Topic: Finance

[ Episode #26 // The Four Horsemen ]

Oct 22 2011

Mini Episode

Is capitalism failing or is it producing an intended outcome? There are a group of people privy to the internal mechanisms of our global economic rationale who are willing to share a vision of how the system really works. Though their original intent was to serve what appeared to be a beautiful machinery of supply and demand, they soon realized how greatly the assumptions of our economy are disconnected from reality. Is economics labeled as the dismal science only because of the way we currently practice it?

In Extraenvironmentalist #26 we speak with Ross Ashcroft about his upcoming film The Four Horsemen which explains how the world really works through interviews with 23 of our planet's leading alternative economists, Wall Street insiders and economic thinkers. Ross describes how his desire to become a farmer led him to understand the problems of international finance and how a career in the film industry provided the catalyst to create a documentary about the global economic system. Ross talks about what he learned from interviewing such a well accomplished group of economic experts and what it was like to be in the same room, talking one-on-one with Noam Chomsky. Will our economy collapse because it is being orchestrated to do so or will finance fall apart because it is based on junk science?


 

// Music (in order of appearance)
TV Girl - Benny and the Jets via Break on a Cloud
Penguin Prison - Don't Fuck With My Money via Hard Candy
Charles Bradley - The World (Is Going Up in Flames) via Quit Mumbling
Shotgun Radio - A Bad Place ft. Mimi Page (Minnesota Remix) via Big Green Beats
Lana Del Rey - Blue Jeans (PatrickReza Dubstep Remix) via Movements and Nonsense

// Extended Clips
Tarek El Diwany on Financial Fallout via Renegade Economist
US Jobless Epidemic Masked by Statistical Shenanigans via RT
USA Might Face a Potentially Violent Revolution via RT
Elizabeth Warren on Fair Taxation via American Spectator

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[ Episode #25 // Saving Money ]

Oct 5 2011

Mini Episode

Is it more practical to learn permaculture than to earn a business degree? As financial markets sell off around the globe and world leaders scramble to prevent national defaults from collapsing the global economy, today's youth are certain to live through a massive shift in the monetary paradigm. An education system that prepared us to receive jobs in a consumer economy injured our ability to truly learn and now we face the insult of entering a bleak job market. Is money real or is it based on societal myths? Can a monetary system built on collaboration rather than competition create a society that amplifies the positive aspects of human nature? As Mike Ruppert says: until we change the way money works, we change nothing.

In Extraenvironmentalist #25 we speak with Charles Eisenstein about his new book Sacred Economics which explains how to save the concept of money from being subject to our outdated understanding of human nature and simplistic mechanistic models of the physical world around us. While the social unrest sweeping from Cairo to Athens to Barcelona to New York is disrupting monetary dynamics can it also create an applicable positive vision? Charles explains how a negative interest currency and an economic model that integrates equity and ecology can end what we perceive to be the human nature emphasized by our current currency. Can we accept that the failure of money isn't the end of the world but that it is an opportunity to reorganize?


 

// Music (in order of appearance)
Zeds Dead - Coffee Break via The Music Ninja
MGMT - All We Ever Wanted (Bauhaus Cover) via Stereogum
Michita - November via Earmilk
HEALTH - Goth Star (Pictureplane Cover) via Gorilla vs. Bear
Beatles - Eleanor Rigby (Butch Clancy Remix) via Dubtunes

// Extended Clips
Fiat Money via Renegade Economist
Trader Interview on BBC
Occupy Boston

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[ Episode #13 // Debt-Dollar Discipline ]

Apr 8 2011

Mini Episode

Does our currency drive participation in a disciplinary system that conditions a consumer society? Surplus goods created by industrial production require an acceptable set of behaviors, reinforced by a financial establishment of rewards and punishments. Though the people reliant on disciplinary institutions are used to playing by the rules, what happens when the game changes suddenly?

In Extraenvironmentalist #13 we speak with Ashvin Pandurangi, writer for The Automatic Earth on his series of articles that describe the Debt-Dollar Discipline, the global system of currencies backed by the U.S. Dollar that define the choice sets available to us. We ask about how finance, currency, education and our institutions create a rigid disciplinary guideline. Ash, Seth and Justin ponder the question of whether a global system that slowly empties its gas tank can handle a rapid disintegration and a population in developed nations accustomed to discipline.

A SPECIAL THANKS TO: Mr. Thomas Bevan for his magical performance in singing about the Titanic.

BEFORE APRIL 14th: Vote for Justin's video in the OECD's 50th Anniversary Challenge to redefine economic progress

 

// Music (in order of appearance)
Daughter - Run via The Music Ninja
 Malvina Reynolds - Little Boxes via Dangerous Minds #18
Lanu - Beautiful Trash (feat. Megan Washington) via SoundCloud
Anomie Bell - How Can I Be Sure via IndieShuffle

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