Conspiracy theory / economy question

I'm Australian. My country has a government controlled central bank, responsible for effectively printing money and setting our cash interest rate. Admittedly, my country is run by politicians, hence most of their time is spent making catty and spiteful observations about the other side of the house (government vs. opposition) instead of being competent, but it still seems to be a damn sight better than the good old US of A / UK.

I have seen, on you tube videos (Zeitgeist, Thrive, Esoteric Agenda, The Eye in the Triangle, Money Masters, etc ) that (apparently at least) the USA is funded by a private bank (the Federal Reserve) and all your income tax goes towards paying the interest that the fed charges on the money they loan to the government to distribute through the country. That the Revolutionary war you guys fought with the British was, at least in part, to rid the country of having to pay taxes to the Queen and jolly old England. That JP Morgan and co basically tricked congress into passing the fed reserve bill, that was signed off by Woodrow Wilson as President because the same bankers paid for his election campaign.

If that's true, and your founding fathers were more or less united in the condemnation of a private central bank... How come you guys are currently sitting on a "Fiscal Cliff"? What would be required to say to Mr Rothschild / Rockefeller / Morgan / etc "Thanks for all your good work, we're gonna print our own damn money now thanks, we don't need European bankers to do it for us".

I could ask this question anywhere on the internet, but I certainly wouldn't ask on Youtube. Or a conspiracy theory website. In the main there are a fair % of down to earth smart people here, so, what's the opinion?

P.S. The world financial system (ie. countries drowning in debt) affects everyone, even down here. Ripping shit outa the ground and throwing it on massive bulk carriers is how we make our living here. If the main countries are in the financial hole, then they don't wanna buy our shit any more after all. Hence why I care.

Edit: Don't mean to make it sound like I'm saying, "My country rules, yours sucks" because that's not it at all, I am frustrated as hell at my country lately, we are breeding out common sense and embracing the nanny state. I'm just wondering how come all 250 - 300 million of you haven't risen up and said enough is enough, spend income tax on this country and it's people, not this broken system.

Is it true that all your taxes go towards paying the interest charged by the federal reserve, a privately owned bank?

If so, why don't more than just a few thousand hipsters living in tent cities on the occupy wall street protests demand your elected officials fix it?

If it's not true, do you know of a reputable source of information that explains how come the USA is 16 trillion dollars in debt, and who is it in debt to?

Ignore the first post, it made sense in my head - still does - but I can put it in bullet points np..

This one will take the least time to watch...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j69Ap4lndl0

Lyrical_sl said:

Where are you getting this stuff?

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But because I wasn't clear, I'll quote my op...

"I have seen, on you tube videos (Zeitgeist, Thrive, Esoteric Agenda, The Eye in the Triangle, Money Masters, etc )"

Eomer_sl said:

No, it's not true that all US income tax goes to paying interest on the debt. I'm not sure what the US debt servicing costs are right now, but I'm going to guess around 10-20% of US government revenue. When Canada's debt peaked in the early 90's, we were paying almost 30% of government revenue to debt servicing. It's much, much lower now that we got our shit together.

The Federal Reserve is not "privately owned." It's a complicated, convoluted, strange set up to be sure. But it has to be. Giving politicians the ability to print money and set interest rates directly is asking for disaster. The Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and JP Morgan don't own the Federal Reserve despite what all the conspiracy websites say. Any profits the Fed makes go to the Treasury.

The US is 16 trillion in debt because it's politicians haven't been able to get their shit together for the last 10-12 years since Clinton left office. Most of that debt is NOT held by foreign countries. Much of it is actually currently held by the Fed itself, due to Quantitative Easing programs (basically, printing money and buying debt with it). The irony is that currently US Treasury debt has a negative "real" interest rate, so if anything other countries are paying the US government to take their money. Sounds like an awful deal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...#Debt_holdings



Stop watching that shit. Most of it is either extremely misleading, if not outright false.

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Given what passes for popular television nowadays, and that I need SOMETHING to switch my minds focus from family and career occaisonally, which need to be taken seriously... I decided to do a little watching of the conspiracy type mocumentries (inspired by Hollywood mainly, K. Smith in Diehard 4, Gene Hackman in .. that Will Smith movie, Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory) since I didn't play EQ anymore. Or WoW ever, or Rift, etc. It's interesting, but hard to know what to believe. Hence why posting here.

Lithose_sl said:

Like all conspiracy theories, those movies use a hint of truth to tell a lie. There are problematic systems within the current reserve institution, the Commercial banks having access to massive short term liquidity with little oversight is one, the other is how the massive financial institutions actually lock up liquidity and cause systemic risk.

However, in so far as those videos--a big part of these conspiracy theories comes from us not being gold backed anymore, and instead being on a floating exchange. Which people tend to think is bullshit, so they think it's a scam. The reality is that our current reserve system is backed by real world assets and production. That's the core. It doesn't need gold, because money is created in relation to assets being built and the amount of production those assets will set into motion. That's why there can be interest attached--because every loan will grow the economy and while yes, this does cause some minor devaluation of currency, the issuance of the liquidity in the loan sees that there is more currency in the system to pay for this debt.

The reason there is a problem, however, is not because of the system itself. It's because there is so much financial voodoo going down on Wall Street. Where instead of a loan being used to make money off interest--it's now used as an asset in and of itself with which the bank enters into leveraged markets with, or derivatives. Essentially gambling with an asset that itself is not stable. This is what lead to the catastrophe in 08, and not only has it not been fixed--it's actually gotten worse.

But aside from the Fed Window shenanigans, which allow the banks to roll over their bullshit and make cancerous financial problems worse and worse until they need a bail out--the Fed isn't really the source of the problem. Just like our reserve/floating system isn't the source of the problem. The source of the problem is Banks exploiting the system in what just 30 years ago, would have been a highly illegal way--but now it's all legal, because of 30 years of banking lobbying.

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THAT makes it much clearer, thanks Lithose. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain that, as well as Eomer too. I fully expected to have to take these propaganda type films with a large grain of salt, but the main issue was WHAT to believe out of the regurgitated crap they keep reporting as fact.

Legends

Filwen_sl said:

Pretty sure the Federal Reserve is run by the Illuminati...

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Wouldn't surprise me. Doesn't worry me though, just finished my new hat.
Pic related:

Geez ask a question to verify or discredit something and you guys think I'm Lumie? Wasn't he some nutbag christian? Wasn't trying to push a belief on you guys, was just hoping for a more mature explanation of something that features in many places across the internet than what i would get from youtube. Hence why I posted in the grown up section. Getting a 50/50 mix of useful answers vs facepalm is pretty good though so I can't complain that much.

Oh and no, not Lumie. Just naive.

Except it wasnt the hashish induced ramblings of some desert dwelling people in tents distorted through thousands of years of chinese whispers. It was a bill passed by your congress in the early part of last century. Thats all. Recent enough that there might be people (who have already posted in this thread, thanks guys) who KNOW, not believe or take on faith, what its about.

Or am I missing a point here?