nomi prins economic documentary film reviews

8/14/2019 Nomi Prins economic documentary film reviews

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lleul lloGumenlarieson Ine ]inanoial Gflsisby Nomi Prins

practices, she lost the childhood home sheoperate in a relativelysecretrve manner.The subprime mort-gage and foreclosure cri-sis, which began last year,followed by the large-scale economic meltdownthat now has the federal government funnel-ing trillions of dollars in bailout money andother subsidies to keep the nation's majorbanks, corporations, and other financialagencies from imploding, has changed ourcollective consciousness. We are today farmore aware-many of us painfully so,because of rising unemployment and thealarming shrinkage in our 401(k) and otherretirement funds-of the havoc that unbri-dled greed and improperly regulated institu-trons can cause.

Although the national-indeed world-wide-economic crisis has yet to fullyunfold, scores of books offering analyses ofthe crisis have already been published, theirtitles-Meltdown, Dumb Money, BailoutNation, Fool's Gold, House of Cards, andPlunder and Blunder, to cite only a few-colorfully characterizing our national cata-strophe. Thankfully, for that larger audiencenot always inclined to read such tomes, doc-umentary filmmakers have also begun toexamine how we got into this mess, tellingthe stories of some of its worst victims, andsuggesting some possible responses andremedies.

Aiming to decipher the jargon and exposethe failures of Washington and Wall Street,documentarians wade deep into the money pit.

promised her father shewould protect when hedied. In New York,Schechter follows a dis-possessed family thrownout of their home whilethe children were havinglunch-"On a Wednesday, the coldest dayin January, the marshals came," explains thedespairing mother.Schechter goes beyond these more com-mon examples of predatory lending, though.He shows how even soldiers returning fromIraq are considered fair game. Speaking to aNavy relief representative, we learn thatmany veterans are saddled with long-termdebt, after using their paychecks as collater-al, at the equivalent of an annual interest

rate of 390o/o. He examines how lenders con-sider their most lucrative clients those whosign up for subprime loans (and remember,this was before the rest of the countrycaught wind of the subprime crisis). Heinterviews people who get ripped off bycheck cashing stores that flourish in poorneighborhoods, where people who can't sustainthe minimum balance for a checkingaccount at a bank are charged exorbitant rates.

Schechter takes us into the halls of Con-gress, where he speaks with RepresentativeSheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), who expressesher anger regarding the bankruptcy bill of2005, which disadvantages regular peoplefacing bankruptcy as opposed to corpora-

Schechter thus inserts himself into manyof the film's scenes. With his everymanappearance and manner, he would beMichael Moore if the job weren't alreadytaken. Rather than using the sardonichumor that Moore so often brings to histopics, Schechter tells it straight-up, withheartfelt compassion for the public and con-demnation for the debt-driven financial sys-tem that feeds off it. In Debt We Trust openswith Schechter talking about his own mort-gage and bill woes, immediately breakingdown barriers between the audience andhimself, achieving a level of empathy rare indocumentary films. Schechter's film featuresemotionally moving footage of homeownersbeing forced from their residences, provid-ing them with not just a means of tellingtheir stories, but also a shoulder to lean on.In Debt We Trust is punctuated with pul-sating hip-hop music and biting lyrics thatgive it a fresh feel and lively pace. Schechteralso depicts history in ways to which we caneasily relate. He contrasts our overrelianceon lender-pushed multiple refinancing ofmortgages today, for example, with the

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"News Dissector" Danny Schechter discusses the plague of predatory lending with ACORN activists in Washington, D.C. who attempt to educatevictims about foreclosure scams, in this scene from Schechter's feature documentary, ln Debt We Trust: America Before the Bubble Burcts.tions in the same predicament. At $154 mil-lion, it remains one of the most well-funded,industry- lobbied pol itical initiatives ever.In Debt We Trust reveals that the credit-card industry makes more on fees than thevalue of goods being bought with thosecards. Not only does Schechter outline theproblem of rapacious credit card andunscrupulous lending companies, he alsoprovides solutions. In so doing, he traversesthe political spectrum-from conservativeradio commentator and author David Ram-sey, draped in chains, cutting up credit cardson stage, to public-access cable TV shows inAtlanta and other communities focused oneducating consumers. On the streets ofBrooklyn, he illustrates how an expandedcredit union, which provides customers withobjective financial information, is a non-profit alternative to predatory lending.

