Forty Seven Minutes That Will Expand Your Mind

I happened to take my own advice and read the Comments that people left over at the blog of Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.

One of them pointed to this Google video:

Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created. It is an entertaining way to get the message out. The Cowichan Citizens Coalition and its "Duncan Initiative" received high praise from those who previewed it. I recommend it as a painless but hard-hitting educational tool and encourage the widest distribution and use by all groups concerned with the present unsustainable monetary system in Canada and the United States.

Now wait a minute there. Stop rolling your eyes.

Let me flashback about ten or so years ago. In the aftermath of witnessing an NYPD event, I fell into conversation with a neighboring witness. It was a glorious conversation that went on for over an hour. He tried to get into my head the importance of money and how we've all been fooled about it. I tried to get into his mind how nanotechnology will someday make money irrelevant. He thought I was frikkin nuts. After he mentioned his past peyote use, I then thought he was frikkin nuts.

Seeing the way the world has been going, he probably had the more realistic point. Nanotechnology is still (too?) far away. Money is what we all have to deal with now.

This video was an absolute enlightenment to me. It will probably be that to you too.

I've always had a sneaking suspicion that things are not quite right in the world in terms of economics, and this video really does point to what it argues is the central cause.

I want all of you to know that I've heard portions of what it argues before. But those portions were just that: isolated pieces of a puzzle that never really showed the entire picture.

I think this video does.

It's not at all complex. It's engaging and, as I've said, enlightening.

There is one thing I want all of you to keep in the forefront of your mind while watching this: Follwers of Islam are prohibited from charging interest on loaned money.

Islamic Finance

Islamic finance has become the fastest-growing, most dynamic sector of global finance. Every Western-style financial product has its sharia, i.e. Islamic law, compliant instrument: microfinance, mortgages, oil and gas exploration, bridge building, even sponsorship of sporting events. Islamic finance is innovative, flexible, and potentially very profitable. “Operating in 70 countries with about $500bn in assets, it is poised to expand geometrically.” With more than one billion Muslims eager to support it, analysts project that this system will soon manage approximately 4 percent of the world economy, equivalent to $1 trillion in assets. Such figures explain the eagerness of Western banks to tap into sharia financial services. Citigroup, along with many other Western banking retailers, have opened Islamic branches in Muslim countries.

Emphasis added by me.

Now go watch this video:

Money As Debt