Adam Curtis

[lanugo]

Well I'm not disagreeing with that at all but that's nothing to do with the origins of capitalism is it? It's what's happening now. I'm asking as I'm sure you know about how you are so certain that it was designed to be like this rather than that it was corrupted or that it was an inevitable but misunderstood consequence of idealistic free trade beliefs. Surely not controversial to state that the system we have now is far beyond the control and understanding of any individual or even group of individuals (although of course some have a far greater stake than others).

Again you (deliberately?) misunderstand and list effects rather than consequences. Unless you're saying that there was a document revealing how The Illuminati laid down the tenets of capitalism.
Once again do you have any evidence, or even reason to believe that the creation of capitalism (whatever that means) was a deliberate move on the part of anyone?

Admittedly, I'm no expert on the history of the emergence of market-based capitalism from feudalist society. However, just as Curtis' work doesn't deal with the entire period of capitalist organisation of economy but rather with its technologised and globalised contemporary incarnation, I was only making assertions about the intentional implementation of the neoliberal agenda after WWII encompassing the policy-based initiation and facilitation of intimately interrelated processes such as liberalisation, deregulation, financialisation and globalisation. Likewise, I was commenting on the introduction of private bank ownership, dating back more than three hundreds years, and the establishment of the central banking system, some 100 years ago. Those concepts, being inherently exploitative and disenfranchising to the general public, are the very basis of the monetary system of modern capitalism and probably the root cause of much of its instability. In this sense, the neoliberal restructuring of the world economy as well as the century-old banking system, both hallmarks of the contemporary constitution of capitalism, can really be said, as you put it, to have been a "deliberate move on the part of someone", perhaps not to the benefit of the Illuminati but certainly to that of such illustrious names such as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Warburgs and Bushs.

Not so much immutable any more than the consequences of evolution were certain. I think that both capitalism and evolution are extremely complex systems in which small changes in inputs cause large and unforeseen changes in results. This is not a reason to accept that the way things are, I just think that it's better to attempt to understand something properly if you want to fight against it rather than to appeal to a conspiracy theory - which is basically what you're doing. Conspiracy theories being notorious in that they allow the theorist to avoid real engagement with the actual situation.

The phenomena in question, I would argue, are neither deterministic nor accidental in nature but rather the direct outcome of, yes, conspiratorial and largely secret human agency. Now, if this thesis makes me a conspiracy theorist in your eyes, so be it. But let me remind you of what Mark Twain said in this regard: "A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a number of men for the pursuance of policies which they dare not admit in public." As such conspiracies are probably one of the basic features of human existence. I really don't see why of all fields of human activity the politico-ecomic realm should be exempt from this rule; if anything, as the arena of the greatest possible gain I find it quite logical to suspect that it also harbours the greatest possible conspiracy.

Furthermore, equating capitalism and evolution on the basis of refering to them very broadly as "extremly complex system" seems like a gross misjudgement of their respective underlying principles to me. Evolution is a biological process obeying natural laws, while economy is a human affair subject to all-to-human manipulation. You say that conspiracy theorists "are notorious in that they allow the theorist to avoid real engagement with the actual situation." Would you say that academic economists trained precisely at the Ivy-League faculties also producing the CEO's of major corporations and top-level government officials are necessarily any more objective and impartial? With the world economy in total disarray, should one really believe those whose consultation and policy-making has led to the disaster?

 

[IdleRich]

"Admittedly, I'm no expert on the history of the emergence of market-based capitalism from feudalist society. However, just as Curtis' work doesn't deal with the entire period of capitalist organisation of economy but rather with its technologised and globalised contemporary incarnation... "

Maybe we're talking slightly at cross-purposes then.

"Likewise, I was commenting on the introduction of private bank ownership, dating back more than three hundreds years"

But surely banks arose as private institutions offering financial services to people who thought they could profit from them (having their ancestors in money lenders)? Presumably a person who opens such a bank is going to think that they will make money but so is the person who will deal with them. Again, I don't really see this an attack on any given class, merely somebody trying to find the best way to get wealthier - just like a merchant with silk planning to sell to people with money and who want silk. I don't see where the ideology comes in at this point.

