“The Secret Of Oz” – The Truth Behind The Modern Financial System, And The Money-Political Complex
by ilene - November 15th, 2010 12:40 pm
In case you missed the movie recommendation from Zero Hedge, it’s worth watching. I’ve got it playing in the background. – Ilene
"The Secret Of Oz" – The Truth Behind The Modern Financial System, And The Money-Political Complex
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
While America is entertained by a rather realistic cartoon of what happens when the Fed (semantics aside) prints money with which to buy up whatever assets it so chooses, and launders the cash for the Primary Dealers (a topic discussed ad nauseam on Zero Hedge), we present a rather more somber and serious look at the modern financial system, courtesy of Bill Still, creator of the movie: "The Secret of Oz" which explains in a far more nuanced manner the interconnectedness in the vicious square of power, politics, money creation and debt formation, and Wall Street, the Fed, and the Political forces in DC are intertwined to a degree that essentially makes the whole concept of democracy moot (a topic touched upon earlier by Bill Buckler). As Still says: "The world economy is doomed to spiral downwards until we do 2 things: outlaw government borrowing; 2. outlaw fractional reserve lending. Banks should only be allowed to lend out money they actually have and nations do not have to run up a "National Debt". Remember: It’s not what backs the money, it’s who controls its quantity." As more and more Americans are finally expressing an interest in what is really happening behind the scenes, but seem to not have the patience for simple algebra, we hope the following movie answers most of the pent up questions.
Still’s movie is well worth the two hours it takes to watch.
h/t Fiat Currency
Money Markets are the New Suspenders
by ilene - September 29th, 2009 3:04 am
Money Markets are the New Suspenders
By EB, courtesy of Zero Hedge
The Financial Times recently reported on the Fed’s latest exit strategy to eventually contain the inflation zombie:
During the crisis, the Fed created roughly $800bn of additional bank reserves to finance asset purchases and loans. This total is likely to rise in the coming months as the central bank completes its asset purchases and the Treasury unwinds financing it provided to the Fed. Fed officials think they could raise interest rates even with this excess supply of reserves by offering to pay banks to deposit their surplus funds with it rather than lend them out. However, they also want to use reverse repos in tandem to soak up some of the excess reserves. Policymakers call this a “belt and braces approach”. [The latter, clearly a nod to the great Gekko.]
TD touched on this last Thursday, and we will expand upon it here as it is particularly relevant to our ongoing theory that it is the proceeds from permanent open market operations (POMOs) and their close cousins that are driving equities. Though this may be received wisdom to ZH readers, the Fed has done us the favor of providing additional evidence through the FT story. A bit of background, as we are new contributors to this forum:
Money Supply: Based on our previous research on the effects of swings in M2 non-seasonally adjusted money supply (M2) on the stock market, we were a bit surprised in July 09 by the resiliency of the rally, which continued in the face of such a dramatic contraction in M2. The dismal Durable Goods report from last Friday confirms that the capital goods sector is still under significant pressure as a result of a lack of money in the general economy. With banks not lending to normal businesses and consumer credit contracting equally as violently, what is the basis for this rally and from where does the never-ending flow of equities juice flow?
Bank Non-Borrowed Excess Reserves: The Fed statistic that most closely correlates with the 2009 equities run-up appears to be bank non-borrowed excess reserves (bank NBER), which