In this introduction we introduce your host Brian Leslie of Sustainable Economics and setout the framework for the series. We also give information about how to contact us and how to make donations.
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Hello, Welcome to the Money Myths Vidcast.
My name is Brian Leslie.
The aim of this vidcast is to explain, as simply as possible, the causes of the current ‘Global Recession’, how we came to be here and what needs to be done to make sure it never happens again.
We aim to produce several episodes. At first, each episode will tackle one or more of the issues that have caused the situation the World finds itself in.
Later we will explain what simple changes need to be made to get out of the current situation and to make sure that ‘Global Recession’ never happens again. In fact, to ensure a fairer society, both nationally and internationally.
The fundamental truths are very simple to understand and have been hidden from us by the ‘smoke screen’ of modern economics and banking practices.
To accompany the vidcast we have set-up a web site, www.moneymyths.org.uk, where you will find full transcripts of each show, links to other sites and details of how to contact me. It is also the place to go to make a donation to help support the show. We have no external funding and rely on your donations, however small, to make this project possible.
So, a little about me. I am Brian Leslie, and I have been producing and editing a bi-monthly magazine, Sustainable Economics, for sixteen years.
I have also been involved in several groups that have been looking at the world’s ‘money’ problems and have helped to further develop ideas that date back over centuries.
I spent my childhood between the World Wars, when the world was suffering from the ongoing effects of the financial crash of 1929, the ‘Great Depression’.
At that time, huge numbers were unemployed, and factories lay idle, yet there was no shortage of skills, knowledge or materials to create enough to meet everyone’s needs and maintain high levels of employment. A movement was fast growing to demand the end of ‘poverty in the midst of plenty’, but this only came with the preparations for the Second World War.
This has given me a keen interest in the economy, but I find that the so-called ‘experts’ on this usually talk nonsense!
I will aim to give a more believable explanation of how we have reached the present, sudden ‘credit crunch’, and on the way to show how the money system itself, developed over the last 3-4 centuries, has been involved in creating it.
In 2006 Michael Meacher MP wrote: “Britain is now one of the most unequal countries in the world. A recent report on boardroom pay reveals that the average salary of chief executives of the top FTSE 100 companies is now a staggering £46,154 a week! That is 115 times the average wage in Britain today, 249 times the national minimum wage, and 519 times the basic state pension.”
I will show that the nature of the money system plays a key role in this, as well as a host of other problems.
The extremes have got even worse since 2006; but now the ‘credit crunch’ looks to be a re-run of the infamous ‘crash’ of 1929, only far worse. What is needed is a major change to the current system.
When looking at problems, if you can find a common cause and a cure for it then, often, the other solutions become obvious.
So, how did we get into this mess? There are indeed many problems to be solved, but I find that the one thing common to them all is the money system – What is money? – How is it created? – Who controls it? – Who benefits? – Why are we drowning in debt? – Why is this not being widely talked about, as it was between those World Wars?
In this series, I will try to present some answers to these questions, and to show that it has not always been like this, and it does not need to be.
Money, which should be there to serve our needs, has become our master, and we have become enslaved by it.
For most of my life I have known that we are on a disaster course, destroying resources and polluting our environment at an ever-increasing rate, which must come to an end.
We are all told that we must have ‘economic growth’ to sustain the economy and employment. Why? Over the last century machines have massively increased the ability of the population to produce ‘what is needed’, so we shouldn't have to work as hard. As I will explain in a later edition, the truth is that we shouldn't need constant growth when we can already produce what’s needed.
The current financial system is in a mess. National debts are mounting faster than ever before. Just the interest on the national debt is causing massive problems of poverty and is crippling Governments. This system cannot go on much longer.
The end of the current system is now in sight and we must understand how to change it to lead to a better future. Without the right kind of change the current system will lead to disaster. Such a disaster could even be the end of life on earth, or at least the deaths of huge numbers of people through famine, pesticides, pollution, ‘climate change’, wars over resources and many other issues.
In the next episode, I will answer two questions: What is money and how is it created?