"and the establishment of the central banking system, some 100 years ago. Those concepts, being inherently exploitative and disenfranchising to the general public."

Why is a central banking system inherently exploitative? Genuine question.

"Furthermore, equating capitalism and evolution on the basis of refering to them very broadly as "extremly complex system" seems like a gross misjudgement of their respective underlying principles to me. Evolution is a biological process obeying natural laws, while economy is a human affair subject to all-to-human manipulation."

I'm not saying they're the same things, I'm simply saying that one thing they have in common is extreme complexity to the extent that cause and effect are often impossible to establish after the event, nevermind beforehand, and which are, therefore, impossible to control with any degree of accuracy. The same will be true of many other chaotic systems which are in no obvious other ways similar to either. In other words, even if the nature of their complexity is different their complexity makes them impossible to control.
As an aside though, evolution is a process applying natural laws but humans can affect the conditions by which the natural laws are applied. For example the effect of cutting down all the trees in a forest on its inhabitants is governed by a natural law but humans can choose whether to cut down the trees and thus whether or not the probably ill-understood law comes into play. Similarly, you might say that supply and demand is a law analagous to that - if a good rises in price then demand will generally decrease - I may have the power to control the price of the good but I can't change the law itself.
What I'm saying in each case is that there exist certain frameworks that are virtually inescapable even though people can move within those frameworks to cause various laws to come into play. Arguably in nature there are more laws that are more rigid but I think there are many economic laws which are beyond the power of people to change.

"The phenomena in question, I would argue, are neither deterministic nor accidental in nature but rather the direct outcome of, yes, conspiratorial and largely secret human agency. Now, if this thesis makes me a conspiracy theorist in your eyes, so be it. But let me remind you of what Mark Twain said in this regard: "A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a number of men for the pursuance of policies which they dare not admit in public." As such conspiracies are probably one of the basic features of human existence. I really don't see why of all fields of human activity the politico-ecomic realm should be exempt from this rule; if anything, as the arena of the greatest possible gain I find it quite logical to suspect that it also harbours the greatest possible conspiracy."

Well, yes, fair enough, there are conspicacy theories and conspiracy theories and to identify something as such shouldn't necessarily be enough to dismiss it as an argument.
Obviously the main thing we're disagreeing on here is to what extent the phenomena are accidental/deterministic etc and we seem to be talking about different periods. Also I guess I (and possibly you) am not totally sure what is meant by the creation of capitalism. To me it certainly seems like a gradual process that has evolved and existed to some extent before the name was created. I now realise you're talking about a specific type of globalised late-capitalism. I certainly accept that people such as the Rothschilds etc did (and do) have an unhealthy influence in this system and, in a nutshell, they are not good people

 

[rob_giri]

I can appreciate what lanugo is saying here but as has been stated, it really is an argument about the accidental/deterministic nature of both the origins and continuing perpetuation of our current global system of unsustainable, exploititive economics. I will once again bring the discussion back round to Curtis and state emphatically that the real thrust and purpose of all of his work in the last twenty years has been to suggest that trends of mass disempowerment are as a result of exactly this type of thinking - Lanugo's, I mean.

History is crafted in such a way whereby worldviews such as that of the irresponsible conspiracy-theorist, a tired '60s leftist approach of us-vs-them, as Grizzleb states, are both welcomed and easily festered. It's a disempowering worldview to have because it attempts to create and energize this image of the global elite as all-powered, supremely intelligent and endlessly cunning - whereas in fact, they might just be impaled on their own greed, trapped in their social class, completely subject to economic and social forces, and no more intelligent than anybody. It's as if the system itself has now been cultivated and has now taken on a chaotic and monstrous intelligence of it's own - continual 'enslavement' is assured so long as the belief is upheld that we no longer have any say or any power in the matter. Curtis films, particularly The Trap, The Living Dead and All Watch Over... have this theme and this message as their central tenet.

