zeitgeist

[HalfLotus]

Originally posted by MarkG
i'm just posting some food for thought and discussion. it's what i usually do on apolyton

of course we are so far discussing organic milk but that's also usual for apolyton

In my limited experience on the OT forum, discussion of topics such as those in zeitgeist usually begin and end with hysterical claims of 'conspiracy theory'. Thankfully we have avoided that and jumped right into a droll debate over organic food.

Anyway, zeitgeist paints a pretty bleak picture of the Federal Reserve central banking system. I invite our resident communists and Greenspan hero worshipers to view the film more than once.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
No idea where Aggie lives, but in UK it makes a difference, it's still crap comparing to real food, but not as bad as "normal" plastic stuff that people buy in the grocery section...

Oh yes, it definitely does depend on your local grocery store as well. At some stores it is hard to find decent quality of some produce.

[snoopy369]

Actually, some organic foods are 'better' than the non-organic version simply because you get nicer vegetables - sometimes, and not even necessarily frequently, but at some stores this is the case. Particularly my local grocery store, where non-organic produce has a tendency to go bad much faster than organic produce (yeah, apparently the preservatives or fungicides or whatever don't work very well ...)

That's pretty much the only reason I'd buy organic, though; though my GF does prefer it somewhat because of the lack of pesticides on the outside for certain foods like apples (some of those may be carcinogenic, I suppose?). I don't think I know any sane person who buys organic for the 'environment' or 'fair trade', of course. But there is somewhat of a selfish reason

[Agathon]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
No idea where Aggie lives, but in UK it makes a difference, it's still crap comparing to real food, but not as bad as "normal" plastic stuff that people buy in the grocery section...

See!! You can get the peons to believe anything!!!

[OneFootInTheGrave]

... well if you actually ate real food or veggies in this case (thankfully I grew up in Croatia)... you would know what you are missing, and how Organic here in UK is better than usual plastic... it's still not as good as privately grown produce in countries where there is actually sun to support the plants that you cannot even grow here in UK due to the climate, but still quite a bit better...

[Agathon]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
... well if you actually ate real food or veggies in this case (thankfully I grew up in Croatia)... you would know what you are missing, and how Organic here in UK is better than usual plastic... it's still not as good as privately grown produce in countries where there is actually sun to support the plants that you cannot even grow here in UK due to the climate, but still quite a bit better...

I ate home grown stuff for most of my youth. My Uncle John had the best vegetable patch in our village. I often ate home killed meat as well. I did grow up in New Zealand, which is basically a large farm. It's like Australia, except we don't have sex with our livestock.

Organic food as sold in supermarkets is nothing like that. It's just a lifestyle jerkoff, like these stupid luxury tea houses springing up everywhere. What we need is photographic evidence of the scum who hang out at these places so that they can be executed when the revolution comes.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by MarkG
because organic is better?

[MarkG]

Originally posted by HalfLotus
Anyway, zeitgeist paints a pretty bleak picture of the Federal Reserve central banking system.

i've semi-watched the second part while working this morning and didnt understand that 90-10% thing

[Imran Siddiqui]

I did grow up in New Zealand, which is basically a large farm. It's like Australia, except we have sex with our livestock.

Fixed.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

I did grow up in New Zealand, which is basically a large farm. It's like Australia, except we have sex with our livestock.

Fixed.

All moderators of South Asian extraction are fags!!!!

[Darius871]

Originally posted by HalfLotus
Woah, MarkG pushing Zeitgeist!? Apolyton gets a gold star today.

Originally posted by HalfLotus
Anyway, zeitgeist paints a pretty bleak picture of the Federal Reserve central banking system. I invite our resident communists and Greenspan hero worshipers to view the film more than once.

Well nobody's surprised that you'd like it. The fact that you lend any political credence to flashy youtube videos really explains a lot.

I bet you think Aaron Russo was a great mind too

[HalfLotus]

Originally posted by MarkG
i've semi-watched the second part while working this morning and didnt understand that 90-10% thing

It's been a while since I've watch the movie in full, but it sounds like you're referring to fractional reserve banking.

Per federal reserve laws, banks can lend up to approximately 10x more money than they actually possess (hence the 90/10 ratio).

So the Fed creates $X million dollars via a spreadsheet command, and the banks can potentially turn that into $X million times ten!

Creating so much money out of nothing has serious negative economic consequences.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by HalfLotus
Creating so much money out of nothing has serious negative economic consequences.

Care to elaborate? What specific consequences do you have in mind, and what specific chain of events might lead to them?

The theory IIUC is that a bank can invest 10x what it "has" because both accounts payable and depositors' withdrawals still remain so relatively small that accounts receivable (increased in size by incoming interest from the 10x loans) could cover them, resulting in an even balance sheet. In the extremely unlikely event that there is a sudden "run" of depositors' withdrawals and/or a decrease in accounts receivable due to increased loan defaults, this would be immediately counterbalanced by a commensurate decrease in accounts payable (primarily by tightening credit approval standards as we're seeing now, plus slashing out-of-pocket expenses wherever possible) to preserve the balance, and in the even more unlikely event that this doesn't work, there would be a government or Federal Reserve bailout at best, or FDIC insurance of depositors at worst; meanwhile competing banks that made more responsible decisions survive and profit from the rubble just like in any other business.

Now you explain to me in detail where exactly that fairly simple theory will bring about an across-the-board banking apocalypse that should make us shudder in fear. Something that's actually somewhat quantitative would be even better.

More importantly, since you seem to believe that making "money out of nothing" is simply a bad thing in principle, does that mean you'd prefer seeing banks lending only what they "have," i.e. 100%/1x? Don't you agree that this total disappearance of potentially viable credit would drastically stifle the expansion of wealth?

[HalfLotus]

Watch the movie Darius. It will answer your questions and is flashy.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by HalfLotus
Watch the movie Darius. It will answer your questions and is flashy.

Oh, so you do have no capacity for independent thought or research and need unsubstantiated youtube fantasy to tell you what to think. I just wanted to make sure, thanks.


(P.S. I did already see it almost a year ago; I'm asking you for the actual specifics that it glosses over (like propaganda tends to do), since you're the one making assertions about the consequences supposedly bound to happen. If you make an argument, there must be something factual supporting it, right?)