Skeptic Project

TeeZedem, just to respond to a couple of points you made.

Yeah I do, much like there was a similar change of consciousness that got the American Revolution started.

As a historian, I take issue with this statement. The American Revolution was a political and economic revolution only--not a social one. In fact the founders of the Revolution specifically didn't want it to become a social one. Even if it was, the gulf between this type of "change of consciousness" and the type envisioned by the Venus Project is absolutely huge.

So in essence we have a lot more in common than we have differences. We should build on that common ground rather than spend so much time tearing at each others arguments.

Well, this sort of ignores the point of this site, doesn't it? This site is not about finding common ground to change the world. This site is about refuting conspiracy theories. As I've said many times, the only reason the ZM is so prominent on this site is because it's one of the most prominent purveyors of conspiracy theories out there right now. Stop promoting conspiracy theories and we really wouldn't give a damn about the ZM. At least I wouldn't.

What you need to take into consideration is that is takes balls to start a movement; it also takes tenacity to keep it going. It is well and good to have a good idea, but as evidenced here, you’ve got to defend it, and you have to defend all aspects of your life and your ideals.

So you think it's admirable that Peter Joseph Merola defends the blatant falsehoods, poor research and atrocious critical thinking that he promotes in his movies? I agree this does take balls, but I don't see how this is admirable in the slightest.

I think number one ["the movies aren't the movement"] is stupid. Of course both Zeitgeist movies are intimately intertwined with the movement. It is the medium that got us interested in the movement to begin with. It is true as a movement we identify more with ZA, but most of us have watch Z1 as well.

So then you're willing to defend the conspiracy theories promoted by the movies, the paranoid thinking and the logical fallacies committed in the name of promoting conspiracy theories, or at least overlook them, because it serves a common good? Is this not an "ends justify the means" approach?

TeeZedem, I finished reading your post. I think this thread should remain focused on the conspiratorial nature of TZM rather than on the social circumstances. If you want to discuss this further, we can take it either to my forum, talk via PM, or create a new thread here if you so choose.

Ultimately, I can't disprove your assertion that a RBE society would eliminate most if not all abhorrent behavior. The problem is that I'm not the one who made any claims regarding their association. TZM needs to provide some evidence for their claims.

Good point aaron. Maybe it should be split onto a separate thread

Because they need to criticize the current system to give people a reason to adopt their new system. But as we all know, that criticism doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Because first and foremost he is a conspiracy theorist filmmaker. It would be nice if he went in the direction you are suggesting. I would actually welcome it

Great, give me the link when it's ready

"I'm currently creating a new forum on my website. One section will be devoted to the social implications of TZM / TVP where people can have a critical discussion rather than get banned for having a brain." Im intrested and yes for everyone here I found Falkners RBE:A Baseless theory an fascinating read

@TeeZedem Special Ed(Winston)is right really do you guys actually think your going to have no clue what the real world is like Van Jones never survived the CT nonsense.Jacque and Peter have no intention of creating an RBE as for it to become implemented you going to have to stand face to face with many more threatening and influential oppenants than here or on the rest of the internet as it will take them a quick google search to find out everything about the Conspiracy theories and the holes in the movements "science" and youll be pwned.Both men are CTrs and Joseph who is the main CTr mainly gets interviewed on "alternative" media who are usually just as biased towards "the system" because he is uanable to take part in an actual debate which is why he turned down both Molyneux as well as Chomsky(the fact that he answers basic criticisms with the Micheal Jackson defense and calling people "mentally ill" and "intellectual bigots".It isnt a humanitarian movement at all its just Peters means of spreading CT's and Jacque continuing to liv off other people.Seriously with spolespeople like VTV,Thunder and Voice of Reason etc you havent a hope of making it the real world and trust me you have to make it in the mainstream society if you plan on making it in the real world.Even though the possibility of it happening in the real world the idea of Voice of Reason taking on the likes of Bill O Reilly and Sean Hannity with that blue dildo microphone and all gives me shits and giggles.
As I said on Facebook.The only thing holding TZM/TVP together is Jacque.With him dead the whole thing will fall apart since hes their box full of andrex puppies that deflects them from genuine criticism and making any improvements(for who would want to berate their funky granddad who has lots of toys for everyone to play with).When he finally kicks the bucket the current power struggle between the moderators:those that align themselves with Jacque and those that align themselves with Peter will escalate tearing this "movement" apart.Roxanne will more than likely be apathetic to this since after looking at her from the more recent lectures of the tour she seems like a broken women by this point.Peter being the D-List internet celebrity he is will struggle to keep it afloat and probably find another pseudoacademic to work for once TZM is dead and buried.Thats of course after VTV,bigsteelguy and TVP Challenge aka Brandy Hume make all sorts of cheesy In Memorium videos and TZM members start commiting suicide unable to live in a world without Jacque(kinda like Micheal Jackson).Decades from now noone will ever know anything about Jacque,Peter,VTV etc..Except of course the minority that shrines and carve effigies to them!!!The Zeitgeist Movement is dead and good riddance!

@Aaron, domokato, oreolvrs, Sil, and Special Ed

Why does ZA have to begin with conspiracies regarding the federal reserve? Why can't it simply be a video about The Venus Project?

What conspiracy exactly? How the Fed was created? No conspiracy there. How the Fed operates? Again no conspiracy.