I enjoyed this interview with Errol Morris that Curtis recently did, in which this exchange occurred:

EM: "Is history primarily a history of conspiracy? Or is it just a series of blunders, one after the other? Confusions, self-deceptions, idiocies of one kind or another? "

AC: "It’s the latter. Where people do set out to have conspiracies, they don’t ever end up like they're supposed to. History is a series of unintended consequences resulting from confused actions, some of which are committed by people who may think they're taking part in a conspiracy, but it never works out the way they intended."

Curtis' other triumph is the way that he curtails the dull Leftist approach of endlessly demonizing the Right, the seperationist attitude that perpetuates a Christian image of 'evil'. There certainly are bad people, as IdleRich states, but perhaps mostly it's just a case of ingnorance and sometimes even well-meaning self-delusion that has created the situation we are in now. That doesn't mean we shouldn't submit and forget the Bastards, but only doing so with a realistic and holistically-understanding attitude will get anywhere, surely. If you want to defeat the Right, you have to understand them and where they are coming from, etc.

 

[IdleRich]

Good points there I think. Also GrizzleB.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I think I broadly agree with rob. Yes, there are and always have been 'conspiracies' in the literal sense of groups of people working in concert in ways that are kept hidden from the general public. This, in itself, is not a revelation and is not necessarily sinister either. But classic, capital-C Conspiracy theories tend, as rob says, to credit world leaders and other powerful figures with almost superhuman levels of intelligence, organisation and foresight, often coupled with a desire to commit vast acts of evil purely for evil's sake.

World leaders act out of a complex range of motives: some see themselves in effect as the 'manager' of their country, just trying to keep it ticking along without upsetting too many people along the way; some have a messianic urge to bring Good to the world, with varying degrees of integrity (hello Tony!); some are driven by religious fanaticism or their own brand of racial supremacism and some are just selfish dicks with no higher thoughts than how to feather their own nests and protect their little coterie of buddies and relatives. The CEOs of international banks and other large corporations are not, I think, especially interesting in 'enslaving' anyone for its own sake - they're elected by shareholders to maximise profits, that's all. It's a purely amoral position which, because of the nature of business, in practice often leads people to do very immoral things. But all this is explicable in terms of boring old human self-interest, "the banality of evil". It doesn't require great Conspiracies, cooked up over centuries and across continents by a tiny all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful elite. And as you say, looking at the world in this way is profoundly counterproductive to anyone trying to offer any kind of resistance or alternative to the current set-up because it makes one's opponents seem invincible. It offers the comfort of being smugly 'in the know' and, paradoxically, secure in your own helplessness while you deride the deluded efforts of people who are out there trying to do something construnctive.

Where's American Padraig? He's good on this kind of stuff but I haven't seem him here lately...

 

[lanugo]

Why is a central banking system inherently exploitative? Genuine question.

Put simply, it grants private persons the privilege of creating money out of thin air. All the central banks of the world are in private hands. The Fed, for example, is owned by the very shareholders who are also in possession of the financial institutions that are receiving the debt-based money injections from the Fed. Some individuals are thus in a position where they can basically print their own legal "fiat money". Conflict of inter...? - THOUGHT CRIME!

Needless to say, this monetary system is programmed for self-destruction because the added quantities of extra money - trillions and trillions - devaluate the existing holdings of people whose savings, in contrast to the fiat money, are actually based upon worth-producing activity, be it labour or production. Gradually, these assets will be eaten up by the interest payments to the money-faking banks so that in the end all real value is annihilated and everybody is insolvent. (The root cause of the current crises is not, as purported by the media, a liquidity, but a solvency problem.)

The central banking system also leads to the paradoxical situation that in a sense governments are financing their own indebtedness. The funds for the US bank bail-outs, for example, were paid in parts by borrowing, of all places, from the banks themselves. By lending money to the government, the banks made sure that their default was prevented at the expense of someone else (the taxpayer) but they also made sure, en passant, that they could impose conditionalities on their debtor, i.e. the US government which had saved THEM from collapse, in terms of how to restructure the national budget in order to be able to pay back the credit, namely by reducing welfare and advancing privatisation.