The film also includes an excellent interviewwith David Walker, the United States Comp-troller General (the country's chief auditor)and head of the General Accountability Officethrough the Clinton and Bush Administra-tions. In 2005, Walker warned that continu-ing on this unsustainable debt-accumulationpath would gradually erode, if not suddenlydamage, our economy, standard of living,and, ultimately, our national security.At the end, Schechter leaves us to pon-der-"With both political parties implicat-ed... what can create a sense of nationaloutrage about credit scams and predatorypractice? Can this problem become anational issue in a country that seems tobelieve'ln Debt we Trust?"'24 CINEASTE. Fall 2009

DVDs Reviewed in This ArticleIn Debt We Trust:America Bdore the Bubble BurstsWritten, produced and directed by Danny

Schechter for Globalvision, Inc. DVD, color,88 mins., 2006. Distributed throughrw.lnDebtweTrust.co m.

LO.U.S.A.Produced bv Christine O'Malley and Sarah Gibson;directed by Patrick Creadon; written by PatrickCreadon, Christine O'Malley and Addison Wiggin.DVD, color, 80 mins., 2008,rwv.iousathemovie.com. Available throughrflrnv.amazon.com or m.shoppbs.org.

American CasinoProduced by Leslie and Andrew Cockburn; directedby Leslie Cockburn. DVD, color, 89 mins., 2009.rw.americancasinothemovie.com.We All Fall Down:The Ameican Mortgage CrisisWritten and produced by Kevin Stocklin; directed

by Gary Gasgarth. DVD, color, 65 mins., 2009.Distributed by Icarus Films, m.lcarusFilms.corn.Mqsters of the Universe: The SecretBirth of the Federal ReserveDirected by Daniel Hopsicker for NSI: New

Science Ideas. DVD, color,43 mins., 1999.Distributed by UFOTV, www.ufotv.com.The Money Masters:How lnternational B anker sGained Control of AmericaWritten by Bill Still and Patrick S.J. Carmack.DVD, color,2l0 mins., 1996. Available throughw.themoneymasters.com.Zeitgeist AddendumWritten, shot, directed, edited and musically scored

by Peter Joseph. DVD, color, 123 mins.,2008.Available through m.zeitgeistmovie.com.

11 ebt at the level of the individual citi-| | zen. however, pales in comparison-L-/ to the debt incurred on a nationallevel by our government, as the feature doc-umentary i.O. U.S.A. demonstrates. Indeed,its tagline-"One Nation. Under Stress. InDebt"-says it all. Written and directed byPatrick Creadon, cowritten by ChristineO'Mallev (the Associate Producer for the Oscarnominated Enron documentary, The Smart-est Guys in the Roorn), and produced by TheConcord Coalition, a nonpartisan groupthat advocates balanced budgets, I.O.U.S.A.sets out to demonstrate that the Dresentfinancial crisis, due to our overreliince ondebt at the federal level and a general pat-tern of fiscal irresponsibility, was inevitable.

As in Schechter's film, former Comptrol-ler David Walker is a key interviewee.Indeed, the film has been coproduced by thePeter G. Petersen Foundation that Walkerhas headed since he left his Washington postin March 2008. As depressing as the disas-trous implications of our national addictionto debt are, Walker's insider perspective andability to call attention to the key problemsgives us some hope that Washington canrecognize and, perhaps, even learn from, itsfinancial errors.Our national debt problems are nothingnew. The opening credits interpolate a mon-tage of State of the Union addresses inwhich president after president, fromRichard Nixon to Gerald Ford, from fimmyCarter to Ronald Reagan, and from BillClinton to George W. Bush, make similar


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statements about thenation's continuingfinancial problems.Ford states, "We'vebeen self-indulgentand now the bill hascome due." Reagandeclares, "Unless weact forcefully, theeconomy will getworse. " Followingthe recession thatoccurred during theadministration ofBush 41, Bill Clintonwarned, "We are ontrack for a budgetsurplus for the nexttwenty years, and wemust not go back tounwise spending."That surplus didn'tlast long. The nat-ional debt, $5.4 tril-lion when Clintonleft office, nearlydoubled under George W. Bush, despite hisinaugural vow that "we need spending disci-pline in Washington, D.C." Under Bush, thenational debt zoomed to $8.8 trillion orsixty-six percent of Gross Domestic Product(it now exceeds $10 trillion). One of thefilm's highlights is an interview rvith formerTreasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, rvho was fuedbythe Bush Administration for not support-ing Bush's tax cuts in the second half of2002, cuts that contributed to exacerbatingthe national debt.The film showcases many voices in