Because they need to criticize the current system to give people a reason to adopt their new system. But as we all know, that criticism doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

What you know is your opinion. For example in the Part I ZA critique, it is pointed put that Peter didn’t bother making the distinction between money (M0) and deposits (M1). But in the example I fail to see the difference between creating 90 billion dollars of deposits out of thin air and 90 billion dollars of cash. Just because there is no increase in physical money, doesn’t mean there is no increase in the total available money. You seem to think that because it is on deposit after it is loaned out that it will never be accessed and spent into the economy? Why else would you take a loan unless you were going to spend it on something? This is new money, it is just electronic money. Just ask yourself the following, does this money disappear when they use it to settle a loan debt? No, the money becomes the basis of another round of lending.

Any increase to the overall money supply in excess of a countries ability to produce will create inflation. It doesn’t matter if it is cash or deposits.

Inflation is a tax on the people. I guess you guys are not fans of Ron Paul? New money benefits those who have it first; in most cases it is the banks that have it first. After it trickles down through the economy those that get it last have less purchasing power. So in essence those that get the new money first steal purchasing power from those that get it last.

Inflation is more dollars chasing after a declining pool of goods. The mismanagement of the supply of money can rob the purchasing power of your dollar over the years. The Federal Reserve is an inflation generating engine. Accepting inflation because it discourages the hoarding of cash is a weak excuse. People need to save, so they can make investments. Other wise you are forcing people to borrow to invest and they have to take on much riskier investments to make sure they earn more interest than they are paying. Peter Schiff talks a fair bit about this.

Even if the system did create "money out of debt", which it doesn't, changing it wouldn't make the system any different for the average worker. – From ZA critique

Practically all money is loaned into existence; this is how money gets into the system. If the system was changed to a non-debt based government issued currency (like the Greenback during the civil war, or like Guernsey in present day), you would see prosperity like you’ve never known. No more interest payments to maintain the national debt imagine what you could do with that money.

A criticism of the federal reserve doesn't seem like their most powerful argument. Why didn't Merola focus on the history of abhorrent behavior around the world and how it is related to access to resources?

Because the Federal Reserve is robbing you now. Pretty immediate.

Simply put: All Steel is Metal, but not all Metal is Steel. The pools of molten metal are most likely aluminum or something of that nature.

Good theory Sil, if you’ve got some links for that, I’d like to see them. Someone must have tested those pools and figure out if they were a metal with a lower melt point.

Falkners RBE:A Baseless theory an fascinating read

Is this a book or an internet article? I would like to read it.

"rule by the rabble".What social revolution happened? Nothing really changed at all.

Yes I understand the distinction of Rule of Law vs. Rule of the Mob. I hadn’t thought of the revolution in that context before, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution seemed to be fairly enlighten documents for the time (except the no vote for women and black men counting only for a fraction of a vote). The founders did set the stage for some social change by means of the system they left behind.

@TeeZedem Special Ed(Winston)is right really do you guys actually think your going to have no clue what the real world is like Van Jones never survived the CT nonsense.Jacque and Peter have no intention of creating an RBE as for it to become implemented you going to have to stand face to face with many more threatening and influential oppenants than here or on the rest of the internet as it will take them a quick google search to find out everything about the Conspiracy theories and the holes in the movements "science" and youll be pwned.

Ultimately only if PJ is proven wrong or refuses to admit he is wrong if he is proven to be so.

Just so we are all on the same page we are really only discussing one conspiracy theory here, that being his segment on 9/11 in Z1. Part 1 is not really a conspiracy theory; this is how I see it:

PJ: So the imaginary character of Jesus has many similarities to other imaginary deities from other religions.

CS: That is crap dude, the Christian imaginary deity is unique and your sources are crap.

Let say for a moment that I accept your contention that PJ is indeed incorrect and no idea was pilfered from any other mythology that came before the Christian religion.

We are still talking about deities that lack any empirical evidence of their existence. Some scholars hypothesize that Jesus wasn’t actually a singular person, but rather a few leaders in the day whose accomplishments were rolled up into the neat tidy package that you see in Jesus today. Even if the man Jesus existed, there is no evidence of the supernatural events attributed to him. That is why you take him on faith.

Part 3 – The Fed

Where to start? We have a federal reserve that has never been fully audited. A revolving door between the US gov’t and former and current employees of Goldman Sachs. What do the former Soviet union, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, Bolivia, Poland, South Korea, Thailand have in common? Having their economies ripped apart after accepting loans from the IMF with austerity measures attached. Consider also the fact when money is loaned into existence, the interest is not created, so the system is set up so that a percentage of us must fail. Bankers may not own the world, but they can certainly bring the pain whether you are a law abiding citizen or a country. That is real power.

The following is a brief response to Z1 part 3 critique:

Why do you think that taxation without representation was so onerous on the colonists and thus stated the primary cause? It was not only because King George outlawed their ability to print money, but required that the taxes to the monarchy we to be paid in gold and silver. Now the colonists didn’t have a lot of gold and silver, so paying taxes was a hardship. This idea that the colonies imported more than they exported flies in the face of the basis of the British free trade system, being that they establish colonies so that the riches of these new lands can flow back to the motherland and enrich the nobles. And make no mistake; America was a rich land, ripe for exploitation.

