[p2p-research] Fwd: ZNet Daily Commentary: Lets Make Money By Kim Scipes

Sun Feb 21 06:41:18 CET 2010

gracias amigo, muj obligado!

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Alex Rollin <alex.rollin at gmail.com> wrote:

> Part 1: http://www.megavideo.com/?v=55CM02CZ
> Part 2: http://www.megavideo.com/?v=S5D9LYEE
>
> En Francais.
>
> Alex
> I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.- Socrates
>
>
>
>   On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 6:15 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: <no-reply at zcommunications.org>
>> Date: Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 11:45 AM
>> Subject: ZNet Daily Commentary: Lets Make Money By Kim Scipes
>> To: michelsub2004 at gmail.com
>>
>>
>>  [image: zspace] <http://ruby.zcommunications.org/>
>>
>> Print <http://www.zcommunications.org/contents/167251/print>
>> Lets Make Money
>>
>> February 21, 2010 By *Kim Scipes*
>>
>> Kim Scipes's ZSpace Page<http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/kimscipes>/
>> ZSpace <http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/>
>>
>> *[A Review of "Lets Make Money", a film by Erin Wagenhofer. Distributed
>> by Bullfrog Films, 2008]*
>>
>> German director Erin Wagenhofer's 2008 film, Let's Make Money, is an
>> in-depth examination of the global economic and financial system in the age
>> of neo-liberalism.  Beautifully filmed, with locations from a number of
>> locations around the world-including Burkina Faso, Germany, Ghana, India,
>> Jersey, Singapore, Spain, the UK, and the US-Wagenhofer seeks to illuminate
>> the global economy for those of us who are kept in the dark; and yet suffer
>> the consequences.
>>
>> Wagenhofer looks at the global financial system from a number of different
>> angles, each illuminating part of the problem of neo-liberalism, which is
>> capitalism with almost no institutional constraint.  This neo-liberalism
>> took its current form under the regimes of Ronald Reagan and Margaret
>> Thatcher in the early 1980s.  Key to this was deregulation of the banking
>> industry, attracting money from off-shore, giving investors in particularly
>> the UK access to cheap capital, and which was supported by the International
>> Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.  These international financial
>> institutions created a four-part project known as "The Washington
>> Consensus," which included deregulating financial markets, liberalizing
>> trade flows (attacking the trade barriers developed by "developing"
>> countries trying to protect their economic base), breaking hold of state's
>> power (by reducing tax income), and then privatizing state resources through
>> sales to private investors; each intending to benefit the elites in various
>> countries around the world at the expense of "ordinary" people.
>>
>> The film is based upon interviews with investors, government officials,
>> and people who can provide entrée into the slums and impoverished towns of
>> the various countries, or a broader understanding of what is actually taking
>> place.  Shown are the efforts of investors to make money, and with no
>> consideration of ethics, much less the impact on human lives.  Yet, the
>> affects are illuminated, such as the diversion of 97% of gold profits to the
>> Western countries and only 3% to Africa, despite the gold coming from Ghana,
>> and the gross impoverishment of the people.
>>
>> Wagenhofer looks at the impact of cotton on Burkina Faso, a country in
>> Central Africa.  Despite producing some of the world's best cotton, and
>> cleaned by hand, Burkina Faso cannot compete on the global market,
>> especially because of cotton subsidies to cotton farmers by the US
>> Government [as well as by the European Union-KS].
>>
>> He shows the real estate bubble in Spain, and the efforts of investors to
>> purchase housing developments on the southern coast-with almost all of the
>> constructed apartments remaining vacant.  Almost all have golf courses, in a
>> country where only a relative few play golf.  These houses are too expensive
>> for younger Spaniards, and will remain housing developments that are empty,
>> while transforming the Spanish coast and countryside for the worse, and
>> wasting massive amounts of water.
>>
>> Also explained are the tax havens in Jersey, an island off of the UK.  A
>> government official claims their financial services are as good if not
>> better than the Swiss, and brags about the investment of banks from around
>> the world on the island.  Another government official explains the almost
>> total secrecy of these tax havens, and how, when set up properly, they are
>> almost impossible to discern who is involved.  These tax havens are the
>> nemeses of developing countries; it is estimated that for every $1 of
>> development aid to Africa, $10 leaves the continent for these secretive tax
>> havens.
>>
>> For this reviewer, the highlight of the film was the section shot with