Washington, including those of Walker andConcord Coalition Executive DirectorRobert Bixby, which have consistently advo-cated balanced budgets. The Concord Coali-tion is one of the cosponsors of the "FiscalWake-Up Tour" that began in 2005, andwhich is a central feature of the film. In fact,I.O.U.S.A. too often comes off as an adver-tisement for the Concord Coalition. A moreobjective treatment of its role would havebeen preferable. Instead, there are too manyscenes of people carrying briefcases, men insuits, and speeches in large rooms with scar-let paisley carpets and white table-clothedmeals. Had these scenes been balanced withothers featuring ordinary Americans, thefilm would likely have reached a far broaderviewing audience.Indeed, the best bits are when regularfolks are on camera, such as the retiredschoolteacher from Des Moines, Iowa,working as wait staff at one of those boring,white-tabled-clothed discussions about bud-gets and such. The film also spark-les when itblends its more serious moments withhumor, as when the story about the FiscalWake-Up Tour gets bumped from a NewHampshire TV newscast for one about aswallowed, stolen engagement ring. There isalso the hysterical Saturday Night Live skit

David Walker, former U.S. Comptroller General in the Glintonand Bush Administrations, is interviewedin l.O.U.S.A.

the massive Fed ratecuts, which formerFederal Reserve Chair-man Alan Green-span enacted, ren-dered borrowing socheap that it spurredwhat became themortgage crisis.A related criticalsegment underscoresthe problem of toomuch uncheckedpower at the FederalReserve. Representa-tive Ron Paul (R-TX) is depicted pro-phetically talking toGreenspan during aFebruary 2000 con-gressional hearingabout the dangers ofprlntlng money outof thin air. Today,Paul has turned hisFed spotlight tosponsoring a bill, H.R. 1207, aimed at shed-ding light on the trillions of dollars of secre-tive bailouts and subsidies that the Fed lav-ished on the flawed banking system-talk

about printing money! (For more, see "Nlrtney:The Forbidden Issue in American Politics," inPaul's 2008 book, The Reyolution: A Manifesto.)

The laruer ]inancial Gfisis: from$ubnfime loans t0 wall stlcGtThe mainstream media has seeminglyconvinced the American populace that thehousing crisis was the fault of a bunch oflow-life morons who bought the equivalentof McMansions, and then couldn't make thepayments. That, however, is a convenientdiversion from the real story. Wall Street,through no other reasons than availabilityand convenience, packaged subprime andother low-quality mortgage loans into morecomplex assets in order to borrow or leveragesubstantially against those assets, at a time whendefaults and foreclosures started rising fasterthan anticipated. This fabricated realm ofassets known as "derivatives," based on thebelief that the loans underlying this financialpramid would be manageable, was obliterated.It was Wall Street's mess of leverage and assetcreation gone wrong that created the bank-ing crisis, forcing the federal government tolavish nearly $14 trillion worth of variousgovernment subsidies and cheap loans inorder to bail out Wall Street. The govern-ment offered no such helo to the homeown-ers caught at the bottom of that pyramid.American Casino, produced by Leslie andAndrew Cockburn, beautifully bridges thegap between what Wall Street was doing toextract record profits in the buildup to thecurrent financial crisis, and the devastatingimpact on homeowners who subsequently saw

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with Steve Martin and Amy Poehler entitled"Don't buy stuff you can't afford," andrevealing interviews with college studentsbeing asked how much they have in theirsavings account. One replies, "Are you talk-ing moneywise?" There should be more suchmoments, since the voice-over narrationthat accompanies the economic and finan-cial information charts too often drones.About two-thirds into the film. in fact. itloses whatever pace it had when it begins todiscuss international trade deficits andChina. Though containing excellent histori-cal footage and inforrration, this sectior-rmoves a bit too far trom the more salientdebt and budget balance problems in therest of the film. 1.O.LI.S.,{. n.rore dynamicallyco\ters the period after 9/ I l, describing how