Not all central banks are privately owned, this is true. China’s central bank is nationalized and works in the interest of the nation, not private shareholders and look at China’s growth. Canada’s central bank is nationalized, but it does not issue the majority of Canada’s money (just 5%), the rest is issued by private banks in the form of loans to the government, at interest, which profits the private shareholders. And to your notion that some currencies are still backed by gold, I believe the last currency to abandon the gold standard was the Swiss Franc in 2000.

The primary reason that was stated to the public was to protect customers and banks from bank runs. You can see that the real reason the Federal Reserve was enacted was to privatize the profits, but socialize any losses. Banks could then reduce their fractional reserve and multiple the loans they issued at interest.

List of depressions and recessions under the helm of the Federal Reserve:
1918-19
1920-21
1923-24
1926-27
1929-33
1937-38
1945
1948-49
1953-54
1957-58
1960-61
1969-70
1973-75
1980-82
1990-91
2001
2007-present day

Sure looks like the fed is doing its job.

So here is a neat fact using your numbers. If the Federal Reserve was only increasing the total debt by 7% per year, in 10 years your will have doubled your debt. You can duplicate this yourself using Excel, take a 100$ multiple it by 1.07, then take the product and multiply that by 1.07. Do that ten times and you’ve doubled your debt.

And let’s be clear, when you say that the Fed rebates its net earnings to the Treasury, this is whatever profit is left over after paying out dividends, salaries and other operating expenses. So to summarize, after the Fed has taken its profits, it returns the excess.

The convenience that the people have with dealing with just one currency can be easily met by the government rather than a central bank. There is no reason why a government cannot issue currency and loans (thereby spending and loaning money into existence) whereby the interest paid on loans is remitted to the government to fund programs in the interest of the nation, rather than in the interest of private shareholders. Also citizens could save their money with the government (indeed they used to at the post office until 1966).

Ascribing heroic tendencies to JP Morgan for organizing other executives to quell the run on the bank is like calling a person who lit the match that burn down the building a hero because he called the fire department. He benefited enormously from the getting the Federal Reserve, and the money he put down to quell the panic was just an investment like any other.

Also to assign the virtues of “efficiency and science” to central banking is inaccurate. Unless of course you were looking for an efficient and scientific way of engineering booms and busts to milk the people at regular intervals. Calling the 12 banks of the Federal Reserve decentralized is putting lipstick on a pig and calling it pretty. Breaking up the banks into 12 institutions was a rouse, camouflage for the people and nothing more. The Federal Reserve is just as central as the Bank of England.

In 1910, the trip to Jekyll Island was secret. It wasn’t till after the Federal Reserve act was passed that the people found out about the meeting. Are you are okay with letting private business interests help drafts laws that the people would never vote for?

With Louis McFadden you are skirting close to the edge of invoking Godwin’s Law.

The Zeitgeist Movement is dead and good riddance!

Yeesh…Maybe we can take bets on your predictions.

"Good theory Sil, if you’ve got some links for that, I’d like to see them. Someone must have tested those pools and figure out if they were a metal with a lower melt point."

Why don't you go ask PJ? He must have the results from those tests proving that they were steel to arrive at the conclusion that he did.

Sil, I figured you guys are the debunkers, but no section has been devoted to the molten metal question. Ok, according to PJ's sources (pg 132) there are 5 separate eye witness accounts of molten steel under the towers after the collapse. Construction steel has a melting point of 2800F. Jet fuel doesn't burn that hot. Also hot spots were found up to three weeks after of 2000F, still hotter than jet fuel burns.

TeeZeeDem,

Welcome to the message boards. I talked about RBE in my article RBE: A Baseless Theory, and you can always go and read it- as well as my follow up points on anticultist's blog (http://anticultist.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/rbe-a-baseless-theory-part-1-falkners-legend-reblog/). But in the interest of expediency, I'll just make some points here in regards to your latest posts.

>>We don't have to wait for society to collapse. Are you familiar with the concept of technological singularity? It will make capitalism obsolete. It'll make work obsolete. This is inevitable and it'll change society whether TZM or TVP is around or not.

This is very interesting to me because I always expected that Kurzweil's theories about technological singularity was pretty central to TVP and TZM, but no one ever said as much. Look, Kurzweil's singularity is not an inevitability, and indeed it has been criticized by the scientific community as well as philosophers. Indeed, there is even the question of whether human thought and AI thought are even compatible, much less similar. There are many scholars who have written about the problems of technology and its application to humans (a great example is Y. Navaro-Yashin). Singularity has not been proven inevitable, and indeed a great deal of scientists have argued vehemently against it. I read Kurzweil about 6 years ago, and I have to say I am not impressed by the model.

For an argument about singularity read here: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/02/singularly_silly_singularity.php</p>

>>This is not true, at no point would TSM/TVP ban any of the above. What would happen is eventually some of these things are going to fade as their importance wanes. But if you want to hold to you porn and your bible, etc. No one is going to stop you.

TZM and TVP wont ban anything because it has no coherent political aspect much less an adequate understanding of the complexities of human social life. I address this in my critique of TVP, and I outright refute the materialist viewpoint the movement takes. That being said, the majority of this statement is built upon air and nothing more. I have yet to see a convincing theory from TZM or TVP that will describe social behavior and inter-social relations in an RBE society. This idea that material conditions will simply change a great deal of behaviors is a rather weak assertion and does not account for things like the perpetuation of irrational beliefs despite the increase in scientific knowledge.

