Peak Gold

by PeakResources



We are rapidly approaching the end of cheap resources. The wealth of most Americans could get wiped out during the next decade due to commodity inflation. Focusing on your real purchasing power is critical. As this brief documentary discusses, what is it that makes gold so special? Merely a "tradition" as Bernanke would have us believe, or sound 'money'?

The Story Of Inequality In The US: Past, Present And Future

In this far-reaching documentary, we are first treated to a history lesson from the early 80s to the present day - a story of lust, debt, and largesse; from Reagan deficits to cell phones to day trading to real estate... and then 2008 is explained (as reality started to peek through). The clip projects the next few years - from failed bond auctions to QE9 and social unrest - "but it doesn't have to be this way," the narrator notes. Breaking Inequality is a documentary film about the corruption between Washington and Wall Street that has resulted in the largest inequality gap in the history of America.
It is a film that exposes the truth behind the single event that occurred back in the early 70's that set us off on this perilous journey that we are currently on. The inequality gap is presently the worst that it has ever been and there is no solution in place to repair this crippling problem.

What Is a Gold Standard?

Before 1971, U.S. dollars were backed by gold. This meant that the federal government could not print more money than it could redeem for gold. While this constrained the federal government, it also provided citizens with a relatively stable purchasing power for goods and services. As Learn Liberty explains in this simple 4 minute clip, today's paper currency has no intrinsic value; it is not based on the value of gold or anything else. Under a gold standard, inflation was really limited. With floating value, or fiat, currency, however, some countries have seen inflation reach extremely high levels - sometimes enough to lead to economic collapse. Gold standards have historically provided more stable currencies with lower inflation than fiat currency. Of course, this leaves the question open of whether the United States return to a gold standard?

"fraud. why the great recession" (official documentary)

Free markets are not to be blamed for the Great Recession. On the contrary, its origins rest upon the deep government and central bank intervention in the economy. Through fraudulent mechanisms, this causes recurrent boom and bust cycles: bad policies create phases of irrational exuberance, which are then followed by economic recessions, a result that every citizen ends up suffering from.

A History of Central Banking In the United States

Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Markets

Whether its new-fangled Japanese stocks, hi-tech internet company valuations, multi-colored flowers, or mansions made affordable by criminally lax lending standards, Grant Williams notes that a bubble is a bubble is a bubble; and citing Stein's Law: "If something cannot go on forever; it will stop." In this excellent summary of all things currently (and historically) bubblicious - whether greed-driven or fear-driven - Williams concludes it is never different this time as he addresses the four phases of the classic bubble-wave: smart-money, awareness, mania, blow-off (or crash) and explains how government bonds are set to burst and gold is only just about to enter its mania phase. This far-reaching and entirely accessible presentation is stunning in its clarity and as he notes, while bubbles are always easy to spot ex-ante, understanding how they come about and why they are popped gives the few an opportunity to profit at the expense of the madness of crowds. From tulips to tech-wrecks, and from inflation to insatiable stimulus, the bubble in 'safe-haven flows' that currently exists has all the characteristics of a popular delusion.

by www.zerohedge.com

Fraud, Why The Great Recession Happened

"Fraud. Why The Great Recession Happened" is a crowdfunded documentary.

The Great Recession has not been fault of the free market. On the contrary, it´s origin should be sought for in the State´s and central bank´s deep intervention in the economy, causing in a fraudulent way, recurrent cycles of artificial expansion, the" bubble effect" and economic recession that all citizens end up paying for.The great depression is what happens when the government sticks their hands in everyone's business. How come we still haven't learned? America was created to have less government control. and it worked amazingly. Then Roosevelt stuck his hands into everything and we spent twelve years with 25% unemployment. But we continue to try it that way.So many people are dependent on the government giving them money. What is going to happen when they run out of other peoples money to give?

Finally, the root of the Great Recession is found at the end of WW2 when were created World Bank, and first and foremost IMF. Illuminati, the majority of them being bankers, have planned since more than two hundred years ago these events (1773), and mainly IMF, next with the Hebrew Banks, had and have a vital role in today's global depression and into the enslavement of the populations of the world in these huge debts. Their final goal is a new economic, social, politic, cultural order obtained through a war: WW3 or "The Final Social Cataclism".

source : www.amagifilms.com

THE BUBBLE - A chronological re-ordering of the events and arguments of the bubble

thebubblefilm.com

Who Caused it. Who Called it. What’s Next.