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(Continued from page 25)foreclosures rise andhome values plummet.In contrast to otherfilms, it offers us a cap-tivating inside glimpseat the detailed infor-mation about loans andthe convoluted assetsWall Street created bypackaging and sellingthem.The film gets to theheart of what was go-ing on in the WallStreet vs. Main Streetconflict during thehousing bubble be-tween 2002 and 2006,and the subsequentcrumbling of the sub-prime mortgage mar-ket that spilled into thegreater economy. Itdeserves high accoladesfor going beyond "ex-pert" opinions, and the usual cast oftalkingheads, into the guts of the deals that transpiredand the people involved.American Casino also reveals the bankermindset, interviewing former traders anddisclosing how the assets constructed fromsubprime and other loans really mademoney for the banks. It thus obliterates the"smoke and mirrors" aspect of Wall Street.In a very direct manner it shows that anyonelooking at the numbers (regulators included!)would have been able to detect that those valueswere deteriorating way before they crashedand burned, leading to the collapse of sever-al longstanding financial firms, and becamethe "toxic assets" that had to be "rescued"by our government ln an unprecedentedbailout. Indeed, traders knew what loanswere defaulting or becoming delinquent andhow those losses would decrease the value ofthe securities backed by those loans. Majorfinancial firms, including Merrill Lynch andBear Stearns, chose to keep that informationto themselves. Revealing this, the film breaksnew and truly compelling ground.The film also takes a well-deserved swipeat former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan,demonstrating his culpability in the currentcrisis. It shows Greenspan being grilled byCongressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) dur-ing an October 2008 hearing about deregu-lation, where Greenspan acknowledges thathis forty-year worldview and ideology aboutmarkets and models was "flawed." The filmgoes on to explain that Greenspan was, infact, one of the foremost proponents of"derivatives," the opaque financial instru-ments that allowed banks to dump their riskonto the greater economy. It thereby clearlyillustrates the connection between how deci-sions made by very influential and powerfulpeople inflict pain on the economy and therest ofthe populace.28 CINEASTE, Fall 2009

Anrerican Casino features an excellentinten'ierv *'ith a former trader of "collateral-ized debt obligations" (or "CDOs," a need-lesslv esoteric Wall Street product that con-tained millions of loans within assetspackaged from these loans). He describeshorv money was made everywhere along thechain that began with a simple loan to a bor-ro\\'er. and snaked towards the CDOinvestors. Some of the trader's language isjargon-laden, but, in the context of the film,the explanations come across with surpris-ing claritr'. A great question from the film-makers-"Who's buying those CDOsquareds?"-is answered simply-"Idiots."\\'e don't need to know what a "CDOsquared" is to get the gist.

Against thisbackdrop, we learnthat each of theagents along the"value chain" gotpaid up front andthus had strongincentives to makeaggressive loans orcreate risky newproducts. Thebanks didn't reallycare about thefinancial viabilityof the personresponsible forpaying off theloan, since thebanks'value wasensured up front,even if the loanpassed on andmorphed into oth-er forms.American Casi-flo lntervlews peo-ple along this value chain, including a for-mer mortgage lender who shows all theversions ofioan applications offered to peo-ple, and describes how mortgages workedbackwards, not using the information pro-vided by the buyer to help them determinethe best loan for their situation, but offeringthe loan that would pay lenders the highestfees, and then afterwards massaging thenumbers so as to misrepresent the buyer'sactual financial situation.Set against driving tracks by Moby andother progressive nrusicians, this film vividlymakes the connection between how Wall

Street was compensalted and the true natureof the tin,v loan at the bottom of the valuechain. It also ineludes poignant interviewswith people f-acing tbreclosure, including theemotior-rallv rrrenching visit by a youngAfrican American teacher to his now fore-closed home. \\'e see the strands of his lifethere-the children's games, a nearly empfyroom with a ripped mattress, the tatteredwalls. The film shows how little power bor-rowers have relative to lenders and loanagreements, as demonstrated keenlythrough an ongoing lawsuit against WellsFargo, which contends that minority com-munities in Baltimore were targeted for salesof subprime loans with excessive fees and,thus, more points to the bank.If there is any flaw in American Casino,it's that it focuses too much on minorities asexamples of lending victimization. Althoughthey were certainly disproportionately tar-geted and hurt, the film could have expand-ed the focus to show that many other Amer-icans were likewise subject to abuses. Still, ifyou want to see the most direct line fromWall Street's greed to Main Street's anguish,complete with incredibly probing insightand compelling personal stories, AmericanCasino dellers in spades.

t

Like rats deserting a sinking ship, afterthe nationwide economic collapse predatorvmortgage fenders havetossed theirfiles in the garbage in this scene from American Casino.