I can appreciate what lanugo is saying here but as has been stated, it really is an argument about the accidental/deterministic nature of both the origins and continuing perpetuation of our current global system of unsustainable, exploititive economics. I will once again bring the discussion back round to Curtis and state emphatically that the real thrust and purpose of all of his work in the last twenty years has been to suggest that trends of mass disempowerment are as a result of exactly this type of thinking - Lanugo's, I mean.

Golden. Thanks for making me laugh, lamb, and see you at the slaughter.

AC: It’s the latter. Where people do set out to have conspiracies, they don’t ever end up like they're supposed to. History is a series of unintended consequences resulting from confused actions, some of which are committed by people who may think they're taking part in a conspiracy, but it never works out the way they intended."

What a splendid encapsulation of Curtis' masterful deceit. Contrary to what he claims, I've already cited various instances where the elite has very much succeeded in setting up structures that, for decades and centuries, have been working smoothly in favour of their enrichment.

The final stage of this process will be the setting up of a corporate-controlled one-world-government. Indicators of such a development include the emergence of the IMF/world bank as proto-world finance ministries, the consolidation of NATO as a global strike force, the Yugoslav wars and Libyan war serving as precedent for the supremacy over "international law" over national sovereignty, the recent announcement of a "EU financial government" including the likely introduction of Eurobonds, the media onslaught concerning "global challenges" such as terrorism and climate change requiring "global solutions", etc. etc.

Speak critically of the "New World Order" on the internet and you are a conspiracy theorist, name your newest globalist manifesto after it and you are dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton.

Anyway, let's stop now analysing and researching stuff on our own and wait for the next Adam Curtis documentary to explain the world to us.

 

[rob_giri]

Lanugo, will all due respect, you sound like you are preaching to a group of business-minded recent public-school-leaving waifs who have been spoon-fed the conservative doctrines of their moneyed parents. Please, refrain from attempting to explain the evils of exploitative capitalism to us - we all get it. Most of us, if I may be so bold to say this, are 'of the Left', in some sense or another. We agree with what you're saying in most cases - we just seem to be critical of one aspect of it - of a certain attitude that you seem to possess that there is a central committee of evil individuals who have complete power and who know the ins and outs of what they are doing, and thats all there is to it, and theres nothing we can do. Do you believe this? Do you believe the Bilderberg/Rothschild bunch are Evil?

You don't really seem to be much of an Internationalist, I must say - your views about these things, about humanitarian intervention and about the possibilities of accountable government, seem to be that 'they are bad'. What are you really saying here?

I mean your point about Curtis is to say that he is an apologist for capitalists by saying that they are/were motivated by a well-meaning ideology, whereas in actual fact They Are Bad (a brilliant revelation to us all, thanks). Don't you understand that the point of his films is to lend a human face to the characters and the ideas that might otherwise be seen and dismissed easily as being purely insane, and to attempt to assess, realistically and with no prejudice, the social, political and cultural forces that brought about such monstrous travesties of humanity? I find his work immensely beneficial and moreover useful for the ongoing struggle against cultural hegemony in the way that it helps me to understand the bigger picture behind the ideologies that I find extremely difficult to assess in any other way other than to convince myself that they are pure evil at play. Pure evil doesn't really exist, of course - everything has some place and purpose in things, and the more you open yourself to understand such things, the more your grow as a person and the more intelligent you become, to the point of being able to grapple with these issues more effectively.

Think I might have just repeated myself. Oh well.

In any case, Lanugo, you seem to be thoroughly researched, even if what you're saying might be hackneyed, reactionary baloney.

 

[IdleRich]

"Put simply, it grants private persons the privilege of creating money out of thin air. All the central banks of the world are in private hands."

Are they? Wikipedia doesn't seem to think so (also the Fed doesn't create money).