Coming in Fall 2012, The Bubble asks the experts who predicted the current recession, “What happened and why?” Diving deep into the true causes of the financial crisis, renowned economists, investors and business leaders explain what America is facing if we don't learn from our past mistakes. The film poses the question: “Is the economy really improving or are we just blowing up another Bubble?”

A chronological re-ordering of the events and arguments of THE BUBBLE

PART 1: THE CAUSES

The Federal Reserve and Interest Rates


Low interest rates from the Federal Reserve enticed people to borrow savings that did not exist. Both the government and the artificially lowered interest rate diverted resources into housing, creating a bubble that would inevitably burst.
· Increased home prices encouraged home owners to borrow money based on their real estate price and accumulate more debt.
· When the market responded by forcing interest rates back up, these bubble projects failed. People realized they could not afford this lifestyle.


Government Guarantees

· Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were Government Sponsored Enterprises that subsidize and guarantee home mortgages. Their liabilities were implicitly guaranteed by the government, who nationalized them in September of 2008.

· Banks frequently underwrote bad mortgages and sold them on secondary markets created by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

· Commercial bank deposits are guaranteed by the FDIC, a highly leveraged government program that allows banks to take more risks.

· The Greenspan Put was the widespread belief in the market that Alan Greenspan would intervene to bail out the financial sector whenever threatened. This was based on his reaction to the Savings & Loan Crisis, the bailout of the Mexican Peso in the 90’s, the bailout of LTCM, the liquidity approaching Y2k, and his actions forcing the interest rate down to 1% for a full year after September 11th. This was later replaced with the even larger Bernanke Put.

Government Home Ownership Policies

· The mortgage income tax deduction artificially stimulated the real estate market and led to larger home purchases.

· The Basel regulations allowed banks to be more leveraged if they held mortgage loans and even more leveraged if they held mortgage backed securities.

· Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama have all attempted to decrease the down payment needed to buy homes.

Nontraditional Mortgages

· Includes both subprime loans (low credit score) and alt-a loans. (low down payment, adjustable rate, no doc)

· By 2008, half of all mortgages were nontraditional mortgages.

· Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac owned more nontraditional mortgages than the entire private sector.



Affordable Housing

· The Department of Housing & urban Development required Fannie and Freddie to allocate 50% of mortgages to individuals that were at or below the median income in their communities.

· The Community Reinvestment Act required mortgage lenders to fulfill a quota for low and moderate income home buyers in certain communities. Although it was expanded in the 1990’s, the role in the housing bubble was minor.

PART 2: PAST CRISES

Panic of 1920

· The Depression of 1920 was worse than the first year of the Great Depression. Production fell 21%, GDP dropped 24% and unemployment went from 4% to 11.7%.

· The Federal Government cut spending in half from 1920 to 1922 and did not enact a stimulus policy.

· The Depression ended in the summer of 1921 and unemployment dropped to 6.7% in 1922 and 2.4% in 1923.

The Great Depression

· Nominal GDP was down 46% during the Great Depression.

· Both Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt increased government spending while implementing wage and price controls, along with tariffs.

· The Great Depression lasted a decade and the economy did not recover until World War II was over.

Inflation In The 1970s

· America rapidly increased the money supply and abandoned the gold standard in 1971.

· The economy suffered a downturn and prices increased dramatically. The cost of oil alone went from $3 to $30 a barrel.

· To fight inflation, Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker allowed interest rates to rise, by slowing down money creation. This lowered price inflation from 13.5% at its peak to 3.2% in 1983.

· The high unemployment and high inflation of the 1970s was predicted by the Austrians, while the Keynesian school of economics believed that combination to be impossible.

PART 3: Response To The Current Crisis

Interest Rate Cuts

· The Federal Reserve has consistently lowered interest rates throughout the crisis.

· They have now pushed interest rates down to zero.


Bailouts

· Bear Stearns creditors were bailed out on March 14th, 2008, despite their investment bank being leveraged 35.5:1.

· Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the government in September of 2008. This confirmed that their debt was guaranteed by the government. Treasury Secretary Paulson claimed in July 2008 that the companies were adequately capitalized despite only having $83 billion for $5 trillion in obligations.