>The changes coming in a decade will probably result in more people who think like me. An RBE will get off the ground, I don't care if it is launched by TZM or not. I joined the movement a few months ago, but I had seen the movies a few years ago.

An RBE is very, very unlikely because it is not only poorly defined and incoherent as a theory, but because it faces other theories that challenge capitalism which are much better defined. Even Socialism and Marxism are better alternatives to RBE given that both have a much more coherent and respectable theoretical and philosophical background.

> it takes balls to start a movement that calls for the removal of money and
> abundance for all.

If the movement just stuck with using the scientific process to determine the best solutions and avoided insisting that money needs to go and that abundance for all can happen, then I think it would be in a better position to be taken seriously. (That is, from what I can gather, what TVP was before TZM showed up..)

The best I can see at the moment is less money needed and more sharing of resources so those at the bottom have a bit more, but that doesn't mean a flat screen TV for all, it might just mean they don't starve to death..

> You don’t form a movement without having something concrete to struggle against.

Always a shame that one, as most faults are the people themselves, so I suppose people wouldn't like it if you told them they all suck and to work harder!

> I think it is a great solution and until something better comes along

There is difficulty finding something better, but I reckon we can point to a few things that are, two especially promising ones in my view are:

http://conceivia.com

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/csofarming</p>

Both tend to be very much one man bands, mostly because of the difficulty in finding people who want to do hard work to make anything happen, and the difficulty of geographical distances between those that do want to help, but are unable to move nearby to do so. (Being that most work is of a physical nature and requires people to be in the same location, rather than done on the internet.)

Myself, I'm approaching a solution to that one by following both the need for physical closeness of people who want to help, and an internet solution to solve the issue of geographical distances.

> I agree we should start on the small stuff first.

Agreed likewise. (There does at least appear some talk of this on the various TZM forums on a regular basis, my hope is that this will continue and at some point take root and grow.)

> My problem with TZM is it does not provide scientific studies that show that this
> can be achieved.

Likewise a concern.

It is my intention to help provide some assistance in that area, so we can begin to see what future solutions might work.

> We already have a good start. It's called democratic capitalism.

Agreed. (The more I look into 'the monetary system' the more democratic capitalism offers solutions to problems that I cannot yet see another way to solve.)

Though I reckon we can continue to evolve it and improve things for people.

> We are skeptics; we value the truth more than our own personal worldview and
> are willing to change our beliefs should they be shown to be wrong.

Agreed.

> Technological unemployment is offset by technological employment.

If only that was true :-) (Says he having been struggling to find a job for years..)

One of the issues perhaps not addressed by technological unemployment is that previous jobs was of a less skill requirement and could be done by the majority of people, where as the new jobs, they require skills and abilities that most people don't have.

Thus, your growing a bigger and bigger pool of peole who are uneducated to a level to get a job, unskilled, and often have an inability to do highly technical jobs even if you attempted to train them up.

As such, I reckon we need solutions to this vast army of unemployed who will remain unemployed their entire lifetime in many cases, and whose numbers will only grow..

The admin costs associated with taking care of these people by the state is also a large expense that could be simplified I reckon.

Though its rather unclear to me how we stop this non-working group from just taking its money and running up more expenses. (Such as health bills by being overweight.)

As in nature, those not working would tend to end up starving to death.

As such, I think we have to be careful when helping our fellow man, not to make a rod for our own back and dig our own grave as we spend more paying the unemployed than we make from taxing the employed.

> Technology has always been advancing since the beginning of mankind, taking away
> our jobs and providing us with different ones.

One might equally say that unemployment has been rising since the dawn of man :-(

> No, but it helps. You can still get a job as a programmer without going to school
> for it, but it sure helps if you can show you've got years of education behind you.

It helps a huge amount, as a programmer/IT/etc. without a degree, its incredibly hard for me to get a job, like my last interview for a job I had 15 years experience doing, but without a degree, well, I didn't get it, maybe it was something else..

But my girlfriend, who has a degree, got a job at the same place..

But then, she is in a different ethnic class to me...

(One of the reasons I'm for equal rights, as I want just as much rights as everyone else!)

> we can take it either to my forum,

URL ?

> Why does ZA have to begin with conspiracies regarding the federal reserve?
> Why can't it simply be a video about The Venus Project?

Indeed, a video about TVP would be far better in my view.

> Decades from now noone will ever know anything about Jacque,Peter,VTV etc..

Doesn't take nearly as long for an organisation to vanish from the radar, who remembers Piratebay and FreeNationFoundation, in many ways bigger than TZM, but now just a vague memory to a few :-(

> See that is what I have problems with. “Economic feasibility”. Which is another way
> of saying that money is what stops us. We do not lack in the ability to produce, or
> the labour to produce it, we lack the money. Money has become a hindrance.

When I hear “Economic feasibility”, I don't hear generally that we lack the money, I hear we lack the actual resources.

Eg. if we decided tomorrow to get rid of money, there isn't the resources to build 6 billion flat screen TV's for everyone, so we have to balance our resources on who gets what

> Inefficiency breeds profit, which is why inefficiency exists.