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nother new documentary with a takeon our current crisis is We All FallDown: The American Mortgage Crisis,written and produced by Kevin Stocklin,who worked for a decade in internationalbanking. Despite Stocklin's background, thefilm has more of a generalized feel to it,rather than a get-down-and-dirty with thebanker t1pes. Indeed, it steers clear of fault-ing Wall Street banks for any part of the cri-sis, focusing on borrowers and lendersinstead, while assembling experts likeNouriel Roubini, New York University Pro-fessor of Economics and International Busi-ness, his academic colleague Richard Sylla,and Christopher Mayer, Professor of RealEstate at Columbia University. Thoughinformative, by relying primarily on theseoutside experts, We AII Fall Down doesn'tprovide us with the level of insight thatAmerican Casino d,oes.The film places the blame for the currentfinancial crisis squarely on the lendingindustry and the zeal of bor-rowers to enter lnto mortgagesthey couid not afford, all inpursuit of the Americandream of owning a home.These two arguments it makessoundly. But it misses anothermajor factor in the crisis-Wall Street investment bank-ers. In fact, the film's almostsympathetic tone for WallStreet implies that MerrillLynch was just unlucky whenit went bankrupt, rather thana major contributor to its owndemise, given its position asone of the key creators ofquestionable fi nancial products.That aside, one of thefilm's key strengths is provid-ing rigorous explanations for alay audience of difficult eco-nomic concepts, such as howsecurities were created from a "pool" or col-lection of loans, and how investors couldbuy different parts of these securities-pen-sion funds couid buy the senior or less riskyparts, while hedge funds could buy thejunior, or more risky, parts.At the borrower level, it focuses on themore dangerous loans, like zero-down loansthat went to homeowners who were shown"sign here" kinds of deals, as one intervie-wee puts it. Another one recalls that thelenders just wanted to "get us into thehouse." A New York homeowner says theyliked his attitude of not asking questions ofloan officers. The film reveals how under-writing standards decreased because all themortgage brokers were competing for thesame borrowers, especially when interest-only, teaser, and adjustable-rate mortgagesappeared. Such subprime mortgages, cou-pled with no income, job, or asset verifica-tion for borrowers-the so-called "NINIAloans" ("No income, no job or assets")-is

A foreclosed home is demolished in this scene fromWe All Fall Down: The American Mortgage Crisis.

shown to have been a disaster waitine tohappen.The section in We All Fall Down dealingwith the dire consequences of these bad loanpractices is solid, complete with grippingscenes about abandoned houses that areoften stripped by vandals. As one Massachu-setts fireman describes the problem of fore-closed homes that are left unsecured, "Peo-ple tend to use them for other purposes...squatters move in, kids use it for party cen-tral," and they become "potential firefighterkillers." The film highlights another keyproblem-once loan originators are out ofbusiness, lenders have no idea about whomthey can talk to about renegotiating theirloans. Those who make an effort are oftenplaced on hold for hours as they negotiatecomplicated phone-tree systems, only finallyto be told something to the effect of, "We'renot the ones who handle this." The old-fash-ioned borrower to bank relationshio hasbeen replaced with a new model in which

loans are sold and resold numerous times,so that finding loan renegotiation agents isvirtually impossible.While this is true, the film puts WallStreet banks into the victim category as well,separating them from predatory lendersdealing with these home-buying-obsessedcitizens. It uses passive terms like bankswere "forced to admit" they couldn't stopthe bleeding from loan write-offs, or thatBear Stearns was "driven to insoivency" inMarch 2008. Lehman Brothers "became acasualty" (rather than an instigator in itsown financial collapse) and Merrill Lynchwas bought by Bank of America in a "last-minute rescue" (rather than a firm that onceled the industry in creating the most esotericproducts, or that its former head, lohnThain, bagged $3.6 billion in bonuses afterthe government agreed to provide the firm$10 billion in bailout money before themerger). Even the government is character-ized as a reluctant savior. "To calm markets.