· Although Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail, the rest of the financial sector was bailed out by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury department, and Congress.

· When Congress did not bail out the auto companies, President Bush did.

Stimulus Spending

· In February of 2008, following uncertainty in the Subprime mortgage market, George W. Bush signed a stimulus bill for over $152 billion dollars, attempting to get people to spend again.

· To support the housing market, George W. Bush signed the economic recovery act of 2008 which added $800 billion to the national debt.

· Following the bankruptcy of Washington Mutual and the bailout of AIG, George W. Bush signed the Trouble Asset Recovery Program which authorized the Treasury to buy up to $700 billion in bad assets.

· Due to the slow moving economy, newly elected President Obama continued George W. Bush’s spending spree by signing a $862 billion dollar stimulus bill.

PART 4: What America is Facing

Education Bubble

· Student loan debt’s version of Fannie Mae is called Sallie Mae.

· Student loans have spiked over a trillion dollars, more than all the car loans in the country combined.

· Graduates are finding they cannot pay back their loans with or without a job.

Coming Price Inflation

· Prices will dramatically rise due to the money created in response to the housing crash.

· Increased prices will lower the standard of living in the country.

· The devalued dollar resulting from inflation will wipe out savings for millions of Americans, particularly in the lower and middle classes.


National Debt Bubble

· The national debt approaching $16 trillion dollars is not sustainable.

· Foreign countries will stop buying Treasury bonds and interest rates will rise.

· Rising interest rates and deficits as far as the eye can see will lead to interest payments consuming the entire budget.

· America will be forced to cut spending.

Unfunded Liabilities Bubble

· The unfunded liabilities from Social Security and Medicare are as high as $119 Trillion Dollars.

· With the already high national debt, the federal government cannot absorb these added costs.

· Both Social Security and Medicare will be forced into bankruptcy. Defense will have to be cut.

I.O.U.S.A.

Wake up, America! We're on the brink of a financial meltdown. I.O.U.S.A. boldly examines the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for the United States and its citizens. Burdened with an ever-expanding government and military, increased international competition, overextended entitlement programs, and debts to foreign countries that are becoming impossible to honor, America must mend its spendthrift ways or face an economic disaster of epic proportions.

Throughout history, the American government has found it nearly impossible to spend only what has been raised through taxes. Wielding candid interviews with both average American taxpayers and government officials, Sundance veteran Patrick Creadon (Wordplay) helps demystify the nation's financial practices and policies. The film follows former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker as he crisscrosses the country explaining America's unsustainable fiscal policies to its citizens.

With surgical precision, Creadon interweaves archival footage and economic data to paint a vivid and alarming profile of America's current economic situation. The ultimate power of I.O.U.S.A. is that the film moves beyond doomsday rhetoric to proffer potential financial scenarios and propose solutions about how we can recreate a fiscally sound nation for future generations.

Creadon uses candid interviews and his featured subjects include Warren Buffett, Alan Greenspan, Paul O'Neill, Robert Rubin, and Paul Volcker, along with the Peter G. Peterson Foundation's own David Walker and Bob Bixby of the Concord Coalition, a Foundation grantee.

Pointedly topical and consummately nonpartisan, I.O.U.S.A. drives home the message that the only time for America's financial future is now.

Silver & Gold - Debt Collapse

Mike Maloney is the author of the world's best selling book on precious metals investing. Since 2003 he has been advocating gold and silver as the ultimate means of protecting wealth from the games played by our governments and banking sector. In this 90 minute presentation he lays down his 'most likely' scenario for the global economy over the next deacde...short term deflation, followed by big or even hyperinflation. Here you will learn the true definitions of inflation/deflation, the difference between currency and money, price vs value, 'Wealth Cycles', gold and silver accounting for the expansion of fiat currency, gold and silver supply and demand, the differences between the today's bull market and that of the 1970s, The Debt Collapse, and more.