I reckon ineffiency tends to breed going bust :-)

Profit tends to = effiency.

Sometimes for the worst mind you.. (Pollution for example..)

> To clarify we don’t propose to do it all at once. It would be done in phases.

I'm keen on phases.

The first phases of just doing things effiently I see great difficulties in, to take one example from the TZM forums, the 50+ web domains that could be condensed into just a few and save money for everyone. (As someone recently suggested on the site again..)

Yet, I don't really see these money saving solutions being employed, I see progress at a snails pace, if any pace at all.

My hope is though that people like your good self, will help to push things a long a bit. (I tried for years and very little notice was taken of any advice or suggestions I gave, I could almost say no notice, but perhaps some notice is being taken notice of, just no results of it yet!)

> In general everything will cost less, so we would have to work less to provide
> for our basics. Eventually it will make no sense to charge for anything, that is
> when money disappears.

Generally agreed.

As long as we can control those things that tend to increase in price, such as housing..

In the last 20 years, the price of a computer has fallen from hundreds of $ to being given away free, whilst rent for a single room flat has increased from $20 a week to $200 !

> Also as abundance and environmental design increases, most crimes will decrease,
> lessening the need for a strong government.

Generally agreed.

Though, people without jobs, the old saying, the devil makes work for idle hands, springs to mind..

"The "what about the molten metal?" argument is ridiculous. Debunked years ago. It takes less than five minutes of Googling to find sites like this: http://www.debunking911.com/moltensteel.htm"

Conspiracy theorists only look at information that reinforces their beliefs, I know from personal experience.

The day I was ready to stop believing the nonsense, all the facts and information were readily accessible to me.

>> Just ask yourself the following, does this money disappear when they use it to settle a loan debt? No, the money becomes the basis of another round of lending.

Yeah, and that's the whole point. You can't do this with a metal-backed banking system, so as the economy expands (which it does, especially with the telecommunications and internet booms) you need more money to back up these new assets. The best example to prove why metal-backed wouldn't work: there's more value in the US than gold on the entire planet, gold's already lost.

>> Any increase to the overall money supply in excess of a countries ability to produce will create inflation. It doesn’t matter if it is cash or deposits.

Yes, but the central banking structure has the power to reel in that to curb inflation.

>> Inflation is a tax on the people.

No, it isn't. It only is if you buy into the myth that somehow the Federal Reserve is responsible for minimum wage jobs.

>> New money benefits those who have it first; in most cases it is the banks that have it first. After it trickles down through the economy those that get it last have less purchasing power.

If I get a loan from the bank, spend the money, the bank has that money? That doesn’t make sense.

>> So in essence those that get the new money first steal purchasing power from those that get it last.

And how would gold or mixed-metals change that? In a metal-banking system, people are still poor; they'd still get paid poorly. You're simply buying into the belief that this "debt/tax on the people" somehow changes their standing, if that were true then why were there poor people before the creation of FRS? Shouldn't there have been less poor people before? A lower standard of living before? When the debt reached almost zero under Andrew Jackson, were people able to quit their jobs for some imaginary reason? Or really did nothing change at all for regular people?

The idea the Federal Reserve effects regular people and their ability to make money is pure fantasy and has no basis in reality -- poverty, joblessness, lack of spending power is 100% independent of FRS.

>> Inflation is more dollars chasing after a declining pool of goods.

Do we really have a decline in a pool of goods here in the US? No. Inflation in the US actually has happened after major shifts in the economy, mainly during and especially after wars. Tell me, did the ending of the war in Vietnam create mass poverty in the US because of the inflation? Not even close. Poverty went unchanged.

>> The mismanagement of the supply of money can rob the purchasing power of your dollar over the years.

How so? You invest in t-bills or something? Tell me one person who has lost money because of the Federal Reserve.

>> The Federal Reserve is an inflation generating engine.

Yes, and that's the point behind it, it allows the money supply to expand with the economy, something absolutely impossible in metal-backed systems. Metal-backing was great with agrarian societies because farming rarely changed, or changed so slowly it didn't really matter, but industrialization changed that greatly, especially after it was heavily ramped up in the 20th century. As I pointed out, there's not enough gold in them there hills for just the value in the US, so what kind of magic should we use other than FRS?

>> Accepting inflation because it discourages the hoarding of cash is a weak excuse.

Inflation doesn't typically happen that rapidly, and that's also why you get a savings account, not hide it under your mattress. People used to do that because of run on banks during the gold-backed era, because the money supply would always outgrow the amount of gold currently in store, and of course banks would exploit this, and never intended on everyone coming and getting their money all at once. Thanks to the FRS and FDIC, and Nixon for dropping the last of gold/silver-backing, you can get your money.

>> People need to save, so they can make investments. Other wise you are forcing people to borrow to invest and they have to take on much riskier investments to make sure they earn more interest than they are paying.

So, when I saved money in a 4% interest savings account and used it to buy my first home I was forced to borrow? That's news to me!