The Bank of England (formally the Governor and Company of the Bank of England) is the central bank of the United Kingdom and is the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world (the oldest being the Bank of Sweden). It was established to act as the English Government's banker, and to this day it still acts as the banker for HM Government. The Bank was privately owned and operated from its foundation in 1694. It was subordinated to the Treasury after 1931 in making policy and was nationalised in 1946.
In 1997 it became an independent public organisation, wholly owned by the Treasury Solicitor on behalf of the Government, with independence in setting monetary policy.

"The Federal Reserve System's structure is composed of the presidentially appointed Board of Governors (or Federal Reserve Board), the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation, numerous privately owned U.S. member banks and various advisory councils.[8][9][10] The FOMC is the committee responsible for setting monetary policy and consists of all seven members of the Board of Governors and the twelve regional bank presidents, though only five bank presidents vote at any given time. The Federal Reserve System has both private and public components, and was designed to serve the interests of both the general public and private bankers. The result is a structure that is considered unique among central banks. It is also unusual in that an entity outside of the central bank, namely the United States Department of the Treasury, creates the currency usedFederal Reserve System's structure is composed of the presidentially appointed Board of Governors (or Federal Reserve Board), the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation, numerous privately owned U.S. member banks and various advisory councils.[8][9][10] The FOMC is the committee responsible for setting monetary policy and consists of all seven members of the Board of Governors and the twelve regional bank presidents, though only five bank presidents vote at any given time. , and was designed to serve the interests of both the general public and private bankers. The result is a structure that is considered unique among central baThe Federal Reserve System has both private and public componentsnks. It is also unusual in that an entity outside of the central bank, namely the United States Department of the Treasury, creates the currency used."

Fairly significant exceptions. Pretty sure that the ECB isn't owned by private individuals either. Even were it the case then that would not be an inherent problem in setting up a central bank because it's perfectly conceivable that one could be created that wasn't privately owned.

"Needless to say, this monetary system is programmed for self-destruction because the added quantities of extra money - trillions and trillions - devaluate the existing holdings of people whose savings, in contrast to the fiat money, are actually based upon worth-producing activity, be it labour or production. Gradually, these assets will be eaten up by the interest payments to the money-faking banks so that in the end all real value is annihilated and everybody is insolvent. (The root cause of the current crises is not, as purported by the media, a liquidity, but a solvency problem.)"

That doesn't make any sense - rich people have real assets as well, in fact lots of them. Why would they want to destroy their value?

"The final stage of this process will be the setting up of a corporate-controlled one-world-government. Indicators of such a development include the emergence of the IMF/world bank as proto-world finance ministries, the consolidation of NATO as a global strike force, the Yugoslav wars and Libyan war serving as precedent for the supremacy over "international law" over national sovereignty, the recent announcement of a "EU financial government" including the likely introduction of Eurobonds, the media onslaught concerning "global challenges" such as terrorism and climate change requiring "global solutions", etc. etc"

Not sure that a one-world government would benefit companies that much though. One of the main things preventing countries controlling and taxing companies at the moment is the constant threat of going off and doing what they do somewhere with laxer rules.
Just as a matter of interest - do you think that global warming is an invention of big business as a tool for the advancement of this one-world government? Strange how much time they spend insisting that it doesn't exist or has been exaggerated isn't it?

Edit: Why did you totally ignore all the rest of the points I raised in my previous post?

 

[rob_giri]

And as you say, looking at the world in this way is profoundly counterproductive to anyone trying to offer any kind of resistance or alternative to the current set-up because it makes one's opponents seem invincible. It offers the comfort of being smugly 'in the know' and, paradoxically, secure in your own helplessness while you deride the deluded efforts of people who are out there trying to do something constructive.

This and the rest of the post, very good, etc.

 

[lanugo]

 

[IdleRich]

""

So, you ignore the gaping factual holes in your argument and post a link to a seventies hollywood film?