>> John Perkins, who served as and then wrote a book, Economic Hit Men, about
>> his activities as a global banker.  Perkins points out that economic hit men
>> identify countries that have resources coveted by large multinational
>> corporations, such as oil, and then these hit men convince the World Bank to
>> loan tremendous amounts of money to these countries, to finance huge
>> development programs that can be carried out by these corporations.  These
>> programs benefit only a small minority in the country, as well as large
>> investors in the corporation, but leave the country with huge debts that can
>> never be paid back.   In turn, these economic hit men return to governmental
>> leaders in these countries and seek "favors" by those deeply indebted,
>> forcing them into subservience to the United States.  (Perkins compares this
>> process to how the Mafia operates.)
>>
>> Perkins talks about his role as an "economic hit man," and says if the
>> bankers can't get their way, then the "jackals" (his term, but obviously
>> referring to the CIA) are sent in to convince or kill the leaders, and if
>> they still don't get their way, then the US military is sent in.  It was
>> Perkins who ties in the CIA (and, by implication, the "security services" of
>> other countries) and the military to support and protect the economic
>> activities of global investors.  Most interestingly, however, is his
>> discussion of Saddam Hussein's resistance to this process, and he argues
>> that's why Iraq was invaded.
>>
>> The film, made from a European perspective, is especially interesting
>> because it looks at issues affecting Europe, and these are different in some
>> ways from the United States.  There's more focus on Africa in this film than
>> most Americans are used to seeing-documentaries of US origin tend to focus
>> more on Latin America and/or East Asia (both missing in this film, although
>> Singapore is used as a backdrop in one section).  There is also the direct
>> statement from a governmental officer in Burkina Faso that if the Europeans
>> don't end their subsidies and let Burkina's cotton compete equally in their
>> markets, and after pointing out that two million people are directly
>> employed in Burkina's cotton industry with each supporting around 15 people,
>> he says that Europe will be overrun by Africans.  The film also has several
>> segments with Hermann Scheer, a German parliament member.
>>
>> Yet the European perspective misses some things that I would have thought
>> important to understanding the global economy.  It misses the predominant
>> role of the US, economically and politically.  It-through Perkins-talks
>> about how the US controls the International Monetary Fund and the World
>> Bank, and the United Nations, most of the time.  But other than Perkins'
>> comments about the US military getting sent in after the bankers and the
>> "jackals" have failed, there is no mention about military invasion and
>> intervention around the world.  In a film so visually powerful, mere mention
>> of something so important simply seems insufficient.  But, then again, it
>> wasn't Germany who led the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan or ….
>>
>> The film is obviously made for a European audience.  It uses a series of
>> interviews by knowledgeable people who are quite forthcoming about what they
>> are doing and why.  For some reason, however, these speakers are all male,
>> as if there are no expert female analysts.  Yet, this reviewer thinks the
>> film would have been stronger had there been someone or something to tie the
>> interviews together more for the audience:  this film assumes a level of
>> understanding that most Americans simply don't have, even college students.
>> Accordingly, it will be better understood if there is someone-such as an
>> instructor in a "Developing Nations" or a "Global Finance" class-who can
>> help people watching make all of the connections made by the film.
>>
>> This is an excellent film that will get audiences to raise many
>> provocative questions.  It's clear that we must join together to change this
>> "system."  It doesn't provide "solutions" per se, but the information
>> provided is excellent and well-done.  It deserves wide distribution.
>>
>> ----
>>
>>
>> Kim Scipes, Ph.D., has a Masters in Development Studies from the Institute
>> of Social Studies in The Hague, and currently works as an Assistant
>> Professor of Sociology at Purdue University North Central in Westville, IN.
>> He teaches Sociology of Developing Nations and, during the Summer of 2009,
>> Sociology of the Current Financial Crisis.  His web site is at
>> http://faculty.pnc.edu/kscipes.
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives<http://www.zcommunications.org/>
>> *URL:* http://www.zcommunications.org/lets-make-money-by-kim-scipes
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