Debtocracy

Debtocracy. For the first time in Greece, a documentary produced by the audience. “Debtocracy” seeks the causes of the debt crisis and proposes solutions sidelined by the government and the dominant media. The documentary is distributed online under creative commons licence since April 6, 2011, subtitled in six languages.
Aris Chatzistefanou and Katerina Kitidi discuss with economists, journalists and intellectuals from all over the world, who describe the steps that led Greece to the current debt trap –to debtocracy. The documentary follows the course of countries like Ecuador, which created Audit Commissions, and tracks the similar process in Greece.
Debtocracy features the academics David Harvey, Samir Amin, Costas Lapavitsas and Gerard Dumenil; the philosopher Alain Badiou; the head of Ecuador’s Audit Commission Hugo Arias; the president of CADTM Eric Toussaint; journalists like Avi Lewis (co-creator of the documentary “The Take”) and Jean Quatremer; as well as public figures like Manolis Glezos and Sahra Wagenknecht (from the German party Die Linke). 
The soundtrack was written by Yiannis Aggelakas, Ermis Georgiadis and Aris RSN, while the journalist and economist Leonidas Vatikiotis scientifically edited the whole project. BitsnBytes undertook the production of “Debtocracy”, which was edited by Aris Triantafyllou.

Official Website

Zeitgeist: The Movie

Zeitgeist: The Movie is a 2007 documentary film by Peter Joseph. It asserts a number of conspiracy theory-based ideas, including the Christ myth theory, alternative theories for the parties responsible for the September 11 attacks in 2001 and that bankers manipulate the international monetary system and the media in order to consolidate power.

The film was released online on June 18, 2007, on zeitgeistmovie.com. While the film has been praised by some for the professional-level quality of its pacing and editing, and for its compelling narrative, it has been criticized for factual inaccuracies and the quality of its arguments, with critics describing it as "agitprop" and "propaganda". A sequel, Zeitgeist: Addendum, focuses further on the monetary system and advocates a resource-based social system influenced by the ideas of Jacque Fresco and the Venus Project. Following Zeitgeist: Addendum, Peter Joseph created an organization called the Zeitgeist Movement to promote the ideas of Fresco's Venus Project. An updated version of the original film was produced in 2010 entitled Zeitgeist: Final Edition. A third film called Zeitgeist: Moving Forward was released theatrically on January 15, 2011, and online on January 25, 2011. Peter Joseph has stated that its topics are focused on human behavior, technology, and rationality. The film has a 220-page long "companion source guide", available on the film's website, in which sourcing for the movie's content is detailed. 

Official Website

Zeitgeist Addendum

Zeitgeist Addendum, attempts to locate the root causes of this pervasive social corruption, while offering a solution. This solution is not based on politics, morality, laws, or any other "establishment" notions of human affairs, but rather on a modern, non-superstitious based understanding of what we are and how we align with nature, to which we are a part. The work advocates a new social system which is updated to present day knowledge, highly influenced by the life long work of Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project.

Official Website

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, by director Peter Joseph, is a feature length documentary work which presents a case for a transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society.

This subject matter transcends the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and moves to relate the core, empirical "life ground" attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a "Resource-Based Economy".

THEATRICAL RELEASE - Zeitgeist: Moving Forward was released in 60+ countries and in 25+ languages on January 15th 2011. This large scale release was not associated with any major distributor. DVD/INTERNET RELEASE - This is a non-commercial project, which means it is available for free acquisition via internet in both viewing form and full DVD download. We also have a discounted DVD available.

Official website 

The Story of Stuff

The Story of Stuff is a short polemical animated documentary about the lifecycle of material goods. The documentary is critical of excessive consumerism and promotes sustainability.

Filmmaker Annie Leonard wrote and narrated the film, which was funded by Tides Foundation, Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption, Free Range Studios and other foundations. Free Range Studios also produced the documentary, which was first launched online on December 4, 2007.

The documentary is being used in elementary schools, arts programs, and economics classes as well as places of worship and corporate sustainability trainings.By February 2009, it had been seen in 228 countries and territories.According to the Los Angeles Times as of July 2010, the film had been translated into 15 languages and had been viewed by over 12 million people.

Official website

Inside Job

Inside Job

Inside Job is a 2010 documentary film about the late-2000s financial crisis directed by Charles H. Ferguson. The film is described by Ferguson as being about "the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption."In five parts, the film explores how changes in the policy environment and banking practices helped create the financial crisis.

Inside Job was well received by film critics who praised its pacing, research, and exposition of complex material. The film was screened at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival in May and won the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

 Official website