It seems to me that a major part of your argument is as follows:

Central banks are privately owned and control the creation of money -> central banks are inherently against the poor -> the central banking system in particular and late-capitalism in general is a conspiracy against the ordinary man

So when you remove the first bit (being as how central banks are not always privately owned, nor do they always create money) you probably come to a new conclusion. Or do you insist on the same conclusion and come up with a new reason to think it in classic conspiracy theory style?

Anyway, let's stop now analysing and researching stuff on our own and wait for the next Sydney Lumet film to explain the world to us.

 

[crackerjack]

Anyway, let's stop now analysing and researching stuff on our own and wait for the next Sydney Lumet film to explain the world to us.

But Lumet's not around to make any more films. And whose fault is that, eh? Eh? EH?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

hello there mr. t. I am kind of intermittently lurking these days but I don't have the energy/time to post a lot. this is one is an awful thorny knot where I don't really agree with anyone but since you called me out I feel obliged to offer my .02. disclaimer that not being English I don't really know Adam Curtis or his work as well as most of you all. but I think I have the gist of what he's about.

any old timer who seen me around knows I never agree with lanugo be it AIDS denialism or soft pedaling brutal dictators just cos they badmouth the West or whatever. or with any of the hoary Marxists - they all blur together - who've popped up over the years here any time there's an Iranian election or street fighting in Thailand or just b/c. but in this case I have to defend man a bit. not that I buy into capitalism as some kind of Manchurian Candidate 70s spy novel conspiracy. not even a little. but this

trends of mass disempowerment are as a result of exactly this type of thinking - Lanugo's, I mean...the irresponsible conspiracy-theorist, a tired '60s leftist approach of us-vs-them

is sheer ridiculous. as if tired old Marxists + fellow travelers have had even the tiniest fraction of impact in terms of disenfranchisement that high level capitalist policies have. not that the latter are an overarching conspiracy. they're just damaging. aside from the destruction wrought by privatization + "free" trade agreements the world over there's the wars engendered by economic concerns (that is, most wars at some level), tremendous environmental + human costs that come with favoring short term profit over anything else, and so on. and so on. what Mr T said about individual amorality resulting from a system that favors amorality is otm I think. except I wouldn't use a term like morality. and I would say banality of profit rather than evil. words like evil + morality obscure the issue. it's like the old high school delineation between ethics and morals. what we're really talking about is ethics, because we're talking about a culture of doing things. capitalism favors profit and growth over all else. people act accordingly. while an Illuminati smoky back rooms worldview is pretty useless, so is one about reform and ethical capitalism or whatever. the reforms required would so fundamentally alter the nature of the thing as to make it something else entirely. anyway, a hell of a lot more people subscribe to the latter view than the former.

capitalism is also inherently pyramidal and can't be anything else. tho so is every post-primitive human society I know of. which is highly disheartening. not that I have an alternative. rejecting power, or dual power structures, is about as close I get but that's a passive, waiting strategy. maybe as good as it gets, I dunno.

to me the realization that humans just act accordingly is infinitely more disturbing than anything about evil ever could be. this is how we organize ourselves. consumers whose ultimate consumption is each other, our world and ultimately ourselves.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

also, what lanugo's really talking about in re: Curtis is recuperation (google it if you're unfamiliar). in which case he might be right I haven't seen of enough of the man's work to judge but it sounds a lot like it.

also, I'm not a big fan of the capitalism//evolution analogy - evolution isn't a self-aware process and it deals only in tangibles + physical laws. but one thing: the ultimate organizing principle of all life is always survival. always. in evolution that means an individual species adapting to best thrive in its particular environment. you could look at capitalism as an artificially created environment but totally real nonetheless, in which the best adaptation to survival is cutting throats and looting the corpses, so to speak. buying real estate when there's blood on the streets. predatory lending. war profiteering. less overt, more indirect forms of the same.

cue endless litany of Q: what do you call four white guys in suits meeting for lunch? A: a crime scene. jokes and fade to a dull grey without any logos, sky the color of television tuned to a dead channel, and -fin-...