Inflation tends to happen slowly, so the idea you'd have long term savings in under your mattress is just irresponsible for many reasons. Is there any one worth noting that's every lost money because of inflation? Some guy that started saving in 1925 for a house to buy in 1980 maybe? This kind of thinking reminds of people who jumped on the iPhone, with the cost of it and the first year's payments in service, a long time REAL investment could help you retire early. It's painfully obvious that anyone stupid enough to really think saving money over decades in their house is a worthwhile idea over storing it in a bank in earing interest on it, wouldn't end up spending the money wisely anyway, or keep saving it long enough for it to matter.

>> Peter Schiff talks a fair bit about this.

He's a quack.

>> Practically all money is loaned into existence; this is how money gets into the system. If the system was changed to a non-debt based government issued currency (like the Greenback during the civil war, or like Guernsey in present day), you would see prosperity like you’ve never known. No more interest payments to maintain the national debt imagine what you could do with that money.

Pure fantasy. The interest payments are roughly 7% and have no net interest, so that wouldn't change much of the debt. How does the national debt change things for a waitress, a guy working on a lathe, a hairstylist, etc. It wouldn't change anything. You'd still have the same work force competing for the same jobs. The greenback was extremely limited, and inflation happened anyway because so many people were counterfeiting it. Imagine what you could do with the money spend on the Iraq war, far, far more than anything the Federal Reserve has done.

>> Because the Federal Reserve is robbing you now. Pretty immediate.

Surprise kids, without the federal reserve mommy's below minimum-wage job where she has to rely on tips would actually make her a fortune! Health care would be super cheap, so cheap that insurance cards would rain down from the sky!

>> I hadn’t thought of the revolution in that context before, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution seemed to be fairly enlighten documents for the time (except the no vote for women and black men counting only for a fraction of a vote). The founders did set the stage for some social change by means of the system they left behind.

They set the stage, yes, but they themselves didn't do much, it took centuries of people working to finally get equality in the US both socially and economically. In contrast, many of these changes happened in other countries in the west long before they happened here.

>> Ultimately only if PJ is proven wrong or refuses to admit he is wrong if he is proven to be so.

That's already happened. Just for example: still claiming the 9/11 hijackers are alive.

>> CS: That is crap dude, the Christian imaginary deity is unique and your sources are crap.

I absolutely never said or implied Jesus/God was unique at all, in fact I mention other religions that were the source such as the Babylonian religion and Zoroastrianism.

>> Let say for a moment that I accept your contention that PJ is indeed incorrect and no idea was pilfered from any other mythology that came before the Christian religion.

That'd be a totally incorrect assumption.

>> We are still talking about deities that lack any empirical evidence of their existence.

I never said there was a god, I am an atheist, there is no god at all, no ghosts, no heaven, no hell, no jesus, no horus, no spiritual plane, nothing.

>> Some scholars hypothesize that Jesus wasn’t actually a singular person, but rather a few leaders in the day whose accomplishments were rolled up into the neat tidy package that you see in Jesus today. Even if the man Jesus existed, there is no evidence of the supernatural events attributed to him.

Yes, I mention this, that even if he did exist, it doesn't prove at all he was a god-man, in fact there are still plenty of people walking around today claiming they're gods.

>> That is why you take him on faith.

Have you actually read my site at all?

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>> We have a federal reserve that has never been fully audited.

That's independent of a fantasy that gold-backed economics would change things for the average person.

>> A revolving door between the US gov’t and former and current employees of Goldman Sachs.

That's independent of a fantasy that gold-backed economics would change things for the average person.

>> What do the former Soviet union, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, Bolivia, Poland, South Korea, Thailand have in common? Having their economies ripped apart after accepting loans from the IMF with austerity measures attached.

The Soviet Union collapsed because the economy had stagnated since the 1970s and nationalism in its many republics caused pressure for them to release their stranglehold on the various ethnic groups and satellite nations. After only Russia and a few small nations were left in the USSR, the CPSU was forced out by law, and a referendum was voted on whether or not retain the USSR. Out of the 75 or so percent that voted, a vast majority wanted to keep the USSR, however the referendum results were ignored and the USSR was dissolved into the Commonwealth of Independent States -- that's a very brief and summarized history, but the IMF had absolutely nothing at all to do with it.

As for the other nations, it's not just the ridiculous aspects of IMF loans that are responsible, but also poor government management of money, lack of a qualified work force, and so on.

But again, the IMF is independent of a fantasy that gold-backed economics would change things for the average person.

>> Consider also the fact when money is loaned into existence, the interest is not created, so the system is set up so that a percentage of us must fail. Bankers may not own the world, but they can certainly bring the pain whether you are a law abiding citizen or a country. That is real power.

That's an interesting idea for improving FRS, better than jumping on a gold bang wagon and devastating the economy by trying to back it up with metal that does not exist.

>> Canada’s central bank is nationalized, but it does not issue the majority of Canada’s money (just 5%), the rest is issued by private banks in the form of loans to the government, at interest, which profits the private shareholders.

That sounds pretty neat, but I don't know much about Canada's banking structure.

>> And to your notion that some currencies are still backed by gold, I believe the last currency to abandon the gold standard was the Swiss Franc in 2000.

There are currently only two, and they're tiny nations, just like Switzerland. Switzerland's system required that 40% be backed by gold, however this strained the economy and by referendum (the will of the people) it was abandoned in 2000.