the U.S. government set up a $700 billionfund to rescue the banks that remained andto buy their toxic mortgage bonds," says thefilm's narrator, Paul Sorvino.As if to underscore the nonliability ofWall Street, one real-estate attorney says,"Everyone is a victim and coconspirator-the borrower and the system that made themoney available." The Wall Street banksthat accumulated record profits by packag-ing the loans are seemingly absolved.Richard Sylla further stresses, "It's not aWall Street problem, or a Washington, D.C.problem, it's really a societal problem-peo-ple took money out of their rising home val-ues to buy other things and we all got sweptup in that." Yeah, blame the borrowers, notthe fine print or record Wall Street profitsbefore the crash. I couldn't disagree more. Ifyou want to get one side of the mortgagestory, see this film. Otherwise, see AmericanCasino.Not surprisingly, several more films delv-ing into the causes ofand pos-

sible solutions for our currentfinancial crisis are in produc-tion or due shortly for nation-al theatrical release. MichaelMoore's new feature docu-mentary, Capitalism: A LoveStory, is set for an October2nd release. It is described as"a comical look at the corpo-rate and political shenanigans"that led to what Moore calls"the biggest robbery in thehistory of this country."Danny Schechter's forthcom-ing documentary, based on hisbook Plunder, a "whodunit"detailing the "how" and "why"of the current financial col-lapse, promises, based on theevidence of In Debt We Trust,r^ h^ .i',-ti-^ E."u us rlvsrrlrB. rrdnclSCausey's Helsr, which alsodocuments Wall Street's "robbery of Ameri-cans' prosperity, savings, and retirementsecurity," will focus on "how wealthy right-wingers founded conservative think tanks...that provided intellectual justifications forredistributing wealth upward." Follow theMoney, produced by Ioel Sucher and histeam at Pacific Street Films, described as "aninvestigative look at the background andimpact of the sub-prime mortgage crisis,"will focus on "mortgage servicers" and theirlinks to hedge funds, equity investors, andmajor banks, offering a historical analysis ofhow the scheme was carefully constructedover the last two decades.In addition to the documentaries dis-cussed above, each of these new films is like-ly to offer further illumination of the natureof our ongoing economic crisis, and toreveal more details of how powerful banksand government agencies influence it.Moviegoers can only keep learning from

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lnuestisatin e teileral BesGtuG:ttlafting HonGUJand ]

t -everal of the documentary filmsreviewed in this article briefly touchon the power of the Federal Reserve,notably pointing toward problerns that

arose from fornrer Federal Reserve Chair-man AIan Greenspan's dran-ratic reductionof interest rates leading up to the subprimeand general debt bubble. But today theFed, now headed by Ben Bernanke, posesan even greater danger to the future stabil-ity of our financial system. To bail out thebanking industry tiom its orvn mistakes,the Fed has provided it rvith nearly $8 trillionworth of various loan ficilities (pawn shops forbanks) and other kinds of cheap financialassistance. It has done so in a highly clan-destine manner and has so far refused topublicly disclose any information aboutthe nature of those loans, the banks thatreceived them, or the quality of rvhat is, rnostlikely, ver1, questionable collateraI postedin return. Nevertheless, both the Bush andObama Administrations have proposed togive the Federal Reserve even more power.

Such secrecy is not unusual for the Fed-eral Reserve, which most Americans areunaware is not so rnnch a full-fledged ted-eral agency as it is a consortiurn of privatebanks, which serve as the nation's central

banking svstem. The cuuent and forthcorningdocurrentaries on the economic crisis do notinclnde arrl' filnrs focusing on the role of theFed, although arguably there has never beena greater need for a contpelling film thatextrr.nines not only the Fed's porver, but alsothe link betrveen that power and tle economicpittalls it creates for Americans. My newbook, It Ttkcs a Pillttge Behind the Bailotrts,Bonri-.d-s L1rill Backroont Deals front \lnslting-tort to \\'nll Srreet, atter-npts to look at this\/ef)' lssue.

-.- /-.Investigative journalist Daniel Hopsickervisits the Jekyll lsland birthplace of theFederaf Reserve in Masters of the Universe.

Two irnuortart t.loclrrnentaries on theFed, both produced in the Nineties, shedlight on our current situation. Mnsters ofthe Universe: T/rc .Sr.'crr't Birth of the FederalReserve (1999), rrhich is part ofa five-partseries called Cottspirncy: Tlrc Secret History,examines the conspiratorial nature inwhich the Fed rvas born, a nreeting of theworld's most influential financiers thattook place on fekl,ll Island, off the coast ofGeorgia in ,l910.Produced b), investigative journalistDar.riel Hoprsicker and blending archivalfbotage rvith interviews rvith authors, jour-nalists and historians, the film questionswhy the mainstream media don't reallydelve into the problenrs stemming frorrthe secretive role of the Federal Reserveand other powerful financial groups, suchas the Bilderberg Group, that meet clan-destinely. This rvould be a rneaningfuldebate to bring up in today's environnent.There is a credible elenrent ofintrigue con-veyed throughout the filnr, depicting ther.rltimate crime to "r'ob every bank vault inAnrerica all at the sane tinre," leading tothe Federal Reserve Act of 1913, that Presi-dent Woodrow Wilson signed, but instant-li' regretted.