 

[IdleRich]

"is sheer ridiculous. as if tired old Marxists + fellow travelers have had even the tiniest fraction of impact in terms of disenfranchisement that high level capitalist policies have. not that the latter are an overarching conspiracy. they're just damaging."

I don't think that that's what RobGiri is saying though - or that's not how I read it anyway. I'm sure that he would agree that capitalism is disfranchising but I think he's saying that, on top of that, those who would aim to in some way fight against capitalism are likely to be further disfranchised if they believe that they are fighting some kind of invincible group of shadowy supervillains and that this belief offers a way to surrender. Though no-one is accusing Lanugo himself of doing that I guess.

 

[lanugo]

I posted that sequence from "Network" not to prove anything but because I thought that, unlike Curtis' fairytale bedtime stories on our benevolent capitalist masters, it gives a rather accurate illustration of the true character of the monstrous mindset of the corporate-financier oligarchs.

Anyway, Rich, do you really think that a Wikipedia article will adequately dissect the deep structure of the most powerful financial institutions in the world? I didn't know about the supposed 'nationalisation' of the Bank of England, but one would definitely have to investigate further whether that was an actual appropriation by the state or just a nominal manoeuvre. It was definitely founded as a private bank, though.

The Fed is definitely in private hands. And, yes, by means of the Fractional Reserve System it is most certainly creating money as well.

Bob Chapman writes about the Fed:

Then there is the composition of the NY Fed board on which six board members are public representatives. We do not see any common business people on this board. They are all very wealthy New Yorkers, who are all connected to one another. There have been occasionally members of labor and academia, but they can only be considered tokens. It is very definitely an insiders club.

This means the Fed’s real consideration is the maximizing of profits for banking, Wall Street, insurance and real estate. This goal of almost 100 years has made these individuals and their families’ mega-rich. Competent or incompetent they always win. They have information and intelligence no one else has and you can be sure their inner circle has the same privileged information. As usual they are essentially unregulated, which gives the Fed an additional advantage. The lack of banking oversight of recent years has brought our entire financial system into insolvency. We do not know how you could call it anything else when most major banks, brokerage houses, some insurance companies and other lenders are simply broke. The Fed, and particularly the NY Fed, has been complicit in banks and brokerage houses using leverage of more than 50 times assets. In some cases such as JP Morgan Chase the figures are much higher. In fractional banking 8 to 10 times is considered appropriate. This is the biggest bailout of poorly managed corrupt banks in history. This failure is far greater than the failure of the Lombard System in Venice in 1348, the year of the great bubonic plague that swept Europe and killed 50% of its inhabitants. These elitists have brought the world economy to its knees. It is ironic, but true to insider dealing, that not one CEO or senior executive has been fired, as trillions of dollars have been lost.

And here's what Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York, has to say about the Fed (that's the guy whose hiring of a call girl was suddenly exposed when he was beginning to warn about the impending subprime credit crunch):

“You look at the governing structure of the New York [Federal Reserve], it was run by the very banks that got the money. This is a Ponzi scheme, an inside job. It is outrageous, it is time for Congress to say enough of this. And to give them more power now is crazy.

For more information, enter "federal reserve" as keyword in the Advanced Search window at the Global Research Archives.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I thought that, unlike Curtis' fairytale bedtime stories on our benevolent capitalist masters, it gives a rather accurate illustration of the true character of the monstrous mindset of the corporate-financier oligarchs.

If you think Adam Curtis' documentaries are "fairytale bedtime stories on our benevolent capitalist masters", then all I can say is that you're talking about a different Adam Curtis from the one whose films I've seen. What about Eddie Bernays, father of public relations, who comes across as a very sinister and undemocratic influence in Century of the Self? What about his account of how United Fruit persuaded the US govt to portray a popular leftist leader in Guatemala as a dangerous Soviet puppet, thus justifying a military intervention to install a right-wing pro-US government? What about his argument in The Trap that the logic of John Nash's game theory, originally applied in the Cold War to thermonuclear MAD, has infected the management of the NHS, to disastrous results? His reiterated message that neoliberal economic policy, while sold to voters on the vague promise of personal freedom, has in fact led to unjustified wars, greater economic inequality and less personal freedom for most people?

