This blog is a forum for my thoughts on subjects that interest me. Below is an academic paper I wrote on the recent Zeitgeist phenomenon.

The Zeitgeist Movement

Description and Analysis

On January 14, 2011 an Internet movie called Zeitgeist, Moving Forward hit You Tube. Within a week, it had over a million views (Valdez, 2011) and to date has almost six million. The film chronicles the causes of crime and general social dysfunction—linking them to poverty and the stress of living in a highly stratified society. It then presents the cure: a technology-driven economy where no money is ever exchanged. The movie was produced by Peter Joseph, who previously created two other movies on the same subject: Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist Addendum. The earlier films also created a huge following—50 to 100 million viewers by some estimates—but they had a more strident tone and contained some far-fetched material, such as hard-to-believe conspiracy theories (Donovan, 2010).

Since the first movie came out, a Zeitgeist movement of several hundred thousand people has formed, which joined forces with the Venus Project, a technology think tank founded by Jacque Fresco, an industrial designer whose economic ideas were shaped by his childhood in the Great Depression (Durrani, 2007).

One of the basic premises of the movement is that the earth has sufficient resources to feed, clothe and abundantly sustain its entire population, but because of greed created by the monetary system, those resources are inequitably distributed. The Venus Project contends that with our advanced technology, computer programs could allocate goods and services across the globe fairly and evenly. This "resource-based" economy would not require any type of payment or even a barter system (Donovan, 2010).

Another premise of the movement is that a capitalistic system encourages unsustainability and excessive consumption. They contend that companies build obsolescence into their products in order to constantly sell newer versions to a public that has no other choice than products that wear out and break down on a regular basis. A resource-driven society, on the other hand, has no such incentives, and would instead produce the highest-quality goods possible the first time around, making for a more sustainable and environmentally-sound society (Stamets, 2011).

Interpretation and Evaluation

For detractors who declare that Joseph and Fresco are advocating a communistic system, the response is that what they propose is a completely different animal. Communism and socialism are based on money, banks and a medium of exchange; this system has none (Rahman, 2010).

Joseph stresses in his latest movie that countries with the largest gap between the rich and poor have the most social problems—crime, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, etc. Although the United States has a high GDP, its rates of social problems are far higher than countries where income is more evenly distributed, such as in Japan (Donovan, 2010). Since hooking up with Fresco, Joseph has backed off of his more extreme opinions of conspiracy and focused on solving the world's problems through technology (Valdez, 2011).

Both the film and the movement have been commented on by major news outlets, such as the New York Times and the Chicago Sun-Times, reporting that 450 Zeitgeist events were held in 70 countries on 2009’s Z-Day (Feuer, 2009), and quoting the movement as saying that economists such as Milton Friedman are the “bad guys” for advocating unbridled capitalism (Stamets, 2011).

A writer in the Wall Street Journal questions the attainability of a utopian society. He contends that happiness is not based on any outside circumstances, but is often acquired inexplicably and is of less importance than lucidity and dignity (Meaney, 2011).

Engagement

I have been electrified by the information I found in the Zeitgeist movie and the articles I have read about the movement. It has become clear to me over the years that a money-based economic system breeds corruption, greed and power games. I used to think capitalism was the best system to deal with human nature, but the events of the past decade have revealed its deep flaws.

I realize that collective economic systems have been tried in the past, but they always turned out to be a con game—the people at the top got all the money and privileges. In a true resource-based economy, with the distribution of goods and services facilitated by computers, I think it is possible to create abundance for all. As an added bonus, there would be myriads of unnecessary jobs eliminated, and those people could do something constructive and productive. I'm thinking of lawyers, accountants, policeman, jailers, bureaucrats, advertisers, and many more.

The Zeitgeist Movement has inspired me to rethink my life and my priorities. I would consider it an honor to help bring into existence a community based on the principles espoused in the movement. And to help spread the word about the philosophical basis for such a community I have condensed the 2.5 hour Zeitgeist, Moving Forward movie into a ten-minute video.

