
is irrelevant.

Those that are made to pay for this crisis

are not those that caused it

But those who caused it for survival

will no doubt try to marginalize this film as socialist

or even marxist

I'm a capitalist, I am a businessperson

I believe in the basic principles

that's why I am completely appalled by seeing

these principles destroyed by monarchs, monopolists

who are totally destroying the system
from within, on Wall Street

And this is completely unacceptable

I'm a capitalist, I think capitalism can do it

It's not a question of getting rid of the capitalism

It's a question of getting rid of this terrible
form of capitalism

Capitalism, more broadly understood as
market economy

not only has a future

I can't see any other future in the world without it

But the question is; what kind of capitalism?

What kind of market economy?

A system of reformed capitalism,
built on independent money

a tax system based on consumption, not income

and employee owned businesses

would begin to build an economy
that's not dependent on

constant growth to service its debt

We've endured the so called free market for centuries

but far from being free,
it has led us to destroy nature and

each other in a vain attempt to progress.

It's absolutely ludicrous to suggest

that some of these scientifically
defined boundaries of the market

that we should never change

and then scientists of the free market economy
wants you to believe

Once that they convince you of that

and claim that they have the truth

because they are PHDs in economics,

then they can tell you whatever they want

And then you'll have to accept it

But that's the way that we have to take these guys on

Politics is about drawing the boundary of the market

When you think about it

all other things have been taken

out of the market over the last 2 or 3 centuries

2 or 3 centuries ago you could
buy and sell human beings

child labour

a lot of things that you
didn't imagine you could buy and sell today

So over time we have redrawn this boundary

and there's nothing wrong in
redrawing the boundaries again

Things that were considered
absolutely reasonable in the 1850s like

selling any chemical on the street-corner

telling you it's a pharmaceutical drug
and it would be good for you

things like that were absolutely common place then

are now serious criminal offences

The same thing would be true of

active money management in a hundred years

The breakdown we saw in the great depression

and wittnessed again at the
beginning of the 21st century

occured because in the name of growth,

much was taken out of the system
by those who contribute very little

Multinational corporates and banks

will always want to grow without having to compensate

those people who actually
do the work to produce the surplus

In the past, everytime too much was taken

by those who contributed little

People rose up to halt

the violent practices enacted by a tangible enemy

Today the question is

with such a formless enemy pervading every element of

our economic and democratic process,
can it be done again?

Of course it can be done again, it's a cycle

I mean we're not debt peons

we're maybe rats running around in a little wheel

in somebody's big cage somewhere

The finance rises, finance becomes organised,

you make a lot of money in banking,

it's easy to go out and buy politicians

but the essence of democracy,

the essence of american democracy,

is a repeated confrontation,
a repeated showdown

and in the 1830s Andrew Jackson
beat the second bank in the USA

in the early 1900s Teddy Roosevelt
beat JP Morgan and J Rockefeller

In the 1930s Franklin D Roosevelt
beat everyone from Wall Street

and now we have to do it again!

The one single thing that makes me optimistic

rather than cynical, pessimistic,
are my students.

First I do not see the desire to
go to Wall Street amongst them

I see the opposite

Second I see a disdain amongst them
for people who are motivated

not just that they do not want money

I see a disdain amongst them
for people who do just want money

The crises we face today are created by humans,

and what is created by humans
can be changed by humans

So we are all capable of transforming our world

Revolutions are philosophical,

getting organised in preventing the culprits
camouflaging the real problem

means it's possible to embark on a bloodless revolution

against the voilent organisations and barbaric leaders

who've trashed the economy

Central banking,

rigged capitalism,

land speculation,

income tax and neo-classical economics

have corporatized democracy,

stunted progress,

perverted the course of human destiny

and compromised the future of this planet

If these issues aren't addressed

then the next implosion will be on a scale unimagined

Whatever the propaganda

at the beginning of the 21st century
central banks unregulated cheap money,

pumped up land values which created

an unsustainable asset bubble

in a world which once again operates

a rigged tax system that enriches entrenched privilege

Neo classical economics have ruined
life for the bottom billions

tempted everyone into inter-generational conflict

and created massive suffering that has no limits

Human beings go mad in crowds

and come to their senses slowly and individually

History is littered with examples of people

who threw themselves
off the yoke of oppression

to adopt radical change,
only to end up with popular new rulers

that maintained the status quo

To really understand something is to be liberated from it

Dedicating oneself to a great cause,
taking responsibility,

and gaining self knowledge is the essence of being human

A predatory capitalist's truest enemy
and humanity's greatest ally

is the self educated individual
who has read, understood,

delays their gratification,

and walks around
with their eyes wide open.