Ir

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he second documentary, The MoneyMasters (1996), is simply outstand-ing. Directed and narrated by BillStill, it does a superb job of revealing thetruth behind the Fed and the powerfulglobal financiers whose self-interest hasdictated our banking system from thebeginning. One gets the feeling that, hadthere been a larger budget for this film, therather drab and grainy production valuesmight have been improved. But if you canget past the low-budget style, you'll findthe content extremely compelling. Indeed,I would recommend that every member ofCongress watch this film immediately. Itwould provide a thorough understandingof what needs to be done in order to cur-tail the Fed's role in this crisis and its after-math. As Still explains, there is nothing"federal" about the Federal reserve, andthere are no reserves, the very name is adeception to make Americans think thatAmerica's central bank operates in thepublic interest, although it is really a pri-vate bank owned by private stockholdersand operated purely for their private prof-it. From this starting point, the filn.r's argu-ment unfolds magnificently.

The Money Masters provides a fascinat-ingly researched history of the FederalReserve, in all its secrecy and power.Where Masters of the Universe relies oninterviews and historical footage, TheMoney Masters does a much ntore thor-ough job of developing the point ofjusrhow powerful the Fed is. It also uses his-torical footage, but it juxtaposes pho-tographs and clippings with solid report-ing that takes us into Congless, not justwith respect to Fed-related legislation, andits history, but also of the powerful lobby-ing role that the Wall Street banks playedat the time the Fed was born. The MoneyMasters shows the symbiotic relationshipsbetween the Fed and all the majol banksand their leaders, lobbyists, and policies.

In its historical overview of the monetarysystem, The Money Masters discussesdebt-free money such as colonial scrip,used before the American Revolution.

Its conclusions about history are equallyrelevant today, and suggestions to resolveour current problems are located on TheMoney Masters Web site at http://www.the-moneymasters.comStill discusses how the debt-based bank-ing system, which stems from the Fed,impacts people in their everyday lives. Iteffectively explains econontic concepts suchas "fractional lending," "easy and tightmoney," and "inflation," explaining howthey are affected by Fed decisions aboutinterest rates and money supply, and howthose decisions affect people and the rateson their loans. Still declares that a primarvproblem ofour financial system is that all ofour money is based on government debt.The United States Treasury departmentissues Treasury bonds in order to raisemoney to pay for running the country (the

Treasury pays interest on these bonds, justIike you pay interest on vour mortgagedebt). It loans these bonds to the FederalReserue, and the Federal Reserve uses themas collateral against which it prints newmoney. In addition, the Federal Reserveprints money against reserves that banks put

up as collateral, but for every dollar a bankputs up as reserve, it can borrow nine frornthe Fed, effectively money created fiorrrnothing. All the money in the system isbacked by Treasury or bank debt. Today,of course, we have an abundance of that,compared to when the film was produced.He wisely notes that paying off our nation-al debt (which we are far from doing),without reforming our banking system, isimpossible.The film further contextualizes its dis-cussion of the Fed by providing a historyof money since the American Revolution,a war that initiated the U.S. debt oroblenr.The primary issue leading to the revolu-tionary war, Still explains, was GreatBritain's prohibition of the Anlericar.rcolonies from issuing their own paper cur-rency. And, as Thomas Jefferson prophe-sized, "If the American people ever allowbanks to control the issue of their culren-cy, first by inflation, then by deflation, thebanks and the corporations will depr:ivethe people of all property ur.rtil their chil-dren wake up homeless on the continenttheir fathers conquered." Jefferson wasn'ttoo far off from predicting precisely whatis unfolding several centuries later.A more recent documentary, ZeitgeistAddendum (2009), a sequel to Zeitgeist[reviewed in otn Winter 2008 issue-ed.],strives to put forth an epic message aboutthe corruptive powers of money and theneed for collective action. The film's ooen-ing sequence olfers a very clear i]lustrationof how the Fed prints money and aids thebanking system in creating piles of debtbased on very little real collateral. The for-mat is reminiscent of the kind of filmyou'd see in a high-school classroom-dry, preachy, but still quite informative.If it had stayed with the money angle,the fi1m would have made a solid contri-bution by explaining the esoteric workingsof the Fed as the most secretive arm of thegovernment and Wall Street combined.Unfortunately, about a third of the wayinto the trvo-hour film, it begins to mean-der uncomfortably into too many tan-gents, including religion, the mlthical rep-resentation of the death and resurrectionof Christ, comments from Carl Sagan onhow extraterrestrials would view earth,and so on.This substantially obscures the filn.r'sexcellent critique of America's monetarysystem. To create a true global society is agreat idea, and our Fed-based monetarysystem does contribute in a major waytoward global instability. Also, free-marketcapitalism debt does indeed "imprison theworld," as the film concludes, but thedelivery is bombastic. Zeitgeist Addenduttthus takes an important message-moneyand power are corruptive and the,systemmust be altered-and renders it too cultishfor anyone outside of those already con-verted to its utopian ideals.-Nomi PrinsA graphic illustration of how the fractional reserve banking system works-creating money outof thin air and ensuring a permanently debt-ridden society-isfeatured in Zeitgeist Addendum. CfNEASTE. Fall2009 27