References

Donovan, T. W. (2010, March 16). The Zeitgeist Movement: Envisioning A Sustainable Future. Retrieved February 14, 2011, from The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/travis-walter-donovan/the-zeitgeist-movement-en_b_501517.html

Durrani, N. (2007, October 15). Jacque Fresco On The Future. Retrieved February 14, 2011, from Forbes.com: http://www.forbes.com/2007/10/13/jacque-fresco-prediction-tech-future07-cx_1015fresco.html

Feuer, A. (2009, March 17). They've seen the future and dislike the present. The New York Times , p. 24.

Meaney, T. (2011, February 1). Be Not of Good Cheer. Wall Street Journal (Online) , p. n/a.

Rahman, J. (2010, March 21). Redesigning the future with Venus Project. The Jakarta Post , p. n/a.

Stamets, B. (2011, January 14). Zeitgeist, Moving Forward. Chicago Sun Times , p. 2.

Valdez, C. K. (2011, January 14). Move Forward -- Free movie screening part of Zeitgeist movement. McClatchy - Tribune Business News; Washington , n/a.

Bankers are Poopy-Heads

Two years ago I applied for a loan modification on my home mortgage. My home had lost almost half its value, and I had recently lost my job.

The Bank of America enrolled me in its Making Home Affordable program, gave me a trial payment amount, and told me the modification process would take three months.

Well, after FOURTEEN months, my loan still wasn’t modified, and I had accrued 14 months worth of interest on my mortgage at over EIGHT PERCENT.

I had heard stories about people who waited over a year for a modification, only to be denied and then foreclosed upon by their bank.

I was worried that might happen to me, so in frustration, I wrote to my state’s attorney General about the problem. He said I should file a complaint with the OCC—the office of the Comptroller of the Currency—a banking regulatory agency.

So I did, and lo and behold, within a week I got a call from the office of the president of Bank of America, saying that of course they would be happy to modify my loan.

I was really relieved, and grateful to my attorney general for pointing me in that direction.
So this is where my story takes a strange turn. The bank modified my loan all right-- to the lower interest rate available at the time, but instead of reducing my principal with the bail-out money they got from the government, they ADDED tens of thousands of dollars onto the principal of my loan—making my new mortgage more than double what my house is worth.

This huge fee they tacked onto my loan was interest they FORCED me to accrue at 8 percent by dragging out the modification process for over a year.

They didn’t even give me credit for the 14 months’ worth of trial payments I had faithfully made. All that money seemed to vanish into thin air.

When I complained about this to my brother, a real estate agent, he said, “Well of course! Banking executives have a very short-term outlook. Their bonuses are based on the assets the bank holds.

“If a bank has on its books large mortgages,” he continued, “their bottom line is higher, and their bonuses are larger. Never mind their bottom lines are bogus because the houses aren’t worth near what the mortgages say they are.

“So the banks would rather kick people out of their homes and hold onto the foreclosed properties instead of short-selling them, because that would decrease the assets on their books.”

"Yeah," I said. "They were getting ready to foreclose on me before I put pressure on them with the OCC."

My brother lives in Las Vegas, and he said there are THOUSANDS of foreclosed homes sitting empty, not even on the market, deteriorating because no one is taking care of them. But the bankers don’t care. If they can sit on that property for a few years and collect $10 or $20 million in bonuses each, they’re set for life. Why should they care if their bank implodes in a few years because of phantom assets? They got theirs!

So now I understand why the bank tacked on all that inflated interest to my mortgage. It makes sense when you see the system is set up that way.

I remember watching the heads of the big national banks insisting to Congress that no rules be attached to the billions in bail-out money they were getting. They said it would be “punitive” to require the banks to follow guidelines as to how to use the money.

Well, they got their way—they completely snowed the government. Either that or the politicians are in their pocket. But homeowners ended up being the ones who were punished by the “no oversight” decision. Along with the entire American middle class—while the bankers whistle all the way to the, well, bank.

My only question is, how long will it be before the entire banking industry comes crashing down? Those phantom assets can’t hold them up forever.

And what will happen then?

[To see this scenario illustrated in a Rapid Vizual, go to http://www.youtube.com/rapidvizuals#p/a/u/1/jSizHUlh_ME