Oh, but he doesn't buy into the idea that all this is the deliberate doings of a tiny cabal of power-crazed lunatics, perpetuated over the centuries in a precisely orchestrated manner; so he's going easy on them, therefore he's a stooge, a running-dog, a deluded puppet just like all the rest of us, &c., &c., &c....

 

[IdleRich]

"Anyway, Rich, do you really think that a Wikipedia article will adequately dissect the deep structure of the most powerful financial institutions in the world? I didn't know about the supposed 'nationalisation' of the Bank of England, but one would definitely have to investigate further whether that was an actual appropriation by the state or just a nominal manoeuvre. It was definitely founded as a private bank, though."

In a hurry, but briefly it obviously comes closer to dissecting the power structure than a crude and factually incorrect assertion that "all central banks are in private hands".

"The Fed is definitely in private hands. And, yes, by means of the Fractional Reserve System it is most certainly creating money as well."

Well it's not but never mind.
All banks create money by fractional reserve banking - that's not a special feature of the Fed. I'm pretty sure fractional reserve banking existed before central banks - central banks were partly designed to stop the dangers of this practice. Your previous post seemed to indicate that you thought that the Fed could issue money in the same way as the Bank of England and other central banks.

And here's what Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York, has to say about the Fed (that's the guy whose hiring of a call girl was suddenly exposed when he was beginning to warn about the impending subprime credit crunch):

Yeah, I watched Inside Job too.

 

[IdleRich]

"In fractional banking 8 to 10 times is considered appropriate."

Sorry, just seen this bit. What does he mean by "considered appropriate"? I thought that banks have traditionally been required to keep a reserve of about two percent which is obviously 50 times leveraged. Obviously he doesn't consider that appropriate but I don't think he can just state that that's the prevailing view.
Edit: Er, or is that 49 times?

 

[rob_giri]

I don't think that that's what RobGiri is saying though - or that's not how I read it anyway. I'm sure that he would agree that capitalism is disfranchising but I think he's saying that, on top of that, those who would aim to in some way fight against capitalism are likely to be further disfranchised if they believe that they are fighting some kind of invincible group of shadowy supervillains and that this belief offers a way to surrender. Though no-one is accusing Lanugo himself of doing that I guess.

Yea, that wasn't what I was saying - and yes, that is what I was saying, and yes, that is what I'm accusing him of, sort of. His whole line of argument is just ridiculous, populist trash.

If you think Adam Curtis' documentaries are "fairytale bedtime stories on our benevolent capitalist masters", then all I can say is that you're talking about a different Adam Curtis from the one whose films I've seen.

The list that Mr Tea gives here is a good enough summary to prove that lanugo is spouting unresearched baloney. As I've stated, twice now, whilst Curtis makes it clear what he thinks about the monstrosity of neoliberalism, the point of a lot of his films is to attempt to dissect the humanity from within the monstrosity, out of the realization that to take the position of demonizing such characters and their ideologies, as lanugo is clearing doing here in his attempt to flog us his b.s, is unconstructive, unintelligent and the arena of populist agitprop.

Oh, but he doesn't buy into the idea that all this is the deliberate doings of a tiny cabal of power-crazed lunatics, perpetuated over the centuries in a precisely orchestrated manner; so he's going easy on them, therefore he's a stooge, a running-dog, a deluded puppet just like all the rest of us, &c., &c., &c....

OTM. That really seems to be lanugo's entire criticism, I can't see any other substance in it, despite all his references and his questionable interpretation of the banking system and the like. Are you really trying to say that Curtis is being too soft? The entire image he creates of the 20th Century and the exploitative force of power politics and big business is absolutely harrowing, but that he purposefully crafts it in a way whereby one begins to see that behind the greed and corruption is a shadowy yet monstrous series of blunders and mistakes and blatant, ill-devised naivety, is extremely brilliant. I find it incredibly empowering and incredibly humanizing.