>> List of depressions and recessions under the helm of the Federal Reserve:

Those are almost all recessions, not depressions, in fact only one is a depression. You're also forgetting that for the majority of those the banks were still backed by gold and silver in the Federal Reserve, whoops! In fact on your list, there's only been 4 since it was completely abandoned, and the last two especially were caused by economic bubbles, from over investing, not from the Federal Reserve.

Funny how they always leave out their side. I can do the same, prior to the Federal Reseve, with actual details:

1812 (Recession - caused by War of 1812)
1814 - 21 (Depression - caused by War of 1812)
1822 - 23 (Recession - recovery from the above depression bounced back)
1825 - 26 (Recession - speculative bubble; say, bubbles still exist without the Federal Reserve, shocking!)
1828 - 29 (Recession - Trade deficit)
1833 - 34 (Recession - General slow down in the economy)
1836 - 38 (Banking panic - lack of coincidence by people that the paper money was actually representing real gold/silver)
1839 - 43 (Depression - deflation and a slowing economy)
1845 - 46 (Recession - slowdown)
1847 - 48 (Recession - echoed from economic problems in the UK; yet again the lack of an FRS didn't protect us from international economic problems either)
1853 - 54 (Recession - slow down)
1857 - 58 (Banking panic - speculative bubble in the railroad, loss of confidence in banking; hey, just like in 1825, but worse, without the FRS, this shouldn't happened.)
1860 - 61 (Recession - slow down and economic contraction)
1865 - 67 (Recession - post-civil war, remember I talked about how when wars end, there's always economic problems. The greenback didn't save us from a recession, interesting, according to you it should have.)
1869 - 70 (Recession - rail roads yet again)
1873 - 79 (Banking panic and depression - another bubble busted!)
1882 - 85 (Recession - caused by inflated prices due to the previous depression, hey forced inflation without FRS!)
1887 - 88 (Recession - railroads and construction downturn)
1890 - 91 (Recession - general downturn)
1893 - 94 (Banking panic - stock market and banking collapses, wow and to think this happened with FRS too!)
1885 - 86 (Depression and deflation)
1899 - 00 (Recession - general downturn)
1901 - 04 (Stock market crash and recession)
1907 - 08 (Massive banking panic, that lead to the creation of the FRS)
1910 - 11 (Recession - a last one before the FRS)

Wow, 25 on my list, but 17 on yours, and the playing field is even, the periods of 1812 - 1910 cover roughly the same time period from 1913 - 2010. Now, to be fair let's do complete research into yours as well and provide details for all to see.

[ On the gold standard ]
1913 - 14 (Recession - already started before the FRS act was signed)
1918 - 19 (Recession - post war, just like ones we've gone over above)
1920 - 21 (Depression - post war depression, WWI was unlike wars before, the majority of the economy had adjusted to help for the war effort, and this put a larger strain on industrial economies than the agrarian economies of the past)
1923 - 24 (Recession - bounce back from the depression, but was largely offset thanks to the huge investments of the 1920s)
1926 - 27 (Recession - caused by underproduction thanks largely in part to the Ford Motor Company)
1929 - 33 (Depression - Stock market crash, banking collapse, economic troubles abroad echo in the US - hence the name Great Depression)
1973 - 38 (Recession - large shift in spending and heavier monetary policy)
1945 (Recession - here we go again, post war)
1948 - 49 (Recession - general downturn)
1953 - 54 (Recession - yet again, post war)
1957 - 58 (Recession - general downturn)
1960 - 61 (Recession - change in monetary policy along with shifting on how the government operated on money)
1969 - 70 (Recession - mild contraction after large industrial expansion, and first attempts to avoid inflation and economic problems as the Vietnam war began to slow down)

[ Post-gold standard ]
1973 - 75 (Recession - oil prices quadruple thanks to OPEC, a stock market crash, government spending on the war, and the typical post-war economic problems)
1980 (Recession - general downturn or bounce back from the post-Vietnam war, or a mix of both)
1981 - 82 (Recession - oil prices, again, thanks to the Iranian revolution. Attempts to curbing the post-war inflation and other monetary problems lead to mild expansion of the recession)
1990 - 91 (Recession - general downturn, coupled with the "oil price shock" of 1990 due to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the Savings and Loan crisis)
2001 (Recession - dot com bubble burst, 9/11, though without 9/11 it is believed there may not have been a recession)
2007 - Now (Recession - housing bubble, etc)

So before gold we had one roughly every 2 - 4 years, after gold it changed from 5 - 10 years, I can deal with that.

On your list you had 17, but I added to it and now there are 19, but still less than my list with 25 covering the same amount of time.

With or without FRS we learn a serious lesson: bubbles happen, economic downturns happen, wars cause economic problems (or in the case of WWII can reverse them). To nail every problem to FRS is not only profoundly incorrect, but dishonest.

Banking panics causing working people to lose all of their money because it's in a bank backed by gold? Before FRS: 5; After FRS: 0

>> Sure looks like the fed is doing its job.

Actually if it's the difference between 25 and 19 and no banking panics were regular people lose everything, sure they are doing their job, at least better than free banks could.

>> So here is a neat fact using your numbers. If the Federal Reserve was only increasing the total debt by 7% per year, in 10 years your will have doubled your debt. You can duplicate this yourself using Excel, take a 100$ multiple it by 1.07, then take the product and multiply that by 1.07. Do that ten times and you’ve doubled your debt.

