The video has problematic assumptions that hurt its credibility:
1. Speaker presumes govt power and fiat is not equally as adverse to the people as banking - it necessarily is b/c a citizen's relationship with the government is transactional. Consequently, he has no solvency for his alternative plan to big finance (i.e., US govt notes as opposed to Fed Reserve notes).
2. The "death grip" via debt examples are
turrible.
He points to mortgages as an example of finance run-amuck. He also states if there is a mortgage, a person doesn't own their house.
- First, most states have a law that says mortgages are not conveyances - they are merely liens. So, banks don't own title to real estate for which they've financed the purchase (or anyone for that matter, bank financing is not the only way to borrow money)
- Second, as a lien holder, a bank can only debit the asset (the real estate) if they first win an argument in court that the borrower is in default under a valid promissory note AND are otherwise are entitled to foreclose under the terms of the note/contract. A bank can only extract the value of the debt, not more - a borrower will get the remaining equity, if any.
- Third, this example presumes the borrower is not getting comparable or fair value in exchange for their loans. Depending on the interest rate, it can be a great deal to buy real estate with financing. He provides no examples of what is a usurious and no-usury interest rate (my state says around 18% is usurious, IIRC - I don't know that mortgage lending rates have been that high ever; in 1982, rates were in the 17% range - http://www.freddiemac.com/pmms/pmms30.htm).
3. The Federal Reserve is not involved in printing money or authorizing the same. The U.S. Treasury does that and the US Govt keeps its money in the Federal Reserve as its Bank. The Federal Reserve can increase or decrease the supply of money on the open market by buying and and selling Treasury bonds/securities (these are not Federal Reserve Notes - the
are USG Notes, like the speaker was praising Kennedy for). The money used to buy US G bonds or received when selling them causes the money in circulation ("money supply") to increase or decrease. The Federal Reserve also has the authority to set reserve requirements and interest rates for inter-bank lending. The Fed does not make loans to citizens - its a bankers bank and a bank for the govt.
4. The speaker overlooks the importance of international trade in establishing the value and reliability of a domestic currency. I don't think a government can just print its own money and all its problems are solved b/c it somehow avoids banks. Not in a global marketplace. Plus, you still need a place to store money. Most importantly, this is the world we live in today and the problems he thinks his alternative solves won't go away by following the "one simple trick" or whatever.
5. Overall, the guy is a good speaker, but he appears to be using jargon as a technique of persuasion - a lot of the terms used are not defined and or are used in a way that does not appreciate some serious complexities that exist in the world.
6. He wants to assert the foundation of his argument (finance is the root of control etc), so that the he can start attacking shit. This is a strawperson argument and is fallacious. That's not to say the conclusion is wrong, but he hasn't proved his case.
At all.