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ContributorsKaren Backstein has a Ph.D. from New YorkUniversity's Department of Cinema Studies andhas taught at several New York area colleges ...Royal S. Brown, a professor in the City Uni-versity of New York and at the New School Uni-versity, in 1989 curated the first retrospective ofBobbe-Grillet's films .. Robert Cashill, aCrneaste Associate, blogs at Between Productions,www.robertcashillblogspot.com ... AngelikeContis is a journalist and documentary filmmakerbased in New York John Fidler is an editorand writer for The Reading Eagle in Reading, PA,and has also written for Senses of Cinena andThe Washington Post ... Colin Fleming haswritten for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Slate,and BookForum... Brian L. Frye is a filmmak-er, writer and lawyer who lives in New York City... Sidney Gottlieb is Prof essor of MediaStudies at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield,CT ... Rahul Hamid. a newly appointed Editorat Cineaste, teaches cinema at New York Uni-versity ... Robert Koehler also writes film crit-icism for Variety and Cinena Scope ... KevinB. Lee is a filmmaker and film critic, owner ofthe blog Shooting Down Pictures and program-ming executive at dGenerate Films ... LegacyLee is a doctoral student in film and literature atBoston Universitv ... John Lessard is Assis-tant Professor of English and Film Studies at theUniversity of the Pacific ... Christopher Longis an independent scholar and free-lance filmcritic who writes for DVDTown.com and othersites.... Dan Lybarger is a free-lance writerand critic from Kansas City who has written forFilmFax, The Kansas City Star, TMI Weekly, andother publications ... Sebastian Manley is aPh.D. candidate in the School of Film and Televi-sion Studies at the University of East Anglia, U.K.... Adrian Maftin is author of several booksand coeditor oI the Rouge Web site atwww.rouge.com.au ... Adam Nayman, a filmcritic working in Toronto, writes f or CinenaScope, Montage, Elle Canada, The L.A. Weeklyand Eye Weekly... Martha P. Nochimson isthe author oI Dying to Belong: Gangster Moviesin Hollywood and Hong Kong, and World on Film,an introductorv textbook. will be oublished inearly 2010 ... David Pendleton is Programmeratthe Harvard Film Archive ... Richard Portonedited the anthology, Dekalog 3: 0n Filn Festi-rzals, recently published by Wallflower Press ...Nomi Prins, a journalist and senior fellow atthe public policy think tank, Demos, is a formerManaging Director at Goldman Sachs, ran theinternational analytics group at Bear Stearns inLondon, and is the author oI lt Takes a Pillage,Jacked, and 0ther People's Money ... LeonardOuart is Professor Emeritus of Cinema Studiesat the College of Staten lsland ... Maria SanFilippo is the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow inCinema and Media Studies at Wellesley College... Chandak Sengoopta teaches history atBirkbeck College, University of London, and isworking on The Three Worlds of Satyajit Ray, astudy of the local, national, and internationalcontexts that shaped Ray's career ... RobertSkf ar is the author of Movie-Made America andmany other books on film ... David Sterritt,Chair of the National Society of Film Critics, vwitesabout film for Tikkun . . . Diana Wade is a gradu-ate student working towards a Masters in Arts inFilm Studies at Columbia University .. DennisWest is Professor Emeritus in the Deoartmentsof Theatre and Film and Foreign Languages andLiterature at the Universitv of ldaho. I

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