Wednesday, February 04, 2009

A not bad video on Fractional Reserve Banking. Explains things well.

Yeah, it goes a bit conspiracy at the end. But apart from a couple of sentences which send the cringe-alarm off, it mainly makes a lot of sense.

Discussion continues in comments and here.

2 comments:

Oli said...

Thanks for this link. I think it's a fantastically clear explanation of how money came to be defined in the way it is today.

I'm not convinced that an economy with a growing numerical size (as measured by some currency) necessarily has to have a growing ecological footprint.

But it's scary the idea that interest creates a growing pressure on debtors to pay back more money than has been created. I wonder what happens if you write off the debts. If interest payments received covered the debts written off then I guess the system would balance again.

Also, in light of this video I guess you can see the massive bailouts as being as much about the creation of new debt as it is about anything else.

Composing said...

He he ... yes. Bailouts == creating lots of nice new debt. Which in turn will need the creation of more money and more debt to pay off.