You're forgetting the Federal Reserves ability to retract. Furthermore, the debt doubled several times over after it almost zero'd out under Jackson, without the FRS. Let's take a trip back though, all the way back to the debt before FRS ($2.6b) and years after ($25.9). Pretty scary, but there were 2 recessions and a war in that time. Let's walk a little further:

1928 - $18.5b
1930 - $16.2b - Wow, it's lower, how about that, let's keep going.
1940 - $50.6b - Up again, pretty far too, scary too, but that's what happens when you spend to recover from the depression
1950 - $256.8b - Post-war America, man, with the debt this large, you'd think there'd be massive jobloss, because following your logic the bigger the debt, the less people have. Oh wait, it was the exact opposite.
1960 - $290.5b - Didn't even come close to doubling in 10 years, much less 7, nice math you got there, and this is after yet another war.
1970 - $380.9b - Wow, jumped again, it's that damned Vietnam war again.
1980 - $909.0b - Doubled over, whew, that's pretty high, ending of the Vietnam war and international economic problems will do that.
1990 - $3,206.3b - What happened here? I thought Reagan was the best president ever, but he doubled the debt by building up the military? Hell of a job.
2000 - $5,769.9b - Post-cold war, economy begins to shift in organization.
2010 - $18,350.0b - HOLY SHIT! Yes, it is currently that much, two wars, two bubbles, and recessions will do that, especially when you try to spend your way out of it. The spending did help prevent further economic collapse, but we're going to have to deal with that money eventually.

Wait, these numbers don't adjust for inflation, so when you do adjust for inflation you actually get a smaller expansion in the amount of debt (sans 2010)? Oh, well, that's something!

>> The convenience that the people have with dealing with just one currency can be easily met by the government rather than a central bank. There is no reason why a government cannot issue currency and loans (thereby spending and loaning money into existence) whereby the interest paid on loans is remitted to the government to fund programs in the interest of the nation, rather than in the interest of private shareholders. Also citizens could save their money with the government (indeed they used to at the post office until 1966).

Absolutely true, but the US constitution doesn't allow congress direct control over monetary policy, though this probably could have been done with an amendment, that's a lot more difficult to get going than an Act, so that's why the Federal Reserve Act and not the Federal Reserve Amendment occurred. I'd much rather see your ideas here in mind than what's currently happening, but just because I don't like what's currently happening, doesn't mean we should jump back to the free banking era.

>> Ascribing heroic tendencies to JP Morgan for organizing other executives to quell the run on the bank is like calling a person who lit the match that burn down the building a hero because he called the fire department. He benefited enormously from the getting the Federal Reserve, and the money he put down to quell the panic was just an investment like any other.

That's only true if you believe the conspiracy theories that the person who called the fire department set the fire, instead of the reality that he stood to lose a lot from the building burning down.

>> Also to assign the virtues of “efficiency and science” to central banking is inaccurate. Unless of course you were looking for an efficient and scientific way of engineering booms and busts to milk the people at regular intervals.

Well, we could argue that with capitalism in general.

>> Calling the 12 banks of the Federal Reserve decentralized is putting lipstick on a pig and calling it pretty.

What?

>> Breaking up the banks into 12 institutions was a rouse, camouflage for the people and nothing more. The Federal Reserve is just as central as the Bank of England.

Yeah, and that's why it's "central banking" did I ever say it wasn't centralized banking? No.

>> In 1910, the trip to Jekyll Island was secret. It wasn’t till after the Federal Reserve act was passed that the people found out about the meeting. Are you are okay with letting private business interests help drafts laws that the people would never vote for?

If you were going to start a Pizza restaurant, would you ask a chef how to make the best pizzas or would you just assume you know? The reason bankers were involved was because they're good at, guess what, banking. They didn't have Google back then, so there wasn't going to be any research done in that manner, it was much more wise and logical to ask bankers how they would create the system and build from that.

>> With Louis McFadden you are skirting close to the edge of invoking Godwin’s Law.

No, I'm not. If we don't understand what motivations McFadden would have had for opposing the Federal Reserve we can't understand clearly why he did. I never compared McFadden to Nazis or claimed that anti-Semitism and Nazism were one in the same, they aren't. You're simply trying to avoid dealing with the issue of McFadden and Lindburg's stupidity and disconnection from reality.

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So here's the deal: either capitalism is unjust and causes the problems (being that they're independent of FRS, I'd say that's probably true) or just going back to the gold standard would create such prosperity, what's the point of promoting TZM at all, instead of just the gold standard?

No anti-capitalist movement with the exception of TZM actually gives a rats ass about FRS, because it's a part of modern capitalism. The only reason TZM focuses on it so much is because Peter Joseph used to be a Ron Paul fan and even promoted Paul on the Zeitgeist, The Movie web site. PJ can't let go of conspiracy theories, which is why he still promotes 9/11 hijackers being alive, why he still promotes the same tired garbage that no one else gives a shit about. If he lets go, he'll admit to being wrong in his eyes, so he won't ever do it.

You seem to not only have little understanding in economics and history, but also even what I believe though I have made that clear countless times, even in articles you imply you've read. You quote me as saying and believing things I never said or believed and then attempt to use it against me; I see that the Peter Joseph Force is strong with you young padawan learner.